Your sadness is resistance: how people in Russia commemorate Alexei Navalny Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim: Journalist annoyed by announcement – now she clarifies

Varvara did not know Alexei Navalny personally. But she feels as if she has lost a good friend, says the 21-year-old from St. Petersburg. She was folding laundry at home when the push message came on her mobile phone: Navalny has died. It was then early afternoon. Until late in the evening she could not believe what she read. Navalny and his team were their hope for a better future for Russia.

As I suddenly walked through the prison. Authorities say the 47-year-old opposition politician and Russia’s top political prisoner died on February 16. For a long time, even Navalny’s family had no further information. On Saturday, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and the head of his anti-corruption foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, confirmed his death.

Just hours after Navalny’s death became known, Russian authorities had warned against participating in protests. Thousands were undeterred: despite a large police presence, people queued in central Moscow to leave flowers for Navalny. There were similar reports from St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and several other places. According to the human rights portal OWD-Info, more than 400 Navalny supporters were arrested in 36 cities.

“How great is the fear of the power apparatus for a dead person, when even laying flowers in his memory is considered a crime,” Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov wrote in Telegram.

She is crying for the second day in a row, said Nadin, 24. She came to the rally to pay tribute to Navalny and to feel some solidarity among like-minded people. Because almost no one in her personal environment speaks openly about what happened. That is very difficult for her.

Ekaterina, 20, is especially angry. “I just want to scream at everything and everyone.” She says Navalny’s death could be the end of all hope – or a turning point: “We will decide that.” Despite everything, Russia is her home and she will not leave it. She will stay until the end. Just like Navalny did.

In 2021, Navalny returned to Russia after surviving a poison attack. In Moscow he was arrested at the airport and sentenced to years in prison in various show trials. Since then, Navalny has been moved from one prison to another, most recently to Polarwolf Prison in Charp. The Yamal-Nenets prison camp in the Arctic is considered one of the toughest in Russia.

During this time, Navalny was locked up in a small isolation cell 27 times. Without daylight, without a real bed, without contact with other people. He was denied medical treatment. Yet a few days before his death he made jokes about the judge in a lawsuit.

Diana, 25, wrote a poem for Navalny, which she handed out on small yellow pieces of paper. To her, he was the person who said what she was thinking but was afraid to say out loud. The Russian people must not give up hope now. Navalny would not have wanted that. Diana wants to continue to resist as an artist and hopes for the day that another politician dies in Russia.

Meanwhile, authorities hold Navalny’s body. When his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, arrived in Charp on Saturday with members of his legal team, she was told in prison that they did not have her son’s body. He was said to have been taken to the town of Salekhard, just over an hour away, as part of an investigation into his death. “It is clear that they are lying and doing everything they can to prevent the body from being transferred,” Navalny’s spokeswoman wrote on the X platform.

Mikhail, 32, and Leila, 27, neither would describe themselves as supporters of Navalny. But he was also the voice of freedom for them. Thanks to him, everyone knew that there was still opposition in Russia. For Mikhail it is clear: the Russian state is killing and Putin is a murderer.

Leila feels shocked, just like after February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. She can hardly believe that the authorities would be so cold-blooded as to lock someone up – when he can’t do much – and then kill him there. She doesn’t see the point in it. In fact, the timing of Navalny’s death initially appears unfavorable for Russian President Vladimir Putin. After all, there will be elections in Russia in mid-March. And yet, in the end, Putin may have little to fear. As things stand, there are only three other candidates standing next to him who either openly support him or have no political profile themselves. With Navalny, one of his most stubborn opponents also disappears: no one has been able to demonstrate the Russian president so reliably.

Now on

Vera, 30, brought a card to the protest that read: “Alexei, thank you for your courage. You will be in our hearts forever.” She hoped to the end that one day the violence against Navalny would end. Russia must no longer act as an aggressor, but must cooperate with other states. Navalny was their island of hope .It’s gone down now.

Alice, 19, hopes there will be a successor to Navalny. Someone who can lead the Russian people and help them not to despair. “But I’m not sure that’s possible.”

A video clip of Navalny is now widely shared on social networks. It is an excerpt from the documentary Navalny by Canadian director Daniel Roher. The film was released in 2022, but was partially shot before Navalny was jailed. The opposition member says, among other things: “In the event that I am killed, my message is very simple: don’t give up!”

With material from the dpa press agency

This article first appeared on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Click here for the original.