Gorbachev will be laid to rest at the weekend, but no state funeral for former leader, says Russian media

The funeral will take place on Saturday

There will be no state funeral for the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, a Russian news agency reported on Wednesday. “There are no plans to organise a state funeral for Gorbachev,” sources told the Interfax agency.

Earlier, the Gorbachev Foundation told the same agency that its founder would be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, who died in 1999. Gorbachev died on Tuesday at a central Moscow hospital at the age of 91, after a long illness.

The funeral will take place on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported, citing Gorbachev’s daughter and a spokesperson for his foundation. It is reported that it will take place in the famous Hall of Columns inside Moscow’s House of Unions, the same place where Josef Stalin’s body was put on display following his death in 1953.