Russians pay respects to flawed hero Yeltsin

Hundreds of Russians filed past Boris Yeltsin's open coffin yesterday to pay their respects to the former President who dismantled the Soviet Union and led Russia in its first chaotic years of independence.

To the strains of a choir singing Orthodox hymns, members of the public paused to lay flowers near the coffin as it lay in state in the Christ the Saviour cathedral - a gold-domed church blown up by Josef Stalin and rebuilt under Mr Yeltsin.

President Vladimir Putin, his successor, has declared a national day of mourning today when Mr Yeltsin, 76, will be buried at a state funeral. The former President died on Monday from heart failure. Mr Yeltsin won tributes for bringing democracy to Russia after eight decades of authoritarian rule. But his eight years in office were marked by economic meltdown, political chaos, a costly war against rebels in Chechnya and drink-fuelled gaffes.

His coffin was draped in a silk Russian flag and watched over by a ceremonial unit from the presidential guard, their hats held in the crook of their arms.

His face was swollen by years of ill health. His body had been dressed in a black tie and black suit. His widow Naina, wearing a black veil and her eyes puffy from crying, sat in a pew next to their daughter Tatyana Dyachenko.

Russia's first democratically elected leader is to be buried at the Novodevichye cemetery in a break from the past. Kremlin leaders have traditionally been buried in Red Square, where a mausoleum houses the body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.

Bill Clinton - whose good-natured verbal sparring with Mr Yeltsin earned them the title "The Boris and Bill show" - and fellow former US President George H.W. Bush are among foreign dignitaries who will attend the funeral.

"A politician's path through life is always difficult," Russian Orthodox cleric Metropolitan Yuvenaly told mourners.

"Sometimes arguments and conflicting opinions arise, but when a person reaches the end of his life's journey and comes before the Almighty for judgement, earthly talk should fall silent."

A crowd of about 1,000 people snaked round the cathedral waiting to get in. More kept arriving. The lying-in-state continued through the night.

Views on Mr Yeltsin's legacy differed sharply. His economic "shock therapy" cost millions of people their savings and his officials sold off state assets to politically connected businessmen for a fraction of their value.

"They say he gave people freedom but that is just not so," said Igor Smirnov, 30, a physicist who was passing the cathedral. "He gave freedom to steal, he gave freedom to anarchy, freedom to lawlessness."

In Chechnya, a southern Russian republic struggling to return to normal life after a decade of war, people have not forgotten Mr Yeltsin's 1994 order to send in troops.