One of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century, Andrei Voznesensky, died in his Moscow apartment on Tuesday, Russian media reported. He was 78.

Born in 1933, Voznesensky, architect by training, published his first verses in 1958, but became really famous in 1963 after he was publicly slated as a "pervert" and a dissident, which he was not, by then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchov.

The criticism from the Soviet top official made a young poet "as popular as the Beatles," his contemporaries said.

Voznesensky became an icon of Soviet intellectuals and real dissidents, sometimes contrary to his own will.

Voznesensky's poem "Avos" was put on music in the early 1980s and became the first rock-opera staged in the Soviet Union. The "Juno and Avos" musical is still performed in Moscow theaters.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed his "deep condolences" to the poet's family.

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