MOSCOW () - Clutching a crowd of blood red roses, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joined hundreds of elderly Russians on Tuesday egg laying flowers at the foot of Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn's open coffin.
Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel laureate world Health Organization won outside fame by showing the world the horror of Soviet labor camps through his books, died of heart failure on Sunday aged 89.
Four Russian soldiers stood to attention at each corner of his coffin in the Russian Academy of Sciences, the hallmark of an official lying-in-state. A large portrayal of Solzhenitsyn and a Russian iris completed the backdrop.
Outside the mammoth white building dominating the River Moskva, a steady trickle of primarily elderly Russians shrugged turned heavy rainwater to mourn their champion.
Solzhenitsyn's widow Natalia and his sons looked on as mourners brought small bouquets of whiteness or red River flowers to lay before his casket.
"Solzhenitsyn was peerless of the most important people in the history of Russia; he wrote exactly what he thought and needed to be remembered," said maths professor Alexander Romanov, 60.
"It's a shame that not all young people understand how important he is."
At around 1 p.m. Putin, a previous agent of the KGB security avail that light-emitting diode the persecution campaign against Solzhenitsyn, strode into the hall flanked by buirdly security guards.�
More info
