They said goodbye to the whole world

Everyone came to the funeral of Alexander Solzhenitsyn - from Dmitry Medvedev to Eduard Limonov at the old cemetery of the Don Monastery, the writer, laureate of the Nobel Prize Alexander Solzhenitsyn was buried yesterday. The President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, who interrupted vacation, came to the funeral service at 11 o’clock. Thousands of people went to say goodbye to the writer.

At 9 o’clock in the morning in the Great Cathedral of the Don Monastery, the Divine Liturgy began, which all comers were allowed. More than a thousand people gathered in the square in front of the temple. By the beginning of the funeral service, Dmitry Medvedev appeared in the cathedral. He laid a huge bouquet of burgundy roses to the coffin and expressed condolences to the Solzhenitsyn family. The funeral service was attended by Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, Russian President Yuri Osipov. The leader of the "other Russia" Eduard Limonov came. They did not want to let him into the territory of the monastery along with a group of his guards. Limonov made a short scandal, but went to the cathedral without bodyguards.

Closer to noon to the temple, they stopped letting people, and they lined up in the square in which they carried the coffin with the body of the writer. Half an hour before the beginning of the funeral service, the mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov arrived in the monastery. In the general crowd stood the head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Evgeny Primakov and director Stanislav Govorukhin.

The Commissioner for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin told the correspondent of Gazeta that the discussions about Solzhenitsyn’s works will continue after the death of the writer, but this would in no case diminish his greatness. “His role in history was exceptional, and in order to play it, exceptional qualities were needed,” Lukin told the correspondent of the newspaper. “There were cases in his life when he challenged fate, and fate retreated before him.”

Yuri Luzhkov, before entering the temple, said that he had to listen to Solzhenitsyn specially after his death. “The anxiety that he expressed literally on the eve of his death about the state of Russia, I think, is justified,” Luzhkov told the correspondent of Gazeta. - The financial stabilization reassured someone. Although this should be alarmed by many, because the country is really not developing in economic terms. ” Luzhkov believes that there are no infrastructure projects in Russia and there is no work on the development of the real sector of the economy. “And on oil and gas, especially in conditions of changes, and even in the absence of good potential of our own agricultural production, we will not have much prospects. Solzhenitsyn was right, ”the mayor of the capital summed up.

Yuri Osipov noted that in December a special session dedicated to Solzhenitsyn’s contribution to philology, linguistics and history will be held in the wounds. In December, the writer was to be 90 years old. “The All -Russian Conference will still be timed to this anniversary,” Osipov told the correspondent of Gazeta. “Presumably it will pass on December 11 and will be devoted to his activities, works, memories.” These events were planned before Solzhenitsyn's death, Osipov emphasized.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was buried with military honors as a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. The trocked rifle volley sounded immediately after the writer’s body was devoted to the earth at exactly one day. His grave is located next to the grave of the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky behind the altar of the temple of John Climacus.

08/06/2008 / Anastasia Novikova, the material was published in the newspaper No. 147 dated 07.08.2008.