Penza, 24 June 2016. PenzaNews. Vasily Bochkarev, former Penza region governor for 17 years (from 1998 to May 2015), was buried at the Novo-Zapadnoye cemetery on Friday, June 24.

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An Orthodox priest conducted the final rites under clerical songs. After that, the relatives and close friends of the deceased once again said their final respects.

Following that, the VFD Presidential Envoy Mikhail Babich and the Penza region governor Ivan Belozertsev approached the coffin that was half-covered with the Russian tricolor.

Next, people who wanted to pay respects to the former head of the region lined up in a big queue: the ceremony took nearly 30 minutes to finish.

The coffin was closed at 14.38: under the accompaniment of the Russian hymn and ten weapons salutes, Vasily Bochkarev was buried at the cemetery.

When the gravediggers began the burial, the skies darkened, and heavy raindrops began falling on the ground, making many people thinking that the rain would begin soon: some even said that “the earth was crying.” However, the skies brightened up again just a moment later.

Vasily Bochkarev was buried at the central alley of the Novo-Zapadnoye cemetery, next to Alexander Scherbakov, former head of the city’s Soviet executive committee, who passed away on 13 April 2016; Boris Chernov, head of the Soviet Communist Party committee in the region until 1990, who died the previous autumn; Mikhail Kudimov, Honored Worker of Transport of the RSFSR, who was buried last spring; and Maria Pikhteleva, Head of the Socialist Labor, who died in March.