Under a heavy police presence, thousands of people bid farewell to opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday at his funeral in Moscow after his still unexplained death two weeks ago in a penal colony in the Arctic.
Alexei Navalny was buried in a cemetery in the snowy southeastern suburbs of the capital after a short Russian Orthodox ceremony. Vast crowds waited outside the church and then flocked to the fresh grave of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, with flowers and anti-government chants.
Although riot police set up barricades in front of the church and cemetery, no arrests were reported.
His wife absent at his funeral
Mr. Navalny’s widow, Yulia, who was not seen at the funeral, thanked Mr. Navalny for “26 years of absolute happiness“.
“I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try to do it in such a way that you up there will be proud of me and happy for me“, she wrote on Instagram.
The ceremony took place following a battle with authorities over the release of his body. His team said several Moscow churches had refused to hold funerals for the man who had embarked on a crusade against official corruption and staged massive protests.
Many Western leaders blamed the death of the opponent on Vladimir Putin. An accusation that the Kremlin has rejected.
Mr. Navalny’s team eventually obtained permission from the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Ease My Sorrows, which was surrounded by crowd control barriers.
When the coffin was removed from the hearse and carried inside the church, the crowd waiting outside began respectfully applauding, then chanting: “Navalny! “Navalny! Navalny!” Some also shouted: “You weren’t afraid, neither were we!”, then “No to war!”, “Russia without Putin!” and “Russia will be free!”
Presence of Western diplomats
Western diplomats, including US Ambassador Lynne Tracy, were present, as were presidential candidates Boris Nadezhdine and Yekaterina Duntsova. Both wanted to run against Putin in the upcoming presidential elections and oppose his war in Ukraine; neither was allowed to participate in the vote.
Images from inside the church showed an open coffin with Navalny’s body covered in red and white flowers, and his parents, Lyudmila and Anatoly, sitting next to the coffin.
Mr. Navalny’s closest aides live outside Russia and made comments during the live broadcast of the funeral on his YouTube channel, their voices at times wavering with emotion.
“People who follow what is happening know that this man is a hero of our country, who we will not forget“said Kaliningrad native Nadezhda Ivanova, who was outside the church with other well-wishers. “What was done to her is incredibly difficult to accept and overcome.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged people gathering in Moscow and other places not to break the law, saying that all “unauthorized (mass) gathering” constituted a violation.
