Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, died at the age of 91 in a Moscow hospital on Tuesday, after two years of serious illness. Despite his historical importance, there will be no state funeral for the Russian, reports the Russian news agency Interfax on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Gorbachev will be accorded the same honor as former Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev – a ceremony at the House of Trade Unions in Moscow, before being buried at the city’s central Novodevichy Cemetery, according to a spokesman for the former leader’s foundation. However, it is not clear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend.
It took Putin more than 15 hours to issue a restrained condolence, saying Gorbachev had had a “great impact on the course of world history” and that he himself “deeply understood that reforms were necessary” to deal with the Soviet Union’s problems in the 1980s.