President Vladimir Putin will make his annual state-of-the-nation address to the upper house of the Russian parliament April 26, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Tuesday quoting the Kremlin press service.

Putin moved his address to the Federal Assembly from Wednesday to Thursday and declared Wednesday, April 25, a National Day of Mourning in observance of the passing of former President Boris Yeltsin, who died Monday, aged 76, the Kremlin press service said Monday.

Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first ever democratically elected leader (1991-1999), died of long-term heart trouble.

“Thanks to Boris Yeltsin’s strong will and direct initiative, a whole new epoch has started and a new Russia was born — a free state open to the world,” Putin said in a TV address.

He said Yeltsin will be buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery, the most famous cemetery in Russia, April 25.

The former president died at 3:45 p.m. Moscow time (11.45 a.m. GMT) in a Moscow hospital of chronic heart problems, which resulted in massive organ failure, Sergei Mironov, the top Kremlin doctor, said.

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