Like everyone, she had come here to remember and to say goodbye.
'I wanted to come here in memory of all those who were detained and who died,' said Dmitry Sakharov, 59, whose parents, like Solzhenitsyn, were prisoners of the gulag. 'It was a terrible time for Russia, and Solzhenitsyn was a beacon for us.'
Hundreds of mourners, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, flocked to the Russian Academy of Sciences in southwest Moscow on Tuesday to pay their respects to Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn, one of the 20th century's towering literary and cultural figures, who died from heart failure at age 89 on Sunday.
Solzhenitsyn, a former prisoner in Stalin's gulag, shocked the world with his graphic descriptions of life in Soviet prison camps. His book, 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,' and his masterpiece, 'The Gulag Archipelago,' are considered among the most important works of literary protest ever written.
The wake, held in a large marble hall on the grounds of the elite scientific institute, of which Solzhenitsyn was a member, was an elegant and understated affair.
Putin, who arrived shortly after midday, walked briskly into the hall, stopping at the feet of the writer to cross himself and lay a bouquet of red roses. Fittingly, his was the largest bouquet.
Putin then spent several minutes speaking with Solzhenitsyn's widow. Putin, whose mood appeared somber, briefly paid his respects to the author's two sons before departing, flanked by a heavy security detail.
A steady procession of mostly elderly mourners marched slowly past the writer, his iconic gray beard lying atop a striped gray and black tie. Many crossed themselves and prayed softly, a few stooping to kiss the coffin.
Some described the wake as a chance not only to pay their respects to a visionary writer but also a contemporary and fellow-sufferer.
Source link: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/369580.htm
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