INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
mourners queued up to quietly file past Gorbachev's open casket as it was flanked by honour guards under the Russian flag in the historic
state during four days of national mourning after his death in 1953.After several hours the coffin was taken out of the hall in a procession
led by Dmitry Muratov, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning editor-in-chief of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which Gorbachev helped
found.The coffin was taken to Moscow's prestigious Novodevichy Cemetery, where it was lowered into the grave to the sounds of a military
band playing the Russian national anthem and a gun salute.Gorbachev was buried next to his wife Raisa, who died from cancer in 1999.With
Russia isolated by its military campaign in Ukraine, few foreign leaders attended what was a relatively low-key affair to remember one of
for a long time, an absence of fear," 41-year-old translator Ksenia Zhupanova said at the entrance to the hall where Gorbachev's body lay in
state."I am against shutting us out from the outside world, I am for openness, for dialogue
the Soviet collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century, has spent much of his more than 20-year rule reversing parts
of Gorbachev's legacy.By cracking down on independent media and political opposition, critics say, Putin has worked to undo Gorbachev's
efforts to bring "glasnost", or openness.And with the launch earlier this year of the military campaign in Ukraine, he has sought to
reassert Russian influence in one of the countries that won its independence when the Soviet Union fell apart.On the streets of Moscow this
legacy."[Gorbachev] helped the development of the country, the bringing of freedom of speech and freedom of thought," said 19-year-old Irina
Kaplanova.He was not an "absolutely ideal politician", she said, but was "a great reformer, and a person who acted in accordance with their
conscience and knew how to admit mistakes."AFP contributed reporting.
