A leading Russian economist remembers Yegor Gaidar, a prominent Russian reformist who died on Wednesday, as a central figure in Russian history, comparable to tsarist reformists.

RIA Novosti hosted on Thursday a news conference discussing Gaidar's role in the country's history. Gaidar, one of the leading architects of free market reforms in post-Soviet Russia, reportedly died when a blood clot came dislodged. He was 53.

"Gaidar put an end to the Communist experiment, when we attempted to teach others what not to do, and gave a start to market economy, to what I hope will be a democracy in the future," Yevgeny Yasin, head of research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, said.

Gaidar was one of the young reformers, including Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, whom Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, surrounded himself with in the early 1990s and was acting prime minister during the second half of 1992.

Yasin also put Gaidar on a par with Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister in 1906-1911 under Tsar Nickolas II, who became known in history as an agrarian reformer but gained notoriety for his crackdown on revolutionary groups, and Sergei Witte, a highly influential policy-maker who presided over extensive industrialization within the Russian Empire.

"He [Gaidar] assumed responsibility for the reform, the events that were bound to have complicated consequences," Yasin said.

Andrei Nechayev, president of the Russian Financial Corporation Bank, called Gaidar "the most talented Russian economist of this generation."

Pyotr Aven, Alfa-Bank president, said Gaidar had lacked popularity as a politician and reformist over the past 20 years, which he said was "unfair."

"He thwarted a famine, the cold and war. Fearlessness was the only way out then. Gaidar did not fear reforms, while others did," Aven said.

Washington has expressed deep sorrow over the death of "one of the pivotal figures in Russia's political and economic transformation," and would be sorely missed in Russia and abroad.

"While both lauded and decried in his homeland for his role in constructing a liberal market economy in Russia, Gaidar remained a true intellectual in the finest Russian traditions, a patriot, and a dedicated father and husband," U.S. National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said.

Gaidar is survived by his wife, three sons and daughter.

MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti)