Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who changed the world 1:39 Moscow (CNN) — Russians said goodbye to the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, on Saturday at a funeral that was not attended by President Vladimir Putin. A public farewell ceremony for Gorbachev, who died this week at the age of 91, came to an end even though people were still waiting for his turn to pay their respects. It lasted about three and a half hours. The ceremony took place in Moscow’s Hall of Columns, a historic site that has hosted the state funerals of former Soviet leaders including Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin. Gorbachev will be buried next to his wife Raisa later in the Novodevichy cemetery. While he is extolled in the West for ending the Cold War, Gorbachev is seen as an outcast at home because of the chaos caused by his economic reforms, creating the circumstances that made a strongman like Putin attractive to many Russians. . Putin blamed Gorbachev for the demise of the USSR, which he called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, and has set out to restore Russia’s wounded prestige. Putin missed Saturday’s funeral due to his work schedule, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. However, the Russian leader paid his respects to Gorbachev on Thursday. Footage showed Putin placing a bouquet of roses next to the open coffin at the Central Clinical Hospital, Putin then bowed and made the sign of the cross. On Saturday, hundreds of people lined up outside the building for one last look at Gorbachev, whose body lay in an open coffin flanked by two soldiers in the chandelier-adorned room. Members of Gorbachev’s family, including his daughter Irina Virganskaya and her two granddaughters, sat to one side. Many of the ordinary Russians who came to pay their respects to him laid down roses and bouquets or took pictures. A Russian citizen who came wanted to thank Gorbachev for bringing democracy to Russia and opening it up to the world. Another woman told Reuters the former Soviet leader “deserved” a proper send-off. “I think he did more good things than bad. The elders who are here remember him and came to say goodbye. That is what it is,” she said. People line up to attend a farewell ceremony for Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday. The Kremlin stopped short of classifying Saturday’s events as a state funeral for Gorbachev, and its spokesman said it would have “elements of a state funeral,” including an honor guard and state assistance in organizing it. No explanation was provided for how the event differed from previous state funerals. Gorbachev became more critical of Putin and his increasingly restrictive regime in recent years, traveling the world promoting free speech and democracy as part of his founding. While Gorbachev himself did not comment on Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, his foundation called for peace negotiations, saying “there is nothing more precious in the world than human lives.” The coffin containing the body of Mikhail Gorbachev is carried to a farewell ceremony at Moscow’s Hall of Columns on Saturday. The last Russian leader not granted a state funeral was Nikita Khrushchev, who was deposed for trying to reverse Stalinist reforms. He died after living in seclusion in 1971 and his funeral was held in semi-secret. Saturday’s funeral was a stark contrast to the death of Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin, who had handpicked Putin to be his successor. The Kremlin announced a day of national mourning after Yeltsin’s death in 2007, and his funeral was attended by a host of world leaders, including Putin, former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, former British Prime Minister John Major and the Prince Andrew, as well as former Polish President Lech Walesa. Gorbachev’s funeral lacked a similar list of celebrity guests, as Moscow barred hundreds of foreign officials from entering Russia in retaliation for Western sanctions. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan were among the few dignitaries seen in the remembrance.