One million expected for Poland president's funeral

Updated at: 0400 PST, Saturday, April 17, 2010
KRAKOW: Poland's historic city of Krakow is preparing for a flood of up to one million mourners at Sunday's funeral of president Lech Kaczynski as the nation says its farewells after his death in an air crash.

"This will be one of the largest, if not the largest single event the city has seen over the last couple hundred years," Krakow city spokesman Filip Szatanik told media amid preparations for the ceremony.

"We're expecting as many as a million people based on our experience with pope John Paul II's pilgrimages -- one papal mass (here) attracted nearly two million," Szatanik said.

World leaders including US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev could be kept away from the funeral by the cloud of volcanic from Iceland that has played havoc with European air travel.

But the city authorities are still working on the assumption that they will be here, and are scrambling to prepare what for Krakow is an unprecedented security operation for almost 80 foreign delegations.

"We've had very little time, really just four days, but we are putting in place all the security measures," Szatanik said.

"There will be very restricted access to the areas where foreign guests are expected."

Polish mourners were already gathering Friday in the shadow of Krakow's historic Wawel Castle, once the seat of Polish kings, where Kaczynski and his wife Maria will be buried.