Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia joined an estimated 100,000 mourners to pay their last respects to 36 players and staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team killed in an air crash on Wednesday.
Mr Putin walked silently past a line of coffins and placed red carnations beside them at a memorial ceremony on Saturday in the stadium at Yaroslavl, north of Moscow, where the team played.
Only two people survived the crash, which killed 36 players and team officials and seven crew when the plane came down on a river bank in a village near Yaroslavl shortly after takeoff.
The cause has not yet been determined.
