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Yeltsin laid to rest

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia's first post-Soviet President Boris Yeltsin was buried in Moscow on Wednesday in an elaborate funeral broadcast live on all four Federal television channels.

President Vladimir Putin ordered a day of national mourning in Russia on Wednesday as thousands of people paid last respects to Yeltsin in the gold-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral, the main Russian Orthodox church.

Yeltsin became the first Russian leader since the Tsars to be laid to rest according to a religious, rather than a secular ceremony. He died of heart failure on Monday at the age of 76.

Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major, and the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev joined Mr. Putin and other Russian leaders for the ceremony.

Communist lawmakers protested the honours accorded to the man who destroyed the Soviet Union.

"We will never give honour to the destroyer of our motherland," Communist deputy Viktor Ilyukhin said.

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