Hundreds of individuals crowded a neighborhood on Moscow’s outskirts on Friday — some bearing flowers and chanting, “No to conflict!” — 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 placing 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 lot 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 experiences 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 Method” after which the ultimate track from “Terminator 2,” which Mr. Navalny considered “the most effective 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 in addition safety cameras that the native information media reported had been lately put in, and indicators forbidding mourners to take photos 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 purple 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 youngsters, Daria and Zakhar, who not stay in Russia, didn’t seem like current.
Because the funeral was ending, Ms. Navalnaya shared a submit 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 over the past three years of happiness,” she mentioned, referring to the time Mr. Navalny was in jail. “I don’t know easy methods to stay with out you, however I’ll attempt to make you up there blissful for me and happy with me.”
Exterior the church, individuals 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 within reach of Mr. Navalny’s mom mentioned “thanks in your son!” One observer, the Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, mentioned in a Fb submit that she believed “tens of hundreds” of individuals had assembled. There was no option 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.
Virtually 270,000 individuals had 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 individuals from sharing photographs and movies of the scene. Mikhail Klimaryov, the director of a Russian web freedom group, the Web Safety Society, mentioned his group’s knowledge confirmed that cellphone service within the space had been lowered to the lower-bandwidth 3G customary and described it as a “cellular 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 had 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 individuals 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 mentioned 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 mentioned of Mr. Navalny. “He lived as a free man and died as a free man.”
In Russia, it’s thought of unhealthy luck to present residing individuals an excellent variety of flowers in a bouquet — these are reserved for funerals. However Anastasia mentioned 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, mentioned, “I can’t.” He advised the Kremlin would crack down on anybody who sought to protest in the course of the funeral. “Any unsanctioned gatherings might be in violation of the regulation,” Mr. Peskov informed reporters throughout a every day telephone name.
The funeral was not talked about among the many prime tales on the state information 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 the very least 400 individuals have been detained since Mr. Navalny’s demise, 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 acquired his physique from a Moscow morgue, a spokeswoman said. However the physique was finally handed over round 12:30 p.m. native time, she mentioned.
Up to now two weeks, members of Mr. Navalny’s staff complained repeatedly concerning 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 companies.
Members of his staff described problem persuading a church, a cemetery and even a hearse to participate within the burial, saying that the authorities needed to stop Mr. Navalny’s funeral from changing into a flashpoint for dissent.
On Thursday, allies of Mr. Navalny, who was 47, described systemic strain 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 keeping with Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, the official medical report concluded that the reason for demise was “pure causes,” which his household, supporters and human rights watchdogs dispute. Up 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 of probably 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 mentioned 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 circumstances in Russian prisons mentioned it discovered “no vital 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 mentioned 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. However the Russian chief approved 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 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 automobile purchased for troopers taking part in what Russia calls its “Particular Navy 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 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.
