“For me today was the strongest reminder possible that politics in Russia is not dead, that people are not giving up and continue to believe in a future without dictatorships, injustice and war,” Roman, а 24-year-old Muscovite, who asked for his surname to be withheld for safety reasons, told POLITICO.
For years, Russia’s state apparatus has tried to turn Navalny into a toxic figure. After his jailing in early 2021, his entire network was branded an “extremist organization” forcing his close allies into exile and his supporters into silence.
The ultimate motivation
Tellingly, Navalny’s wife, Yulia, who has pledged to pick up the gauntlet from her husband, and the couple’s children, Daria and Zakhar, did not attend the funeral and remain outside Russia. They instead posted touching tributes on social media.
With fears of a crackdown running high ahead of the funeral, the rights group Pervy Otdel advised mourners to refrain from even carrying photos or images of the opposition leader — although there is no Russian law against it.
“Everything that has happened in recent years around Alexei Navalny indicates that when it comes to this man, the authorities don’t speak the language of the law, but that of the street or prison and brute force,” Dmitry Zair-Bek, a lawyer at Pervy Otdel, told POLITICO.
But if the Kremlin’s hope was that Navalny’s death would showcase its success in eradicating all opposition, it instead provided Russians with the ultimate motivation to emerge from hiding.
