Gorbachev bids farewell to rival Boris Yeltsin

MOSCOW – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev paid his final respects to Boris Yeltsin, the rival who forced him out of office, yesterday as Russia buried its first democratically elected president.

Yeltsin’s widow Naina and his two daughters Tatyana and Yelena, clad in black and their eyes puffy from crying, sat beside his open coffin as a stream of serving and past Russian politicians filed past. Yeltsin left Gorbachev without a job when he dismantled the Soviet Union, capping years of enmity.But Gorbachev, dressed in a black suit, kissed Naina and whispered words of condolence as he gripped Yelena’s hand.Gorbachev, who promoted Yeltsin from his Urals power base to high office in Moscow, paid tribute to him after his death but said he had made serious mistakes.”A tragic fate,” he declared.In the cathedral of Christ the Saviour – blown up by Josef Stalin and rebuilt under Yeltsin as a symbol of national revival – a Russian Orthodox choir sang psalms and soldiers from the Kremlin regiment stood at each corner of the coffin.Before the doors were closed for the official funeral service, members of the public had filed through to pause and lay flowers at Yeltsin’s coffin.He died of heart failure on Monday aged 76.But reflecting Yeltsin’s mixed legacy, there was no outpouring of national grief.Many praise him as a father of Russian democracy but many others remember the chaos of his eight years in office.In a break with the past that fitted Yeltsin’s maverick style, he was to be buried not alongside previous Kremlin leaders on Red Square but at the capital’s Novodevichye cemetery alongside actors, writers and performers.Former US President Bill Clinton, who forged a close personal relationship with Yeltsin in the 1990s, was to attend the funeral, along with about a dozen former and serving heads of state and senior foreign officials.Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at the cathedral for the funeral, and Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of English soccer club Chelsea, was also there.Many Russians blame Yeltsin for forfeiting the country’s superpower status, for a disastrous war in Chechnya and for reforms that made citizens’ savings worthless and handed state assets to a tiny band of favoured businessmen.Nampa-ReutersYeltsin left Gorbachev without a job when he dismantled the Soviet Union, capping years of enmity.But Gorbachev, dressed in a black suit, kissed Naina and whispered words of condolence as he gripped Yelena’s hand.Gorbachev, who promoted Yeltsin from his Urals power base to high office in Moscow, paid tribute to him after his death but said he had made serious mistakes.”A tragic fate,” he declared.In the cathedral of Christ the Saviour – blown up by Josef Stalin and rebuilt under Yeltsin as a symbol of national revival – a Russian Orthodox choir sang psalms and soldiers from the Kremlin regiment stood at each corner of the coffin.Before the doors were closed for the official funeral service, members of the public had filed through to pause and lay flowers at Yeltsin’s coffin.He died of heart failure on Monday aged 76.But reflecting Yeltsin’s mixed legacy, there was no outpouring of national grief.Many praise him as a father of Russian democracy but many others remember the chaos of his eight years in office.In a break with the past that fitted Yeltsin’s maverick style, he was to be buried not alongside previous Kremlin leaders on Red Square but at the capital’s Novodevichye cemetery alongside actors, writers and performers.Former US President Bill Clinton, who forged a close personal relationship with Yeltsin in the 1990s, was to attend the funeral, along with about a dozen former and serving heads of state and senior foreign officials.Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at the cathedral for the funeral, and Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of English soccer club Chelsea, was also there.Many Russians blame Yeltsin for forfeiting the country’s superpower status, for a disastrous war in Chechnya and for reforms that made citizens’ savings worthless and handed state assets to a tiny band of favoured businessmen.Nampa-Reuters