MOSCOW, April 18 (Itar-Tass) — People in Moscow are to pay their last respects to People's Actor of Russia Alexander Porokhovshchkov on Wednesday. Civil funeral rites are to begin at 10:30 and continue until 13:00 at Moscow's A.S. Pushkin Drama Theatre where the actor had worked for years.
A theatre official pointed out that a funeral service is to be held at the church of Rozhdestveno Township outside Moscow and interment is to take place there. According to the actor's will, he will be buried in a grave near his mother.
Porokhovshchikov died on the night from April 14 to15 at a Moscow hospital where he had been undergoing medical treatment for several months. He suffered for long from diabetes. The disease led to gangreene. Part of foot had to be amputated. Early in March Porokhovshchikov was hospitalized after a heart attack.
An obituary, made available to Itar-Tass by the theatre press service, reads, in part, as follows: "Alexander Porokhovshchikov is a theatre and cinema legend, the idol of millions of theatre- and cinema-goers, one of the brightest luminaries in the constellation of the great actors of the post-war generation. The characters impersonated by Porokhovshchikov in the theatre and cinema were invariably notable for inner monumentality, inner aristocratism, and inimitable charm".