The celebrated musician and public figure Mstislav Rostropovich has been buried in the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow close to Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin who was laid to rest earlier this week.

Thousands of mourners were paying their last respects to the world’s most celebrated cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich. He died on Friday at the age of 80.

The memorial service for the celebrated musician and public figure Mstislav Rostropovich was held at Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, attended by dignitaries from around the world.

According to the wish of his widow, there were no funeral speeches and the burial was open to the public.

The ceremony started on Saturday when thousands of people came to the Moscow State Conservatory to lay flowers at the coffin and bid a last goodbye. Overall, more than five thousand people attended the burial service in Christ the Saviour Cathedral.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also came to offer his personal condolences to the widow Galina Vishnevskaya and the family. Many dignitaries were proud to be his friends – and some of them came thousands of kilometers to tell him the last farewell. Writers, musicians, politicians – all remember him as an outstanding person. The widow of the former Russia President Boris Yeltsin, who died earlier this week, chose to attend the funeral of the great musician. Bernadette Chirac, Queen Sophia of Spain and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also came to Moscow for the funeral.

'An irreplaceable loss to Russian culture', that is how most of the maestro's friends and admirers describe his death.

“This man loved to work, but also to have fun, he loved people and nature. He was a pure incarnation of love and also an incarnation of genius,” said Viktor Erofeev, a writer.

It is his family who taught him to love music. Born in Azerbaijan, Mstislav Rostropovich was influenced by his deep-rooted musical traditions – his grandfathers and both of his parents were talented musicians.

Mstislav began to play the piano when he was four, and at the age of ten, his father taught him to play the cello.

In 1943, 16-year-old Mstislav passed entrance exams of the Moscow Conservatory.

He was lucky with teachers. World-known composers Shostakovich and Prokofyev gave him music lessons impacting his future life and creative work.

Within six years he was awarded one of the highest distinctions in the Soviet Union – the Stalin Prize.

In 1955 he found love – that lasted till the end of his days. He married Galina Vishnevskaya, a Bolshoi Theatre soprano, who was with him no matter how good or bad the times were.

In the early 1970s, however, the attitude towards Rostropovich started to turn colder in his own country.

Internationally famous not only as a musician, but also as a fervent advocate of democracy and human rights, he was stripped of Soviet citizenship for what was said to be a lack of patriotism. Mstislav Rostropovich actively backed famous dissidents – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov. He returned from his exile to support Boris Yeltsin against the Soviet hard-liners in 1991.

Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya fled the Soviet Union in 1974 moving to the United States. Four years later his Soviet citizenship was revoked, only to be restored in 1990.

For 17 seasons Rostropovich was the musical director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C.

Rostropovich has received more than 90 state awards in 25 countries.
His impromptu performance during the fall of the Berlin Wall and support shown during the siege of the Russian White House in 1991 gave the world a glance into his heart.

Rostropovich took an active role in charity work and supported numerous educational and cultural projects. Mstislav Rostropovich was also known as a civil rights champion and a founder of several charities.

In France, his name was added to the French Academy of Arts' list of 40 immortals.

Rostropovich leaves behind an impressive heritage as a cellist who greatly expanded the repertoire for his instrument; as a conductor with many orchestras, and as a public figure, a person with high moral values and principles.

In the minds of many, Mstislav Rostropovich has already been transformed from a mortal into a legend. And as he leaves this world and slips into eternity, instead of long solemn speeches which he never liked, at Novodevichy cemetery he was granted his very last applause.