Putin leads tribute to writer who exposed Gulags

RUSSIAN prime minister Vladimir Putin led hundreds of mourners paying last respects yesterday to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the dissident writer who chronicled the horror of the Soviet prison camps.

Mourners filed past Solzhenitsyn’s open coffin at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, laying flowers and crossing themselves before one of Russia’s last literary legends, who died at his home on Sunday aged 89. His widow, Natalya, and other family members were also present.

“With his life and work, Alexander Solzhenitsyn greatly boosted society’s immunity to all forms of tyranny,” Putin said in televised remarks, adding that his books should have a “worthy place” in school curriculums.