(Reuters) – The funeral of the Soviet Union’s last leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday in Moscow aged 91, will take place on Saturday, the Interfax news agency reported, citing Gorbachev’s daughter.
The funeral will take place in the famous Hall of Columns inside Moscow’s House of Unions, Interfax reported, the same place where Josef Stalin’s body was put on display following his death in 1953.
Alexei Venediktov, former editor of the Ekho Moskvy radio station and a friend of Gorbachev, also said in social media posts that the funeral would take place on Saturday, Sept. 3.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said earlier that the Kremlin would decide during Wednesday whether Gorbachev would be given a state funeral.
The TASS news agency reported Peskov as saying that the Kremlin would announce later whether President Vladimir Putin would attend Gorbachev’s funeral.
Putin earlier on Wednesday sent Gorbachev’s relatives his condolences via telegram, while the Kremlin hailed the late politician as an extraordinary global statesman who helped end the Cold War, but had been badly wrong about the prospect of rapprochement with the “bloodthirsty” West.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
