RUSSIA: MOSCOW: FINAL FAREWELLS PAID TO PIANIST SVYATOSLAV RICHTER

Russian/Eng/Nat Russia paid its final farewell to one of the most talented pianists of the 20th century on Monday. Hundreds of Muscovites as well as government officials, including Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, paid their respects to Svyatoslav Richter as he lay in state at the Pushkin Museum. The 82-year-old pianist died of a heart attack on Friday in Moscow’s central clinic and will be buried later on Monday, at the Novodevichy Cemetery, Russia’s most prestigious burial ground. Richter is considered to be one of the greatest pianists of his time and Russian President, Boris Yeltsin called Richter “one of Russia’s most cherished sons“ in a telegram he sent to the pianist’s family. Hundreds of Russian musicians and ordinary citizens passed through a darkened hall of a Moscow art museum, on Monday, saying their own personal farewells. They had come to pay their last respects to one of the century’s greatest pianists, Svyatoslav R