Thousands of Russians bid farewell to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, in a sobering ceremony

Gorbachev was not granted a state funeral unlike many other Soviet leaders and his successor, Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation. Nevertheless, it was an honorable ceremony. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Putin, spoke of “elements from a state funeral” earlier this week.

For example, there was an honor guard. The ceremony was also entirely organized by the Kremlin, the president’s office, says Grote Corkamp. The sober funeral was held in a hall right next to Parliament, in the Council of Trade Unions, where Soviet leaders such as Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev were taken to their final resting places. People can give him one last homage there. Thousands of people came, more than expected, to do so, many with flowers. Music played in the background while the Gorbachev family sat around the coffin.

After the ceremony, Gorbachev was buried in the afternoon in a famous cemetery in which many famous Russians, such as politicians, scientists and writers, are buried. “This is a tourist attraction in Moscow, a bit like the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Moscow (the famous cemetery in Paris, ed.). It’s a little smaller. It’s an honorable place,” says Grote Corkamp.

Gorbachev is buried there alongside his wife, Raisa Gorbachova, who died in 1999.