Thousands Line Up to Say Farewell to Gorbachev; Putin Absent
The turnout was large enough that the viewing was extended for two more hours beyond the stated two hours.
But officially declaring a state funeral for Gorbachev would have obliged Putin to attend it and would have required Moscow to invite foreign leaders, something that it was apparently reluctant to do amid soaring tensions with the West after sending troops to Ukraine. The relatively modest ceremony contrasted with a lavish 2007 state funeral given to Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader who anointed Putin as his preferred successor and set the stage for him to win the presidency by stepping down.
“I want to thank him for my childhood of freedom, which we don't have today,” said mourner Ilya, a financial services worker in his early 30s who declined to give his last name. Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party who worked on economic reform plans under Gorbachev, hailed him for"offering people an opportunity to say what they thought – something that Russia never had before.”
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