Gorbachev was laid to rest in central Moscow.
Thousands of Russians flocked to see him, but Putin and other top officials refused to allow Gorbachev to be buried in the famous Moscow cemetery.
His legacy continues to divide Russians.
Thousands of Russians marched past the open casket of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, on Saturday, many of them hailing him as a “peacemaker” who dismantled totalitarianism and granted them freedom.
Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s leader from 1985 to 1991, died on Tuesday at the age of 91. His body was laid to rest in the grand Hall of Columns in central Moscow, following in the footsteps of previous Soviet leaders such as Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin.
The former president’s body lay in an open casket, surrounded by an honor guard of two rifle-wielding Kremlin Regiment members, with the hall’s 54 chandeliers emitting only a dim glow. Close family friends sat nearby with his daughter Irina and her two daughters.
Russians of all ages filed through the hall, placing flowers on a plinth at the foot of the casket and looking down as somber music played and a giant black and white portrait of Gorbachev on the wall looked down.
Gorbachev’s legacy still divides opinion inside and outside Russia. He is best known in the West for helping to end the Cold War, reducing his country’s nuclear stockpile, and unwittingly presiding over the demise of the Soviet Union.
Those who went out of their way to pay their respects on Saturday recalled the late politician, who died in Moscow after an unspecified illness, with affection and gratitude.
“He was a peacemaker, one of God’s sons,” said Tatiana, 80, who came despite her poor health.
“He wanted to give us democracy and freedom, and we turned out to be not very ready,” said Alexander Lebedev, a tycoon and close friend who once helped Gorbachev fund an opposition-leaning newspaper.
“That is unfortunate, but we will remain a European country. This period of history will come to an end one day.”
PUTIN NO-SHOW
Gorbachev, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in bringing the Cold War to an end, will be buried alongside his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, in Moscow’s famous Novodevichy cemetery.
President Vladimir Putin paid his respects to Gorbachev at the hospital where he died on Thursday, but he did not attend Saturday’s memorial service, citing his busy schedule, according to the Kremlin.
Neither Gorbachev nor his nemesis Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president and the man who named Putin as his successor, received a full state funeral.
Some interpreted Putin’s absence as a calculated snub from a former KGB officer who has reversed many of Gorbachev’s reforms and has stated that the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century, which he would reverse if given the chance.
“I think it’s a statement,” veteran journalist Vladimir Pozner told Reuters.
“And I don’t think Mr. Putin is a big fan of Mr. Gorbachev. That is his right; he is not required to be. I believe they saw the world in very different ways.”
Gorbachev, like Putin, was crushed by the Soviet Union’s demise, but many Russians blame him for starting a reform process that spiraled out of control and emboldened many of the USSR’s 15 republics to secede.
This ushered in a period of newly discovered freedoms in Russia, but also prolonged economic suffering and a sometimes bloody and one-sided redistribution of state property, leaving many Russians angry and humiliated.
SILENT PROTEST?
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now the Security Council’s deputy chairman, paid his respects to Gorbachev on Saturday, as did some other senior pro-Kremlin politicians, but not all.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban laid flowers at the funeral and was expected to attend as well. However, with the West heavily sanctioning Russia for what Putin refers to as his “special military operation” in Ukraine, other European and Western leaders were absent.
Many of the mourners were young Russians who had not even been born when the Soviet Union fell apart.
“Yes, he made some serious socioeconomic mistakes, but they pale in comparison to what he did for press freedom and international relations. Things like the fall of the Berlin Wall, for example, “said Oleg, a 22-year-old former history student.
According to historian Andrey Zubov, who knew Gorbachev, the presence of young people was a silent protest against the current political system.
However, given Gorbachev’s role in modern Russian history, he was disappointed by the turnout, implying that few Russians valued freedom over tyranny.
“When Stalin was laid to rest here (in 1953), hundreds of thousands came, and some people were killed in the crash,” Zubov explained.
“However, when Gorbachev died, thousands of people gathered to pay tribute to a man who gave us our freedom. It’s not much.”
