Hundreds pay respects as Shevardnadze laid to rest
Print Edition
GEORGIA yesterday held ceremonies to bury Eduard Shevardnadze, a former Soviet diplomat hailed for helping to end the Cold War but a controversial president at home.
Hundreds of people flocked to Tbilisi’s Trinity Cathedral to pay their last respects to Shevardnadze, who died on Monday aged 86. He was later buried next to his wife at his home in the city.
Shevardnadze was the Soviet Union’s last foreign minister, praised by world leaders for his role in negotiating a bloodless end to Moscow’s long confrontation with the West. At home, however, he came to be despised for the more than a decade he spent at the helm of post-Soviet Georgia, which ended with him being overthrown in 2003.
In a traditional Georgian Orthodox ceremony, Shevarnadze’s coffin was draped with the national flag and surrounded by flowers in the center of the cathedral accompanied by his son, daughter and grandchildren, wearing black and holding long candles.
Dignitaries from 28 countries attended the funeral, including former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher and former US secretary of state James Baker. “Georgia would not be free today without Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikhail Gorbachev,” the last president of the Soviet Union before its breakup in 1991, Baker said.
A procession later left for Shevardnadze’s house in Tbilisi.
Georgia’s former leader died on July 7 after retiring from politics in the wake of the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003. He is credited to have been instrumental, along with Gorbachev, in brokering a deal that brought down the Berlin Wall, but was a polarizing figure in Georgia after leaving his country mired in poverty and chaos.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
