A crowd of Russians gathered in front of the Moscow church where, on Friday, the funeral of opposition leader Alexei Navalny was to take place. Navalny had died two weeks earlier in an Arctic prison under circumstances that remained unclear.
The long queue of people who turned out at the Orthodox church in the Mariinsky district of Moscow, three hours before the ceremony began, was shown by Navalny’s team on social media.
“Come to pay your final respects to Alexei Navalny if you are in Moscow. Those who cannot be there for various reasons will appreciate the gesture”, wrote one of Navalny’s collaborators, Leonid Volkov, who is currently in exile, on the platform X.
At noon, Navalny’s allies planned to start a live broadcast from the funeral site, which would begin two hours later.
Currently, more than 25,000 people were waiting to view the transmission.
Among the Muscovites who attended the farewell, defying authorities’ warnings, were people of all ages, some holding red carnations in their hands.
Both beside the temple, where the vigil chapel was set up, and at the cemetery where the politician would be buried, metal barriers had been installed, and a significant police presence had been deployed.
On the cemetery’s streetlights, multiple surveillance cameras were placed, along with other devices that could serve as signal jammers for internet and mobile networks.
The Navalny family had reported for nine days the authorities’ refusal to deliver the politician’s body after his death.
The day before, Russian social networks circulated notices from some universities advising students not to attend demonstrations related to Navalny, under threat of expulsion.