Yeltsin, who has been both praised as a champion of democratic reforms and criticized for impoverishing millions, died Monday of heart failure at the age of 76. Thousands of Russians have already paid tribute to their former leader, who has been lying in state in the Christ the Savior Cathedral since Tuesday afternoon.
In a televised address late Monday, Yeltsin's handpicked successor President Vladimir Putin said the late president had gone down in national and global history. "A man who gave birth to a new epoch has died," Putin said. "A new, democratic Russia, a free country that opened itself up to the world and where power actually belongs to people, was born."
Two former U.S. presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush, Sr., with whom Yeltsin maintained friendly relations after the end of his eight-year political career in 1999, will attend the funeral. The leaders of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Lithuania and Estonia will also be present at the ceremony. Ukraine, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will send their prime ministers, and Georgia will be represented by Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burdzhanadze.
Among other top-ranking foreign officials expected to attend are German President Horst Koehler, British Prince Andrew, Duke of York, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, Spanish Constitutional Court Chairperson Maria Emilia Casas, Italian senator Giulio Andreotti, Japanese Ambassador to Russia Yasuo Saito, former Polish President Lech Walesa and former Finnish President Mauno Koivisto.
Yeltsin will be buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, a burial ground for many prominent Russian and Soviet writers, composers, scientists and politicians. Wednesday has been declared a day of national mourning.
