Thousands of individuals crowded a neighborhood on Moscow’s outskirts on Friday — some bearing flowers and chanting, “No to war!” — as they tried to catch a glimpse of the funeral for Aleksei A. Navalny. The outpouring turned the opposition chief’s final rites right into a putting show of dissent in Russia at a time of deep repression.
The service passed off below tight monitoring from the Russian authorities, who’ve arrested a whole bunch of mourners at memorial websites since Mr. Navalny died. The police presence was heavy across the church the place funeral companies started shortly after 2 p.m. native time, however there have been no reviews of widespread arrests as of the early afternoon.
After a procession to the cemetery, Mr. Navalny’s coffin was positioned subsequent to his freshly dug grave. Video stay streamed from the location confirmed his members of the family after which different mourners kissing him goodbye for the final time. Then his face was coated with a white fabric and the coffin was lowered to the Frank Sinatra track “My Way” after which the ultimate track from “Terminator 2,” which Mr. Navalny thought of “the best film on Earth.” Mourners slowly handed by, every taking a handful of filth and tossing it into the grave.
People had chanted Mr. Navalny’s final title earlier as his coffin was taken into the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church in southern Moscow. Images on social media confirmed attendees lining up, but additionally safety cameras that the native news media reported had been just lately put in, and indicators forbidding mourners to take footage or video within the church.
{A photograph} taken contained in the church and proven on Mr. Navalny’s YouTube channel confirmed him in an open coffin, mendacity in repose with crimson and white flowers over his physique. His mother and father held lit candles. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to hold on his political actions, and his youngsters, Daria and Zakhar, who now not stay in Russia, didn’t seem like current.
As the funeral was ending, Ms. Navalnaya shared a put up on the social platform X devoted to her husband.
“Lyosha, thank you for 26 years of absolute happiness,” she wrote, utilizing her husband’s nickname. “Yes, even over the last three years of happiness,” she stated, referring to the time Mr. Navalny was in jail. “I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try to make you up there happy for me and proud of me.”
Outside the church, individuals chanted, “Thank you, Aleksei” and “Love is stronger than fear,” in response to movies from the scene. As they gathered subsequent to the cemetery, mourners cried out, “peace for Ukraine — freedom for Russia!” Mourners who got here within reach of Mr. Navalny’s mom stated “thank you for your son!” One observer, the Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, stated in a Facebook put up that she believed “tens of thousands” of individuals had assembled. There was no technique to confirm that determine.
Around 3:15 p.m., movies confirmed the group tossing flowers onto the street because the funeral cortège left the church for the cemetery.
Almost 270,000 individuals have been watching a livestream of the occasion organized by Mr. Navalny’s allies, whereas about 150,000 watched protection on YouTube by the unbiased TV Rain, in response to figures offered by the streaming platform.
The Navalny workforce accused the authorities of making an attempt to stop individuals from sharing images and movies of the scene. Mikhail Klimaryov, the director of a Russian web freedom group, the Internet Protection Society, stated his group’s knowledge confirmed that cellphone service within the space had been decreased to the lower-bandwidth 3G normal and described it as a “mobile shutdown.”
Opposition politicians, together with Boris Nadezhdin, who sought to run towards President Vladimir V. Putin in elections this month on an antiwar platform, and Evgeny Roizman of Yekaterinburg have been in attendance, movies of the occasion confirmed. The United States ambassador to Russia, Lynne M. Tracy, was additionally seen in movies of the location outdoors the church.
Some individuals traveled from distant to attend the funeral. Anastasia, 19, had flown in from Novosibirsk, 1,800 miles from Moscow, to be current.
“I came here because this is a historic event,” she stated in a voice message from the neighborhood the place the church service was held. “I think that he is a freer man than all of us,” she stated of Mr. Navalny. “He lived as a free man and died as a free man.”
In Russia, it’s thought of dangerous luck to offer residing individuals a good variety of flowers in a bouquet — these are reserved for funerals. But Anastasia stated that many mourners carried bouquets with an odd quantity, “because for them, Navalny lives on.”
