Goodbye Yeltsin

Yesterday I watched Yeltsin's funeral on TV at the workplace (NTV's signal extends to Ulaanbaatar). In the UK, state funerals have the coffin on top of a horse-drawn nineteenth century gun carriage - here, Yeltsin's coffin was on top of a late twentieth century equivalent, an armoured personnel carrier-drawn howitzer carriage. I was a little disappointed that the Funeral March was not played during the procession; instead, the band performed some other mournful tune for the procession. The Russian patriarchs walked closely behind the coffin - the first time in over 100 years that they have had a role to play in a proper state funeral.
In the cemetery, the guards made a right hash of folding up the Russian flag on the coffin, all on national live television. You could almost hear them think, "How does this go?" When the coffin lid was removed for Yeltsin's wife and daughters to pay their last respects, the ex-leader looked like he was covered up to the neck in a giant Kremlin souvenir teatowel. Then the lid was replaced, he was lowered into the ground and the broadcast stopped.
Later on that night, I had my departing drinks with the UB Post staff as I stepped down from my position as English editor.
After that, Altaa and I went to pub that was still open and showing Champions League football. I wanted to see Chelsea vs Liverpool at such a strange hour. There were plenty of Mongolian Chelsea and Liverpool fans present who got excited a bit excessively for a largely prosaic match, kicking off at 2.45am. It was like a pantomine crowd. The match itself was not the snoozeathon the same fixture two years ago was, but though there was plenty of aggression in terms of muscular football, it wasn't focused. Too much heat and not enough light. At least, there was the precious sight of a goal, an exquisite break from Chelsea's own penalty box that took in Carvalho, Drogba and Joe Cole running on to smash it in. That gave the match extra spice.
12.57pm