Lengthy traces of individuals, some holding flowers, had been forming in Moscow on Friday for the funeral companies for Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most outstanding opposition determine, two weeks after his mysterious demise in a distant Arctic penal colony.
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.
Planning for the service was happening below strain from the Russian authorities, who’ve arrested a whole bunch of mourners at memorial websites since Mr. Navalny died. Police presence was heavy across the church the place funeral companies had been resulting from happen on Friday afternoon.
The companies had been being held on the Church of the Icon of the Mom of God Soothe My Sorrows, a Russian Orthodox church in southern Moscow. Photos on social media confirmed attendees lining up, but additionally safety cameras that the native information media reported had been lately put in, and indicators forbidding mourners to take footage or video within the church.
Nonetheless, Ivan Zhdanov, who, like a lot of Mr. Navalny’s closest associates, is in exile outdoors Russia, inspired individuals to return to the church, saying that the police had not been arresting mourners, as many had feared.
“Persons are coming to say farewell, and nobody is touching them,” Mr. Zhdanov mentioned. “Those that need to come to say farewell can achieve this.”
Prior to now two weeks, members of Mr. Navalny’s workforce complained repeatedly in regards to the issue 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 workforce described issue persuading a church, a cemetery and even a hearse to participate within the burial, saying that the authorities needed to forestall Mr. Navalny’s funeral from turning 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 workforce and his spouse blamed the Kremlin and Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Their assertions couldn’t be independently verified.
“Two persons are responsible for the truth that we should not have a spot for a civil memorial service and farewell to Alexei — Vladimir Putin and Sergei Sobyanin,” Mr. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, wrote on the social platform X on Wednesday.
“Individuals within the Kremlin killed him, then they mocked Alexei’s physique, then they mocked his mom, and now they mock his reminiscence,” she added. “We don’t need any particular therapy — simply to provide individuals the chance to say goodbye to Alexey usually.”
Whereas Mr. Navalny opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the church the place he will likely be buried has proven public assist for it. Images posted on its VK social media web page on Monday confirmed clergymen in entrance of the church with a Lada automobile purchased for troopers collaborating in what Russia calls its “Particular Army Operation.”
Two days earlier than, a submit confirmed letters despatched by younger parishioners to troopers for “Defenders of the Fatherland” day, a vacation celebrating veterans.
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.
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 an order selling 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.”
Mr. Navalny’s funeral takes place 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 individuals have been detained since Mr. Navalny’s demise, in accordance 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.
Certainly one of Russia’s most revered rights activists, Oleg Orlov, whose group Memorial shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail over a chunk he wrote condemning the invasion of Ukraine.
The native information media reported on Friday that the police had been analyzing the passports of each attendee at Mr. Navalny’s funeral throughout a safety verify earlier than entry to the church. These reviews couldn’t be independently confirmed.
There was a concern that anybody who got here to the funeral might be added to a database and presumably penalized at a later date, a rights lawyer, Evgeny Smirnov, instructed the impartial tv station Rain. Mr. Navalny’s group shared info providing authorized consultations to individuals planning to mourn him.