When requested on Friday whether or not he may touch upon Mr. Navalny’s political legacy, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, stated, “I can’t.” He steered the Kremlin would crack down on anybody who sought to protest in the course of the funeral. “Any unsanctioned gatherings will be in violation of the law,” Mr. Peskov instructed reporters throughout a each day cellphone name.
The funeral was not talked about among the many prime tales on the state news businesses RIA Novosti or TASS.
Mr. Navalny’s funeral was held throughout a interval of intense crackdown, and fewer than three weeks earlier than Mr. Putin seeks one other six-year time period in elections scheduled for mid-March.
At least 400 individuals have been detained since Mr. Navalny’s demise, in response to the watchdog OVD-Info, together with some for merely laying flowers at improvised memorials to him. A priest who sought to carry a funeral prayer for Mr. Navalny in St. Petersburg was detained whereas leaving his home.
Hours earlier than the deliberate mourning rites, Mr. Navalny’s household had not acquired his physique from a Moscow morgue, a spokeswoman stated. But the physique was finally handed over round 12:30 p.m. native time, she stated.
In the previous two weeks, members of Mr. Navalny’s workforce complained repeatedly concerning the issue of negotiating with the Russian authorities to have Mr. Navalny’s physique launched to his household, which took days, and agreeing on a spot to carry the funeral companies.
Members of his workforce described issue persuading a church, a cemetery and even a hearse to participate within the burial, saying that the authorities wished to stop Mr. Navalny’s funeral from changing into a flashpoint for dissent.
On Thursday, allies of Mr. Navalny, who was 47, described systemic stress on all hearse operators, saying that a number of that had agreed to take Mr. Navalny’s physique from the church to the cemetery had pulled out on the final minute, citing threats. His workforce and his spouse blamed the Kremlin and Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Their assertions couldn’t be independently verified.
“People in the Kremlin killed him, then they mocked Alexei’s body, then they mocked his mother, and now they mock his memory,” Ms. Navalnaya wrote on Wednesday.
According to Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, the official medical report concluded that the reason for demise was “natural causes,” which his household, supporters and human rights watchdogs dispute. In the previous 12 months and a half, Mr. Navalny was ordered to spend 296 days in a punishment isolation cell, recognized in Russian as “SHIZO.” It is taken into account essentially the most extreme type of authorized punishment for inmates in Russian prisons.
“They tortured him with hunger, they tortured him with cold,” his aide Leonid Volkov stated throughout a livestream of the funeral on Mr. Navalny’s YouTube channel. For half a 12 months, he was suing to get entry to a dentist, which was finally denied.
On Friday, the regional department of a fee that displays circumstances in Russian prisons stated it discovered “no significant violations” within the notoriously harsh penal colony the place Mr. Navalny died. When requested if the dissident’s demise got here up in the course of the inspection, the fee’s native chairperson stated it had not.
The Kremlin has rejected the household’s accusations of its involvement, and Mr. Putin has not commented publicly on Mr. Navalny’s demise. But the Russian chief licensed the promotion of the deputy director of the nation’s Federal Penitentiary Service, Valery Boyarinev, simply three days after Mr. Navalny’s demise.
And Mr. Putin appeared defiant on Thursday in an annual speech, threatening the West with nuclear escalation and praising Russia’s political system as “one of the foundations of the country’s sovereignty.”
While Mr. Navalny opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the church the place his funeral service was held has proven public help for it. Photos posted on its VK social media web page on Monday confirmed clergymen in entrance of the church with a Lada automobile purchased for troopers taking part in what Russia calls its “Special Military Operation.”
There was a concern that anybody who got here to the funeral might be added to a database and probably penalized at a later date, a rights lawyer, Evgeny Smirnov, instructed TV Rain. Mr. Navalny’s group shared data providing authorized consultations to individuals planning to mourn him.
Anton Troianovski, Tatiana Firsova and Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Berlin, and Alina Lobzina from London.
Source: www.nytimes.com