25.4.2007

Russia Mourns, Buries Yeltsin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared an official day of mourning on April 25 to commemorate the death of Boris Yeltsin.

Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation from 1991 to 1999, will be buried the same day in Moscow.

The funeral service will be held in the country's biggest church and will be followed by burial in a historic Moscow cemetery.

Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union, passed away on Monday at 76. He died of heart failure in Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.

Russians' farewell to their late leader began on Tuesday with a lying-in-state from 1230 GMT and a service at 1300 GMT in Christ the Saviour, a lavish golden-domed church in central Moscow. Hundreds of people were queuing to pay their homage late into the night.

Former US presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, are among leading international figures who will be attending the ceremony, Russian news agencies reported.

German President Horst Kohler and leaders from ex-Soviet countries, including Armenia and Lithuania, which gained their independence in the Soviet collapse, have confirmed their attendance.

Bulgaria will be represented by its first democratically elected President Zhelyu Zhelev.

An honor guard standing by the open casket of Boris Yeltsin in Christ the Savior Cathedral on Tuesday as members of the public pay their last respects. Photo by The Moscow Times

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