“Bring your passport. Keep a copy of the detainee hotline. Bring water, a fully charged phone and a power bank,” one post said. Navalny's team, now working in exile, has also offered to pay any fines imposed on protesters.
Navalny, who has been President Vladimir Putin's most prominent rival, has often urged his supporters not to be afraid. In the days after his death on Friday at the age of 47 — his team says it was a state-sponsored murder — hundreds responded to Navalny's call, risking arrest in Russia's oppressive wartime climate and braving harsh winter temperatures, to contribute piles of flower bouquets. , which in some cases were quickly swept away by the authorities.
In other cases, mourners were swept away: at least 366 people They have been arrested in 36 cities, including 200 in St. Petersburg, according to the monitoring group OVD-Info, which tracks arrests. More than 29,000 people also put their names on a petition demanding that Navalny's body be handed over to his family. His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, traveled on Saturday to the town above the Arctic Circle where she died, but was unable to bring her back. His remains.
Just as the authorities delayed Navalnaya's right to bury her son, they initially seemed intent on depriving Navalny's supporters of any right to grieve. Video clips spread on social media showing brutal arrests of people carrying banners at memorials. Teenagers were arrested for laying flowers for a man who many believed was Russia's Nelson Mandela, the persecuted dissident who would one day emerge from prison and lead his country to a democratic future.
Some of the detainees now face up to two weeks in prison. In some towns, memorials were destroyed by groups of security personnel. Saturday in Moscow, at the bridge where Putin critic Boris Nemtsov was shot dead In 2015, and since then it has served as a symbolic memorial, with men who identified themselves as “volunteers” tearing up flowers and smashing candles.
“I am a volunteer fighting traitors to the homeland,” a masked man said when a mourner challenged him. “Glory to Russia!”
But by Sunday, the mood had changed in Moscow, at least as the authorities seemed to accept that it was better to allow a steady stream of people to pay their respects. Really, what harm could it do: their hero – and their hopes – are dead.
At the Solovetsky Stone — a monument honoring the victims of the Soviet gulags, which is located across from Lubyanka, a notorious KGB prison that is now the headquarters of its successor, the Federal Security Service — a Washington Post reporter watched 100 or so people approach From the memorial. For an hour, holding red carnations and tulips.
Many cried. Some offered prayers.
Mourners were politely directed by the dozen or so police officers who stood around the memorial and ordered them not to spend more than a few minutes at the quarantine. Someone had placed a picture of Navalny and his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, in the middle of the legs. She was now immersed under snow and red roses.
The young couple, Yevgeny (26 years old) and Yulia (24 years old), who asked to be identified by their first names only for fear of repercussions, were immersed in tears. They said they have attended every protest led by Navalny since 2019 together.
“He was our chance for freedom – with him, we had real hope that everything could change,” Yulia said.
He was a politician who truly loved Russia and its people. “He tried to change what he could and actually talked to people,” Yevgeny said, wiping his eyes.
The couple said they were surprised by the behavior of the police officers on Sunday. They said they prepared for arrest and brought their passports and the phone number of a lawyer.
Ilya Aminyan brought his 3-year-old son, Joseph, to lay flowers. “This is one of those moments where we have to unite and be here together,” Aminian said. “Such a person should not die this way, especially at a time like this.” Amenyan said he also participated in mass street protests led by Navalny — before he was poisoned, after he sought to run for president but was barred from the ballot due to trumped-up criminal convictions.
“He was a very important person — he became an icon,” Aminian said. “Honestly, he's become a legend.”
All of the mourners interviewed Sunday said they remembered the “unforgettable” scenes on Moscow's Sakharov Street when Navalny, first in 2011, then in 2019, led massive street marches against Putin and government corruption.
Across Sakharov Street, there is another memorial to political repression – known as the Wall of Tears – where a few people came Sunday to lay flowers. The site was cordoned off and there was a heavy police presence. Riot officers and plainclothes security personnel videotaped mourners and examined documents. People were given only a few minutes to pay their respects before being escorted away.
Putin, who made a point of almost never saying Navalny's name out loud, had yet to comment on his death as of Sunday. Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on Friday denounced accusations by world leaders that the Russian president was guilty, describing these accusations as “unacceptable.”
Among Navalny's friends and close associates, the reality of his death seemed to remain, but there was also no doubt in their minds about who was responsible. Navalny teamed up with the investigative news group Bellingcat to prove that a team of FSB agents was responsible for attacking him with a banned nerve agent in 2020. Last week, his colleagues claimed the Kremlin had finally “done it” – to use it. Putin's phrase.
“Alexey Navalny wanted one very simple thing: for his beloved Russia to be just an ordinary country,” Navalny’s chief of staff and longtime political advisor, Leonid Volkov, posted on X. He added: “That is why Vladimir Putin killed him.” He poisoned, imprisoned, tortured and killed him. “Murder is not an exaggeration, nor is it a metaphor.”
“You can't write about Alexei, he's dead,” Volkov continued. “This is not death, this is murder. Everything there is covered with cameras in the colony. His every step has been filmed from all angles for all these years. Every employee has a video recorder. For two days – there was not a single video: it was not leaked, it was not “Publish it. There's no room for uncertainty here.”
With most of Russia's political opposition, like Volkov, in exile, and with long prison sentences now handed down to even one dissident, mass protests in the wake of Navalny's death are practically unthinkable. Despite the emotional end to the long-standing bitter rivalry between Navalny and Putin, Navalny's death is unlikely to be a turning point, analysts said.
“Everyone is terrified, of course, but this is a certain circle of people,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “They are so few in number, they clearly cannot carry out any protests.” “There is a feeling that we are in a police state,” Kolesnikov added.
For some, it was enough to be able to get out this weekend and stand in the snow alongside other mourners. “People are so constantly afraid that they lose their minds,” said Yulia, a 24-year-old woman outside Lubyanka. “This is a dictatorship where you cannot express yourself.”
Others have found creative and less risky ways to express their opinions. Some Russians lit candles for Navalny in local churches — confident that Putin's regime, which has built a strong alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church — would not dare interfere with Sunday worship.
Others posted comments commemorating Navalny on YouTube, in the comments section titled “Alive,” the latest song by Russian pro-war pop singer Shaman, who dedicated the song to “all who suffer for the truth.”
“Navalny will live forever!” Post one comment.
Another post said sarcastically: “Thank you for this song in support of Alexei… Of course this song should become a hymn for all those who have suffered from injustice.”
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Putin critic and former Yukos oil tycoon who was imprisoned in Russia for a decade, urged citizens to write Navalny's name on the ballot paper during next month's presidential election.
Khodorkovsky said in statements to the Washington Post from his headquarters in London: “Putin must understand that even getting rid of the leaders will not rid him of his opponents.” The Russian opposition has lost one of its brightest and most important leaders. This is a very huge loss. We, the opposition, must respond to this crime with greater coordination and interaction.
Volkov, Navalny's chief of staff, said his boss would insist that the opposition keep fighting:
“His life’s work must win.”
Robyn Dixon, Marie Ilyushina and Natalia Abakumova in Riga, Latvia, and Catherine Bilton in London He contributed to this report.
