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Thousands of Russians gathered to pay their respects to Alexei Navalny outside a church in southeast Moscow ahead of the opposition leader’s burial on Friday.
Defying the Kremlin’s promise of a crackdown and a heavy police presence, mourners chanted “Russia will be free!”, sang dirges and held flowers in the air.
The memorial ceremony was held at the Soothe My Sorrows church in Marino, the neighborhood where Navalny lived for many years before he was poisoned with the nerve agent novichok in 2020. He was then buried in the nearby Borisovsky cemetery.
Navalny, Russia’s most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine, died last month in a remote Arctic prison colony at the age of 47. His widow Yulia Navalnaya and the exile team have accused Putin of ordering his murder to scupper his release to Russia. an exchange of prisoners.
The Kremlin rejected the accusations, while investigators in charge of the inquiry said Navalny died of natural causes.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had nothing to say to Navalny’s relatives and declined to comment on his political stature, according to state newswire RIA Novosti.
Peskov said anyone who protested at the funeral would face a police crackdown. “We must remind you that there is a law and it must be obeyed: any unauthorized gathering will be against the law. So anyone who takes part in it will be held accountable under the law,” he said.
Footage on social media showed a heavy police presence outside the church in what Navalny’s team said was a Kremlin-directed attempt to limit public displays of support.
Despite this, crowds gathered in and around the church, according to witness Igor. On the road leading to the cemetery a long queue had formed in a calm atmosphere, he said. Although people brought flowers, the atmosphere was more political than sad, he said.
“It’s worth coming here just to feel inspired. . . by the amount of people who were not afraid to come,” she said. “They used every possible method to scare people. Yet it really feels like there are tens of thousands of people here today.”
Navalny’s parents were among a small group of people who paid their respects inside the church.
As the hearse drove away, mourners threw flowers and chanted “Thank you!”, according to video posted by Navalny’s team on social media.
“There are so many people. It’s a real protest. I think they will gather everyone a little later,” said Nika, 35, an events manager who stood outside the church but she left before the burial for fear of being arrested.
“People are afraid. A group was singing a funeral song softly and the boy next to me burst into tears,” she added. “But I’m so happy I went. There were so many people and I got to look them in the eye.”
In the days after Navalny’s death, police arrested around 400 people who had left flowers on monuments to Soviet political prisoners. Her mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, said officials in northern Russia refused to hand over her body for a week and threatened to let it rot unless she agreed to bury it in secret.
Once authorities released his body, Navalny’s team said funeral homes refused to hold a wake for him or provide a hearse after receiving anonymous threats.
Navalny has spent the last three years in prison after being poisoned with the nerve agent, convalescing abroad and returning to Moscow in 2021. He was sentenced to decades behind bars on a series of charges ranging from tax evasion to ‘extremism, with the Kremlin banning his foundation and forcing most of his followers into exile.
Ekaterina, 29, a project manager, said she had initially been “a little scared” to go because of the threat of arrest.
“For 15 minutes I walk along the line [of mourners] and it doesn’t seem to end. It’s comforting to feel solidarity, even if it’s for such a tragic reason,” she said. She took her passport, some food and a flask of tea with her in case she was arrested and had to spend “longer than expected in a police station”.
“It is important to show that we remember and that there are many of us,” he added. “We don’t believe that if the opposition leader is killed, it’s over and we should just lock ourselves in our apartments and never come out again.”