Mourners queued in Moscow on Saturday to bid farewell to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was absent from the ceremony honouring Gorbachev, who was laid to rest without official state honours.
However, Gorbachev was granted a low-key public send-off, with authorities allowing Russians to view his coffin in the imposing Hall of Columns where Soviet leaders including Joseph Stalin laid in state.
Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91 following a long illness, the hospital where he was treated said.
Gorbachev, who was in power between 1985 and 1991, sought to transform the Soviet Union with democratic reforms that eventually triggered its demise.
One of the great political figures of the 20th century, he was lionised in the West for helping to end the Cold War and trying to change the USSR, but despised by many in Russia for the economic chaos and loss of global influence that followed the Soviet collapse.
He had spent most of the last few decades out of the political limelight and his death this week was barely acknowledged in official circles in Russia.
State television on Thursday showed images of Mr Putin, alone, laying a bouquet of red roses near Gorbachev's open casket at the hospital where he died.
But the Kremlin said Putin would not attend Saturday's funeral due to his “work schedule”.
There were few other signs of an official presence at the ceremony, where Gorbachev's daughter Irina Virganskaya sat to the side of the coffin with other family members.
Gorbachev was to be buried later Saturday at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died of cancer in 1999.
With Russia isolated by its war in Ukraine, the only senior foreign official to announce he would attend was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.
Before the Ukraine invasion, Mr Orban had one of the closest relationships with Mr Putin of any EU leader, but the Kremlin said there were no talks planned during his visit to Moscow.
After Gorbachev's death, tributes poured in from western capitals, where he is remembered for allowing countries in Eastern Europe to free themselves from Soviet rule and for signing a landmark nuclear arms reduction pact with the US.
Known affectionately in the West as Gorby, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
Flags were also flying at half-mast in Berlin on Saturday, in memory of the man who held back Soviet troops as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.
Mr Putin, who called 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.
With February's invasion of Ukraine, he has sought to reassert Russian influence in one of the countries that won its independence when the Soviet Union fell apart.
Gorbachev's successor, Boris Yeltsin, who became the first president of modern Russia and led the country through years of painful transition to a market economy, was honoured with a state funeral and day of mourning when he died in 2007.
Both Mr Putin and Gorbachev were in attendance.
Mikhail Gorbachev - in pictures
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Mikhail Gorbachev waves from the Red Square in Moscow during a Revolution Day celebration in November 1989. AP -
Gorbachev poses for a picture at the age of 19, wearing the Red Banner of Labour medal he received for driving a combine harvester on the plains of southern Russia. AP -
Gorbachev led the Soviet Union from 1985 until its end in 1991. AFP -
Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan meet for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1985. Reuters -
Gorbachev and East German communist leader Erich Honecker sing the 'The International', widely regarded as a communist anthem, in East Berlin in April 1986. AFP -
Gorbachev and Francois Mitterrand wave during an official trip by the French president to the USSR, in July 1986. AFP -
Gorbachev gives a speech in Moscow, during the 18th Congress of the USSR Trade Unions, in February 1987. AFP -
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Gorbachev before the start of talks at the Kremlin in March 1987. AFP -
Gorbachev waves from the Red Square in November 1987, during celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. AP -
Gorbachev and Reagan sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty at the White House in Washington in December 1987. Reuters -
Gorbachev and Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle at the end of the Soviet leader's visit to Britain in April 1989. AFP -
Gorbachev and his wife Raisa take in the view during a tour of China's Great Wall, in Beijing, in May 1989. AP -
Gorbachev and his wife are greeted by cheering crowds in Bonn, Germany, in June 1989. EPA -
Pope John Paul II greets Gorbachev at the Vatican in December 1989. AFP -
Gorbachev speaks at the Lenin monument in Vilnius, Lithuania, in January 1990. AP -
Gorbachev attends a Commission on Security and Co-operation in Europe summit in Paris in November 1990. AFP -
US President George Bush and Gorbachev confer in Moscow in July 1991, after the end of a US-Soviet summit dedicated to disarmament. AFP -
Gorbachev makes his first appearance after a failed military coup in August 1991. AFP -
Gorbachev and British Prime Minister John Major pose for a picture after the Soviet leader's arrival at Lancaster House, London, in July 1991. PA -
Gorbachev and his wife shake hands with Mickey and Minnie Mouse at the entrance of Disneyland, Tokyo, in April 1992. AFP -
Reagan and Gorbachev with their wives at a farm owned by the Reagans near Santa Barbara, California, in May 1992. Reuters -
Gorbachev meets former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger in Moscow in May 1992. AFP -
Gorbachev announces his candidacy for the Russian presidency at a press conference in Moscow in March 1996. AFP -
Gorbachev wipes his tears as his daughter Irina looks on during a ceremony in Moscow to pay tribute to his late wife Raisa in September 1999. AFP -
U2 lead singer Bono, former US president Bill Clinton and Gorbachev attend a dinner hosted by the former Soviet leader at the Russian Embassy in New York in March 2002. AP -
US Secretary of State Colin Powell shakes hands with Gorbachev in Washington in April 2001. AFP -
Gorbachev and Russian President Vladimir Putin before the start of a news conference in Schleswig, Germany, in December 2004. AP -
Bush, Gorbachev and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl hold the 'Point Alpha Award' at the former demarcation line between East and West Germany in June 2005. EPA -
Former German chancellor Angela Merkel and Gorbachev talk during the 'Petersburg Dialogue' conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, in October 2007. AFP -
Gorbachev meets British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in January 2008 at 10 Downing Street in London. PA -
Gorbachev holds talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron in February 2011 at 10 Downing Street in London. PA -
Former US President Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Gorbachev during the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago, Illinois, in April 2012. EPA -
Gorbachev and Bush shake hands during a commemorative event in Berlin in October 2009. AFP -
Gorbachev attends the Moscow premiere of a film made by Werner Herzog and British filmmaker Andre Singer based on their conversations, in Moscow, Russia, in November 2018. AP
