Well, I must say that I'm not a Michael Jackson fan at all, but what I've heard just now on TV really stunned me. Maybe it's not good, to begin a discussion about cultural differences and so on using such a sad occasion as someone's death, but I just cannot help myself.
I was very very much shocked to hear that the farewell will be... 'paid'. I mean that people should buy TICKETS for getting into the place where the ceremony will happen. I can't even imagine that the Oleg Yankovsky farewell, for example, would be PAID. At ours, when an actor or a singer who was well-known and beloved by people dies, a гражданская панихида (civil funeral rites) takes place in the theatre where he worked or some another... concert hall, or something. EVERYONE can come and get into the theatre, and ONLY if there are no more free seats or places where people could stand, the theatre management can close the admission. Freshly, a very very very famous Russian singer, Ludmila Zykina died. Today, the farewell ceremony took place in the center where she worked, and now it is going on in the the Cathedral of the Redeemer in Moscow. OF COURSE it is all FREE. Everyone who wants can come and see her, and say his own farewell to her. I just don't understand how it could be paid...............
I understand that one could say that it was the decision of his family, but our "stars" have families, too, and no one of those families never made some 'paid' farewell. It looks just impossible for people here...