Hundreds of individuals crowded a neighborhood on Moscow’s outskirts on Friday — some bearing flowers and chanting, “No to battle!” — 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 hanging show of dissent in Russia at a time of deep repression.
The service occurred 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 providers started shortly after 2 p.m. native time, however there have been no studies 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 reside streamed from the location confirmed his relations after which different mourners kissing him goodbye for the final time. Then his face was lined with a white fabric and the coffin was lowered to the Frank Sinatra tune “My Manner” after which the ultimate tune from “Terminator 2,” which Mr. Navalny thought-about “the perfect movie on Earth.” Mourners slowly handed by, every taking a handful of dust and tossing it into the grave.
Individuals had chanted Mr. Navalny’s final title earlier as his coffin was taken into the Church of the Icon of the Mom of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church in southern Moscow. Photographs on social media confirmed attendees lining up, but additionally safety cameras that the native information 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 pink and white flowers over his physique. His dad and mom held lit candles. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to hold on his political actions, and his kids, Daria and Zakhar, who now not reside in Russia, didn’t seem like current.
Because the funeral was ending, Ms. Navalnaya shared a put up on the social platform X devoted to her husband.
“Lyosha, thanks for 26 years of absolute happiness,” she wrote, utilizing her husband’s nickname. “Sure, even during the last three years of happiness,” she stated, referring to the time Mr. Navalny was in jail. “I don’t know methods to reside with out you, however I’ll attempt to make you up there joyful for me and pleased with me.”
Outdoors the church, folks chanted, “Thanks, Aleksei” and “Love is stronger than worry,” in keeping with movies from the scene. As they gathered subsequent to the cemetery, mourners cried out, “peace for Ukraine — freedom for Russia!” Mourners who got here nearby of Mr. Navalny’s mom stated “thanks in your son!” One observer, the Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, stated in a Fb put up that she believed “tens of 1000’s” of individuals had assembled. There was no method to confirm that determine.
Round 3:15 p.m., movies confirmed the gang tossing flowers onto the street because the funeral cortège left the church for the cemetery.
Nearly 270,000 folks 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 keeping with figures offered by the streaming platform.
The Navalny staff accused the authorities of making an attempt to stop folks from sharing images and movies of the scene. Mikhail Klimaryov, the director of a Russian web freedom group, the Web Safety Society, stated his group’s information confirmed that cellphone service within the space had been decreased to the lower-bandwidth 3G commonplace and described it as a “cell 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 US ambassador to Russia, Lynne M. Tracy, was additionally seen in movies of the location exterior the church.
Some folks traveled from far-off to attend the funeral. Anastasia, 19, had flown in from Novosibirsk, 1,800 miles from Moscow, to be current.
“I got here right here as a result of it is a historic occasion,” she stated in a voice message from the neighborhood the place the church service was held. “I believe that he’s 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-about dangerous luck to offer dwelling folks a good variety of flowers in a bouquet — these are reserved for funerals. However Anastasia stated that many mourners carried bouquets with an odd quantity, “as a result of 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 through the funeral. “Any unsanctioned gatherings can be in violation of the legislation,” Mr. Peskov informed reporters throughout a each day telephone name.
The funeral was not talked about among the many high tales on the state information companies 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.
A minimum of 400 folks have been detained since Mr. Navalny’s loss of life, in keeping with the watchdog OVD-Data, 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 obtained his physique from a Moscow morgue, a spokeswoman stated. However the physique was finally handed over round 12:30 p.m. native time, she stated.
Prior to now two weeks, members of Mr. Navalny’s staff complained repeatedly in regards to the problem 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 providers.
Members of his staff described problem 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 staff and his spouse blamed the Kremlin and Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Their assertions couldn’t be independently verified.
“Individuals within the Kremlin killed him, then they mocked Alexei’s physique, then they mocked his mom, and now they mock his reminiscence,” Ms. Navalnaya wrote on Wednesday.
In accordance with Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, the official medical report concluded that the reason for loss of life was “pure causes,” which his household, supporters and human rights watchdogs dispute. Prior to now yr and a half, Mr. Navalny was ordered to spend 296 days in a punishment isolation cell, identified in Russian as “SHIZO.” It’s thought-about essentially the most extreme type of authorized punishment for inmates in Russian prisons.
“They tortured him with starvation, they tortured him with chilly,” his aide Leonid Volkov stated throughout a livestream of the funeral on Mr. Navalny’s YouTube channel. For half a yr, he was suing to get entry to a dentist, which was finally denied.
On Friday, the regional department of a fee that screens situations in Russian prisons stated it discovered “no important violations” within the notoriously harsh penal colony the place Mr. Navalny died. When requested if the dissident’s loss of life got here up through 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 loss of life. However 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 loss of life.
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 many foundations of the nation’s sovereignty.”
Whereas Mr. Navalny opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the church the place his funeral service was held has proven public help for it. Pictures posted on its VK social media web page on Monday confirmed monks in entrance of the church with a Lada automotive purchased for troopers collaborating in what Russia calls its “Particular Army Operation.”
There was a worry 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, informed TV Rain. Mr. Navalny’s group shared info providing authorized consultations to folks planning to mourn him.
Anton Troianovski, Tatiana Firsova and Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting from Berlin, and Alina Lobzina from London.
