Russians pay respect to Solzhenitsyn

Yermolai Solzhenitsyn, the oldest son of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, stood near the coffin of his father during his wake yesterday in Moscow. The author died Sunday at the age of 89. (DMITRY KOSTYUKOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

MOSCOW - Russian mourners braved heavy rain yesterday to file past the body of former Soviet dissident and Nobel laureate author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who lay in an open coffin at the Russian Academy of Sciences, flanked by an honor guard of four Russian soldiers.

"I admired him for his internal honesty and his willingness to stand up very intensively for his own views," said Gennady Malinka, 68, the general director of a small engineering company, who began to weep as he described his affection for the writer.

Solzhenitsyn, 89, died Sunday of heart failure. He will be buried today in the cemetery of Moscow's Donskoy Monastery after a funeral service in the monastery's cathedral.

A large portrait of Solzhenitsyn was placed at the head of the coffin. The writer's wife and sons stood to the side. Among the mourners was Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who placed a bunch of red roses at the foot of the casket before speaking with Solzhenitsyn's widow, Natalia. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also paid his respects.

Solzhenitsyn spent 20 years in exile, much of it in the United States. When he returned to Russia in 1994, he was dismayed by Russia's wild capitalism. But to the consternation of some in the country's small opposition, he warmed to Putin, viewing the former Russian president as the leading agent of the country's return to greatness.

Among his most famous works is the "The Gulag Archipelago," a monumental account of his and other inmates' prison experiences.