(Adds comment from coal mine in paragraph 12)

By Dmitry Solovyov

NOVOKUZNETSK, Russia, March 22 (Reuters) - Inside her small flat in a crumbling apartment block, Lyubov Ryuchkova mourned her husband and son who lay in open coffins in the living room.

Dozens of funerals were held in western Siberia on Thursday for victims of Russia's worst mining disaster since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when a gas explosion killed at least 108 people at the Ulyanovskaya mine.

Dmitry, 23, joined his father Vladimir down the pit a year ago after his previous employer went bankrupt, explained family friend Vasily Soldatenkov.

"It was, in a way, a family dynasty. Who would have thought they would die on the same working shift?"

Dmitry looked serene and handsome. Vladimir, blackened and swollen from the explosion, was almost unrecognisable from the nearby photograph of a smiling, moustachioed man.

Talking to her loved ones as if they were still alive, Ryuchkova whispered final words of affection.

Hundreds of neighbours came to pay their respects before the two coffins were carried to the graveyard. People threw red carnations on the snow as the cortege passed by in the street.

About 60 funerals were taking place on Thursday in towns around the mine, located 3,500 km (2,220 miles) east of Moscow.

In nearby Novokuznetsk, mourners were delivered in buses to the bleak cemetery and then had to wait their turn in the freezing cold to bury their dead.

The hasty ceremonies were conducted without the traditional trappings of Russian funerals, like a brass band.

Four days after the blast, emergency services were still trying to find two men missing in the mine. Flooding prevented rescuers searching part of the warren of tunnels where the men were thought to be, and pumping out the water could take days.

Yuzhkuzbassugol, the Russian company that owns the mine, said in a statement that financial losses from the disaster would total no more than 720 million roubles ($28 million). Normal operations will resume on July 1.

President Vladimir Putin had declared Wednesday a day of mourning for the victims of the explosion, and for 62 people killed in a fire at an old people's home and six victims of a weekend plane crash.

Ryuchkova's brother also perished in the blast and he was being mourned elsewhere. Many of the bodies recovered from the mine were so badly mutilated they are still to be identified.

"Coal comes at a very high price, but there's no way out: in order to earn more, you need to choose more dangerous jobs underground," said Soldatenkov.

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