By Leila Sackur—
NBC News
Thousands of people lined the streets of Moscow on Saturday to pay their respects to Mikhail Gorbachev ahead of his funeral, a farewell that was disparaged by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, was buried without state honors next to his wife, Raisa, after a farewell ceremony in the Hall of Pillars of the House of Trade Unions, an opulent 18th-century mansion nearby. to the Kremlin that has served as the setting for state funerals since Soviet times.
People line up to pay their last respects to the coffin of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in front of the Pillar Hall of the House of Trade Unions during a farewell ceremony in Moscow, Russia, on Saturday, September 3. AP
At the ceremony, mourners lined up next to Gorbachev's open casket, laying flowers as music played in the background, including the melancholy score of the film
Schindler's List.
Gorbachev's daughter Irina and her two granddaughters sat by the casket, flanked by honor guards.
[Why Mikhail Gorbachev's economic project for the USSR was a utopia]
The influx of public was so great that the wake lasted two hours longer than expected.
Another scene from Gorbachev's funeral this Saturday in Moscow.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images
Hailed in the West and by many liberal Russians for bringing down the Iron Curtain and promoting greater social and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been heavily criticized by others at home for hastening the end of the empire. Soviet Union and the subsequent economic collapse that plunged millions of people into poverty.
Reflecting unease over his legacy in Russia, the government stopped short of offering Gorbachev a state funeral, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he would have "elements" of one and the government would help organize it.
On Thursday, in a private ceremony, Putin laid flowers before Gorbachev's coffin in the Moscow hospital where he had died two days earlier, but the Kremlin said his busy schedule would prevent him from attending the funeral.
Vladimir Putin presented a wreath at the coffin of Mikhail Gorbachev
Sept.
1, 202200:27
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Saturday that the president would hold a series of working meetings and an international phone call, and that he needed to prepare for a business forum in the Russian Far East that he was scheduled to attend next week. week.
The Kremlin's ambivalence toward Gorbachev was reflected in state television broadcasts, which described his worldwide acclaim and the high expectations generated by his reforms, but held him responsible for plunging the country into political turmoil and economic trouble, and of not having adequately defended the country's interests in talks with the West.
Putin's attendance would have been necessary for it to be a full state funeral, and would have required invitations to world leaders that the Russian leader has been busy avoiding since his invasion of Ukraine in late February.
The line to honor Gorbachev this Saturday, September 3, after his death on August 30. Contributor/Getty Images / Getty Images
Putin, a former KGB intelligence officer who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union a "geopolitical catastrophe," has avoided criticizing Gorbachev since his death, but
has repeatedly blamed him in the past for failing to secure written commitments from the West.
to exclude NATO expansion to the east.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a conservative nationalist and one of the few European leaders still on friendly terms with Putin, did attend the ceremony.
Ambassadors from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and other Western countries were also present, as well as various personalities from Russian culture.
Gorbachev was the architect of the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
He was applauded and hated for it
Aug. 30, 202201:32
The modest event contrasted with the lavish 2007 state funeral for Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader who sidelined Gorbachev when the Soviet Union fell apart, and later chose Putin as his political successor.
However, Yeltsin was also buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery, a cemetery that survived the monastic and sacred destructions of the Stalinist era.
Novodevichy is also the final resting place of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.