The New Nation - Internet Edition

BBC Online

World figures have paid tribute to Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a day after his death aged 89.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev lauded him as one of the first to speak up about Stalin's regime, and France's Nicolas Sarkozy hailed his courage.

The author, who exposed Stalin's prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, will lie in state in Moscow on Tuesday, according to Russian media.

His funeral will take place the next day, the Interfax news agency said.

He will be buried at Moscow's historic Donskoi Monastery, Russian media quoted church officials as saying.

The author of The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich died of heart failure on Sunday at his home near Moscow, his son said.

Solzhenitsyn had returned to Russia in 1994, following two decades in exile in the West.