In pictures: Solzhenitsyn lies in state

The once-exiled Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died on Sunday, was renowned for his exposure of Stalin's prison system. His open coffin is on display in central Moscow's Academy of Sciences.

Many queued in the rain, clutching flowers, to pay tribute to the dissident whose accounts of the harsh lives of Soviet prisoners reflected his own eight years in the gulag.

The Nobel laureate died of heart failure at the age of 89. His body will be buried in an Orthodox ceremony at Moscow's 16th Century Donskoi Monastery on Wednesday.

His family, including his sons, grandchildren and his kneeling wife Natalya, led the mourners.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was among those who offered condolences to the family of the author whose Soviet citizenship was restored in 1990.

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