As church bells tolled to mark the end of the church service, the casket was swiftly taken away. Some mourners were able to breach the police cordons and reach the gate to hug Navalny’s mother. Others said to her: “Thank you for your son.”
Despite official warnings, tens of thousands of people thronged the wide streets of Maryino and marched in frigid weather for half an hour to the other side of the Moskva river to Borisovskoye cemetery.
Numerous police squads were on standby and did not interfere.
Neither Navalny’s wife, two children or brother, who all live in exile abroad, attended the funeral, fearing an immediate arrest.
To mark their presence at the funeral, the family ordered a wreath of white carnations with a ribbon saying: “To our sweet, darling and eternally loved husband and father.”
In a message on Instagram on Friday, Yulia Navalnaya, the politician’s widow, who last month vowed to keep up Navalny’s work, wrote of her love and devotion to her partner of 26 years.
‘He was so much fun’
“I don’t know how to live without you, but I will try to make sure you will be happy for me and proud of me out there. I don’t know if I can do it but I will try,” she said.
Two close allies of Navalny’s who hosted a live show on Friday commenting on the broadcast of the funeral visibly struggled with emotion.
“He was a brilliant man. He was so much fun to be around,” said Leonid Volkov, his former campaign chief.
“We’re going to work hard to keep up his work. We’re going to try to do our best to make him proud.”
At the cemetery, the politician’s parents planted kisses on the pale forehead of Navalny, and his mother covered his face with a burial shroud before the lid was closed and the coffin was lowered into the grave to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s My Way, one of his favourite songs.
The string quartet then played the closing soundtrack from Terminator 2 – his favourite film, which his allies said they used to make fun of.
