Gorbachev burial: mourners are facing their owners

Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban travels to Moscow on Saturday for the funeral of the last Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev.

Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, should be buried without state honors or President Vladimir Putin.

However, he was granted a public farewell, with the authorities allowed the Russians to visit his coffin in the imposing pillar hall within sight of the Kremlin, where former Soviet leaders were mourned.

The Moscow faced on Saturday near the Kremlin to the former Soviet leader, who was widely admired for his reforms in the West, but has had a mixture in Russia behind.

coffin bearer Hißsten Gorbachev's wooden coffin, which was covered with a three -color Russian flag, and put him in the middle of the hall, where a quiet recording of melancholic music from the film "Schindler's list" was shown.

Several Russian officials and cultural workers, including the high -ranking legislator Konstantin Kosachyov and the singer Alla Pugachyova, also paid their respect to Gorbachev's family, who was on the left of his open coffin.

The many western heads of state and government, which would normally have also been present, will be absent, since the gap in the relationships between Moscow and the West was torn down by Putin's sending of troops to Ukraine in February.

Mr. Orban, a conservative nationalist and one of the few European leaders who has good relationships with Mr. Putin, is the most profiled leader who is present.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskow said Mr. Putin had no plans to meet Mr. Orban during his visit to Moscow.

It was no surprise that Mr. Putin, a long-time KGB secret service officer who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "geopolitical catastrophe", denied Gorbachev the full state honor and said that his schedule did not allow him to take part in the funeral.

Mr. Putin, however, paid tribute to Gorbachev on Thursday, and the Kremlin said that his honor guards would be an “element” of a state event at the funeral for Gorbachev, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in completing his role in completing his role.

Gorbachev became a hero for many in the west because it allowed Eastern Europe to shake off the Soviet-communist control for more than four decades, reunited East and West Germany and forged armaments control contracts with the United States.

But when the 15 Soviet republics took the same freedom to demand their independence, Gorbachev was powerless to prevent the collapse of the Union in 1991, six years after he had become its leader.

This and the economic chaos, which triggered its "Perestroika" liberalization program, could not forgive him for many Russians.

Gorbachev's funeral is in a sharp contrast to the national mourning day and state of the state in Moscow's main cathedral, which in 2007 was given to the former Russian President Boris Yelzin, who had contributed significantly to push Gorbachev offside when the Soviet Union was published by Putin as his own successor.

After the ceremony, however, Gorbachev is buried like jelzin in the Moscow Novodewitschi cemetery together with his wife Raisa, who died 23 years ago.

When Mr. Putin entered the Kremlin in 2000, he wasted little time to push back the political plurality that had developed from Gorbachev's "Glasnost" or openness, and slowly began to rebuild Moscow on many of his lost republics.

Gorbachev's long -time interpreter and consultant said this week that Russia's approach in Ukraine had "shocked and confused" the former leader in the last months of his life.

"Not only the operation that began on February 24, but the entire development of relationships between Russia and Ukraine in recent years has really been a difficult blow for him. It really did it emotionally and mentally," said Pavel Palazhchenko in an interview.