Yeltsin lay in state inside Christ the Savior Cathedral, with a Russian tricolor flag draped over the end of the coffin. A four-member honor guard stood solemnly at each corner.

Yeltsin's widow, Naina, flanked by her two daughters, wiped away tears as she stood next to the casket. A Russian Orthodox priest blessed it with incense and a stream of mourners, some wiping away tears, placed flowers nearby.

Yeltsin, who died Monday at age 76, sometimes appeared at church services but was not seen as overtly pious. Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church credits him as a key figure in its changed fortunes after decades of the Communist-era's official athiesm.

"By his strength, he helped the restoration of the proper role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the life of the country and its people," church spokesman Metropolitan Kirill said in a statement.

Yeltsin's funeral will be held Wednesday. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, as well as U.S. Ambassador William Burns, will represent the United States.

Earlier Tuesday, about 300 people, some carrying flowers and black-and-white portraits of Yeltsin, had lined up outside the gold-domed cathedral.

It is a replica of the original, which sat on the banks of the Moscow River not far from the Kremlin and was blown up by the Soviet authorities in 1931, just a few months after Yeltsin's birth.

The plan was to use the site for a skyscraper called the Palace of Soviets topped by a statue of state founder Vladimir Lenin — essentially a secular temple — but the ground proved too shaky for its foundations.

Sixty years to the month after Soviet authorities knocked the cathedral down, the foundations of the Soviet Union itself collapsed, thanks in part to Yeltsin. In 1994, Russia began to rebuild the church.

Yeltsin's burial Wednesday also will resonate with Russia's changes. Unlike most Soviet leaders, he won't be interred in the cold formality of the burial ground at the Kremlin walls; instead, his grave will be at Novodevichy Cemetery, a leafy and comforting expanse next to Moscow's most famous monastery.

It is largely a burial site for dreamers and artists, rather than politicians; its graves include those of the writer Anton Chekhov, composer Sergei Prokofiev and the Stalin-era author Mikhail Bulgakov, one of Russia's most beloved modern literary figures. But one former Soviet leader as vivid and complex as Yeltsin already lies there — Nikita Khrushchev.

Khrushchev, like Yeltsin, was a maverick with often crude manners. Like Yeltsin, he brought a wave of fresh air into the stifling atmosphere of monolithic Communism. Both leaders raised wide hopes for Russia's development. Both ended their careers carrying the faint odor of disgrace.

Yeltsin is remembered not only for his bold and principled stand against the 1990 hard-line Communist coup attempt and for launching Russia on the path to political pluralism, if not a full-fledged democracy.

He also is remembered for the economic torment that afflicted tens of million of Russians during his presidency, as the country sold off its industrial and natural-resources wealth in shadowy auctions, for the disintegration of the public health care system and for pensions that turned to cinders in the fires of raging inflation.

"In modern Russian history, there was probably no other person in whom people placed more trust and more expectations — and were more easily disappointed by — than Yeltsin," Vladimir Solovyov, a talk-show host on Serebrany Dozhd radio, said Tuesday.

"He was a man who did everything for his own life, but who did not fulfill all the political promises he made," said Moscow resident Olga Dmitrievna.

Television reports on Yeltsin on the day after his death were relatively brief and perfunctory for someone who played such an important historical role.

Russia's deep ambivalence about the man has raised questions about how many mourners will file past his coffin or line city streets for the funeral procession. Even if there are crowds, it's likely they will be smaller than for the funerals of Soviet leaders, when public viewings could last for days.