All day Tuesday, at the new building of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia and the entire world are bidding farewell to one of the greatest Russian writers and humanitarians - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Despite the heavy rain in Moscow, people holding flowers, old and very young, ordinary citizens and well-known personalities alike, have formed a long line in front of the building waiting to pay their final respects.

Russia's Premier and former President Vladimir Putin also paid his last respects to the writer while the Russian Television broadcasted life Putin's arrival with a bouquet of red roses.

Putin also stopped to talk for a few minutes to Solzhenitsyn's widow Nataliya.

Monday Putin said that Solzhenitsyn's death has been a great loss to all Russia, adding that Russians must be proud of being the writer's compatriots and contemporaries.

"We will remember him as a strong and courageous person with great dignity", Putin stated further.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbatchev also spoke about Solzhenitsyn, stating that he has been a man with unique fate, on of the first ones to dare to speak out loud about the inhumane nature of the Stalinist regime.

The Western press has also published extensive reports and editorials in occasion of the writer's death while most of the commentaries reflect the contradictions surrounding Solzhenitsyn's personality and work.

The French "Monde" reminds that the Russian writer has almost always met a reticent reception by the Westerners because he has made many feel uneasy, especially by his decision to return to the "new" Russia in 1994. "People began then to wonder how to interpret Solzhenitsyn's support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been widely seen by the West as an embodiment of the evil. Solzhetsin's patriotic appeals, his approval of the war in Chechnya and his insistence on death penalties for the terrorists have also been questioned," reminds the French daily newspaper.

Another French publication - "Figaro" states: "The world pays final respect to the fighter against the abuse of human rights, the person who overcame death three times - at war, at the work camp and in grave illness.

The French daily "Liberation" writes: "The soul of Russia is death." At the same time the publication reminds that during the last years of his life Solzhenitsyn has been often criticized about his friendship with former Russian President Vladimir Putin seen by many as a strange paradox. "People never understood this friendship between a former prisoner and a former KGB officer," the publication further writes and points out that the writer has also been accused in anti-Semitism for his book "Two Hundred Years Together" dedicated to the history of Russian Jews.

The New York Post writes Tuesday: "Solzhenitsyn was a giant among the heroic dissidents in the Soviet Union, and his saga was a defining episode in the decline of the Communist tyranny." The author, however, further adds: "20 years later, when I covered his return to Russia in Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East. He continued to issue moral thunderbolts, now also against the chaotic, new post-Soviet Russia. Perhaps he was right, but his incessant criticism and the naГЇvetГ© of his exhortations, usually centered on patriotism as the key to Russia's future, seemed irrelevant to Russians caught up in the post-Communist tumult. The work that he had regarded as the most important of his life, "Red Wheel," attracted little attention."

Another renowned US publication, the "Washington Post" defines Solzhenitsyn as "a premodern giant who defied the limits of human ability and the forces of nature. His world was that of ethical absolutes, unshakable values, spiritual discipline and self-sacrificial commitment."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn passed away Monday at the age of 89 and will be buried Wednesday in the Donski monastery according to his wish.

The full text of the New York Times article can be found at: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=95806

The full text of the Washington Post article can be found at: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=95807