Russians yesterday mourned Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel literature laureate, who died of heart failure late on Sunday in his Moscow home. He was 89.

Children leave flowers at the gates to the house of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the outskirts of Moscow, yesterday. Inset: Alexander Solzhenitsyn. [Reuters]

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, described Solzhenitsyn as a "man of unique destiny whose name will remain in Russia's history."

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and global leaders including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and US President George W. Bush sent their condolences.

Long banned from publication, Solzhenitsyn owed his initial fame to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who allowed the publication in 1962 of his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which described the routine of labor camp life.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 for his work, including Gulag Archipelago, a chronicle of his own and thousands of other prison camp experiences.

Four years later, he was stripped of his citizenship and put on a plane to West Germany for refusing to keep silent about his country's past.

There was no immediate word on when his family planned to hold the funeral or whether the Kremlin would offer a state-level service.

"During the day, everything related to the funeral and the wake will be settled and done in accordance to his will", his widow Natalia told Interfax.

In Troitse-Lykovo in the outskirts of Moscow where Solzhenitsyn spent his final years, passers-by paid tribute by tucking flowers into the blue-painted gate of his house.

"It's a great loss for our family. It's also a loss for the country," his son Stepan said. "He was always really happy he returned. This is his home."

Solzhenitsyn refused to return to Russia until after the Soviet Union collapsed, marking his comeback in a long train journey from Vladivostok on the Pacific coast to Moscow in 1994.

After his return, post-Soviet leadership paid him great respect. But he became increasingly critical of the state of modern day Russia, denouncing corruption and Western influences in the society.

He lived in seclusion outside Moscow, playing no discernible role in Russian political life and rarely appearing in public.

In a bookstore in central Moscow, a selection of his most famous books was put on display beneath a large black-and-white portrait of the author.

Television channels and radio stations ran constant solemn reports on his life but some younger Russians confessed they knew little about his work.

"He is very famous. I'm just starting his works. Unfortunately I haven't read very much yet," said Viktoria Danilova, a 17-year-old in central Moscow.

(China Daily via agencies August 5, 2008)