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Late
Polish President, Lech Kaczynski and his wife, who died in a Plane
crash last week were yesterday buried at the Wawel cathedral, the
coronation site of virtually all of Poland’s monarchs despite protest
and online petitions by some Poles against burying the Kaczynskis’ in
such a hallowed spot.

After a solemn
mass, two gun carriages carried the coffins of Mr Kaczynski and his
wife Maria, draped in the red-and-white national flag, through the
streets to their final resting place in Wawel cathedral located high
above Poland’s ancient capital.

Tens of thousands
of Poles chanted “Lech Kaczynski, we thank you” and waved flags and
banners of the 1980s anti-communist Solidarity movement which the
combative nationalist and devout Roman Catholic once helped to build.

Their coffins were
then laid to rest in the cathedral’s crypt – a hallowed spot for Poles
usually reserved for their kings, leading poets and national heroes.
Some Poles have staged protest rallies and joined petitions on social
media site against the decision to bury Kaczynski at Wawel, saying he
did not deserve such an honour.

Mr Kaczynski, his
wife and 94 other senior Polish political and military officials died
when their plane crashed in thick fog near Smolensk in western Russia
on April 10 while flying to the Katyn forest to mark the 70th
anniversary of the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals
by Soviet secret police.

“President Lech
Kaczynski’s testament must be fulfilled through rapprochement and
reconciliation (with Russia),” Acting President,

Bronislaw Komorowski told mourners in Krakow’s mediaeval St Mary’s Basilica.

The leaders of
Poland and Russia attending the funeral said on yesterday that the
death in a plane crash in Russia must serve as a catalyst for
reconciliation between the two Slavic nations.

Russian President,
Dmitry Medvedev who braved the closure of Europe’s air space caused by
a volcanic ash cloud to attend the funeral in Krakow while speaking to
Polish television, said “in view of these heavy losses I believe we can
make serious efforts to draw our nations closer together, to develop
economic relations and find solutions to the most difficult problems,
including Katyn.” The Kremlin leader’s presence was ironic in view of
Kaczynski’s frequent criticism of what he called Russia’s “imperialism”
towards ex-Soviet republics such as Georgia. In his five years as
president, Kaczynski never visited Moscow.

Other mourners included the presidents of Germany, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Georgia.

U.S. President
Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
Nicolas Sarkozy were among those forced by the ash cloud to abandon
plans to attend Kaczynski’s funeral.

The funeral crowned
a week of unprecedented national mourning for the Kaczynskis and the
other crash victims which had more than 180,000 people queue in Warsaw,
day and night to view the coffins at the presidential palace which has
been on display on public display since Tuesday and also at the city’s
cathedral.

Kaczynski was a polarising figure whose support levels had fallen to
about 20 percent before his death. He had been expected to lose a
presidential election due in the autumn and now expected to take place
on June 20.