THOUSANDS PAY RESPECTS TO FINAL SOVIET LEADER, MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

  • 03/09/2022

In Russia, thousands of people have paid their final respects to Mikhail Gorbachev, the final Soviet leader to peacefully end the Cold War.

In a revered hall where former Soviet leaders had lain in state, throngs of people stood in line for hours to pass by his coffin.

However, there was no state funeral for the man who oversaw the dissolution of the USSR.

The event was not attended by President Vladimir Putin, who has referred to the dissolution of the union as the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Official Kremlin justification: He was booked solid. 

As people made their way inside the Columned Hall of the House of Unions, sombre music played - a huge black and white portrait of Mr Gorbachev hanging from the balcony.

The former president lay in an open coffin, flanked by a guard of honour.

His daughter and other family members sat there as people lay flowers. Soon, there was a sea of red carnations.

It was here that Mr Gorbachev's predecessors, Soviet leaders like Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev, lay in state, too.

Many Russians blame Mikhail Gorbachev for launching reforms that caused economic chaos and for letting the Soviet Union fall apart.

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