Russians risk arrest and mourn Navalny in small acts of protest

For the second day in a row, mourners walked purposefully along Moscow's snow-covered Garden Ring on Saturday with bouquets to lay at one of the makeshift memorials for Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian opposition figure who was killed in a prison colony the day before.

The flowers, wrapped in paper to protect them from the icy wind, were not only a symbol of mourning. They also served as a form of protest in a country where even the mildest dissent risks detention. And the people who laid bouquets at the Wall of Sorrow, a monument to the victims of political persecution during the Stalin era, shared the belief that the Russian state was behind Mr Navalny's death.

“He didn't die, he was murdered,” said Alla, 75, a retiree who declined to give her last name because of possible repercussions.

“Theoretically we knew they wanted to destroy him,” said her friend Elena, 77, whose arm was intertwined with Alla's. “But when it happened it was such a shock, the senseless cruelty of it, just senseless.” She found out what had happened when her daughter and granddaughter called her in tears to share the news.

Both women were proud that people showed up to express their disagreement with the state, despite the sweeping crackdown on dissent since Russian President Vladimir V. Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Some who showed up paid the price. At least 359 people have been arrested across Russia since Mr Navalny's death was announced on Friday, according to the human rights group OVD-Info. Among them was a priest, Father Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko, who was due to hold a memorial service for Mr Navalny in St Petersburg.

It is the largest wave of arrests since protests against a general mobilization for the war in Ukraine in September 2022.

“They are trying to scare us so much that it is not possible to live,” said Elena, adding that she worried about the fate of hundreds of other political prisoners in Russia.

Fear kept Andrei, a 17-year-old in 11th grade, from buying flowers, but he wanted to come and see what was going on. He became angry when a passerby mocked mourners and questioned Mr. Navalny's legacy.

“What has he done for our country that deserves our prayers or mourning?” said Sergei, a retiree who also gave only his first name.

“What about smart voting?” Andrei ventured, referring to a system developed by Mr Navalny's team in 2018 that encouraged voters to unite around one opposition candidate in the hope of outdoing Mr Putin's loyalists.

“He was an empty man, just a puppet of the West,” Sergei replied.

As they spoke, dozens of police officers observed and interacted with people coming to the complex, and another group of riot police, positioned near paddy wagons, watched half a block away. The Wall of Sorrow, in central Moscow, is located on Sakharov Avenue, named after Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose activism was punished with twelve years of internal exile in Gorky, today known as Nizhny Novgorod.

The government has used the site to contain protest movements by making it the only permitted location when public pressure for a march has forced a response. Mr. Navalny regularly addressed demonstrations there.

For Olya, 39, the mounds of flowers and candles served as a rare but precious reminder that she is not the only one who wants a democratic, free Russia without war.

“At a time like this, it's so important to see that there are people who think like me,” she said, bringing roses to the Wall of Grief. Earlier, she said she had laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone, another monument to the victims of political repression, opposite the headquarters of the FSB, the successor to the KGB.

“And it's a shame that people come and go in a short period of time, and you can't see all the people who came by all day, who are constantly being asked to leave,” she added. “But you can see flowers.”

Protests are effectively banned in Russia, and the arrests over the past two days show the extent to which authorities are willing to suppress public expressions of anger or mourning.

“A responsible citizen who loves his homeland, was forced to leave it or tries to the last not to leave it, has only one weapon: a memorial candle,” wrote Andrei Kolesnikov, a Moscow-based commentator, in an op-ed he hopes soon to be published and calls them “the last weapon of a civilized, non-savage, person and citizen.”

On Friday, videos began circulating of men with their faces covered removing flowers from the Solovetsky Stone, which was interpreted as a sign that authorities do not want the extent of the outpouring of grief to become public.

Still, In Moscow, life largely continued as usual, with bustling restaurants and shopping streets. And news of Mr. Navalny's death, the makeshift memorials and the arrests were largely missing from news broadcasts on Saturday.

State television channels Rossiya24 and Rossiya-1 instead discussed the Munich Security Conference and the Russian capture of Avdiivka in Ukraine, and presented the 'Russia International Exhibition and Forum', a patriotic showcase showcasing the food, technology and culture of each of celebrates the country's regions. .

Russia's state-controlled Channel 1 mentioned Mr. Navalny only three times in its news bulletins, each lasting about 30 seconds and without mentioning that he was a politician or even giving the official reason for his imprisonment.

But for many gathered in Moscow, the memory of the protest will be indelible.

“One day, what we see may be in the history books,” whispered Andrei, the student, as police officers urged him and a New York Times journalist to leave the building. Watching the steady stream of people carrying flowers, and under increasing pressure from a police officer to move along, he slipped into an underground crosswalk with a request.

“Please remember that there are still many good people in this country,” he said.

Neil MacFarquhar Alina Lobzina, Milana Mazaeva And Oleg Matsnev reporting contributed.