Luminaries such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov were present at the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, but absent among them was Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current president, according to the Associated Press. Gorbachev, a de-Stalinization reformist whose collaboration with the United States led to the end of the Cold War, was a vocal critic of Putin, who elected to privately lay flowers on Gorbachev’s coffin on Thursday rather than attend his funeral, which took place on Saturday. Gorbachev passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91 after a sustained period of illness.
