Police filmed everyone. Nobody hid. At Alexey Navalny’s grave, on the second anniversary of his death, his mother stood in the freezing cold and listened.
Two days before the second anniversary of Alexey Navalny’s death, five European countries declared that independent forensic analyses show the opposition leader was poisoned in prison. The substance reportedly used to kill Navalny was the neurotoxin epibatidine — an allegation Russian authorities dismissed as “a planted fabrication.” Even with Navalny dead and buried, officials in Moscow continue to monitor his final resting place. On February 16, as Navalny’s supporters gathered at Borisovskoe Cemetery to honor his memory, police waited, filming everyone who arrived. This did not stop people from laying flowers at his grave. The publication Bereg visited the cemetery on Monday to witness the day’s memorial service. Meduza translated that report into English below.
“I mean, how could you not come?” asked an elderly woman, breathing heavily in the cold, as she made her way to Borisovskoe Cemetery. In her hands was a bouquet wrapped tightly in a fresh daily newspaper. “I don’t usually take it, even though it’s free,” she said, referring to the paper. “It’s nothing but propaganda for [moscow mayor sergey] Sobyanin. But it finally turned out to be useful for something.” The woman walked ahead, unfazed by the cameras pointed at her by journalists and police. “There’s nothing left to be afraid of,” she said.
You’re currently reading Meduza, the world’s largest independent Russian news outlet. Every day, we bring you essential coverage from Russia and beyond. Explore our reporting here and follow us wherever you get your news.
This year, officers from the Interior Ministry’s “anti-extremism unit” watched not only Navalny’s grave but the entire length of Borisovskie Prudy Street leading to the cemetery, recording people who approached carrying flowers. They also photographed the elderly woman holding the bouquet in the newspaper. “If I’d known, I would have unwrapped the flowers ahead of time and made them look nice,” she joked, adding that the moment looked awkward, like she was hiding something. “But I’m not hiding anything!”
By 9 a.m., several dozen people had gathered at Alexey Navalny’s grave. Police officers in black balaclavas recorded continuously, but no one hid from their cameras. “He wasn’t afraid, and we’re not afraid either,” a young woman said quietly as she laid an armful of roses at the grave.
Later, officials from the British, German, and Polish embassies arrived at the cemetery and waited in a short line to lay flowers. They made no remarks.
By 10 a.m., Alla Abrosimova — Yulia Navalnaya’s mother — arrived along with Lyudmila Navalnaya, Alexey’s mother. Lyudmila laid an armful of scarlet roses, still in full bloom, on her son’s grave; they stood out against the other buds, which had closed in the cold. She reached up and touched the tip of the grave’s cross.
Among those who came to lend support were Valery and Tatyana Yashin, the parents of Ilya Yashin — an opposition politician and Navalny ally — who was exchanged for Russian spies in 2023 and now lives in Germany. “Ilyusha [ilya] was a friend of Alexey’s. We knew him for half our lives,” Valery said with a sigh. “The pain of losing him will stay with us forever. It is a deep and lasting pain.”
Soon, people began approaching Lyudmila Navalnaya one by one to express their condolences. They offered her words of gratitude “for such a son, for our Alexey.” Some said they were trying to make sense of “the legacy Navalny left to all of us” — channeling it into paintings and even theatrical works — though they acknowledged that none of it could be shown publicly until the dawn of what Navalny called “a beautiful Russia of the future.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya listened to each person and embraced those who reached out to hold her. One mourner bowed to the ground before her; another dropped to his knees. “Alexey made me who I am today,” another visitor told Navalny’s mother, and for the first time she wept.
For roughly 30 minutes, Lyudmila Navalnaya stood and listened as people approached her, one after another. The temperature in Moscow that morning had fallen to minus 13 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit). When she was offered a chance to walk around to keep warm, Navalnaya declined. A line of mourners stood before her, each person waiting to offer support and sympathy.
“Thank you, thank you. Your words, your prayers are what sustain us,” Lyudmila replied to each person who came forward. She repeated the remarks she had made at the same spot a year ago — that the whole world knows who ordered her son’s murder — and added: “And we want to identify everyone involved.”
A day earlier, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Sweden published a joint statement accusing Russia of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention. According to analyses conducted by multiple independent laboratories, Alexey Navalny was poisoned with epibatidine, a potent toxin found in a South American frog species and now synthesized in laboratories. The researchers who carried out that work at Russian laboratories were affiliated with the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology — the same institute that produced the Novichok nerve agent used in the 2018 attack on former spy Sergey Skripal and the 2020 attack on Navalny.
As was the case last year, the memorial service was led by Father Dimitry Safronov, a cleric at Moscow’s Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin. The same priest had also performed the funeral rites at Alexey’s burial — an act for which church authorities subsequently suspended him from clerical duties.
“Darkness has no agency,” Father Safronov told those gathered. “In the Gospel of John, there are remarkable words: that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. And so it is in our hearts — if there is light within us, darkness cannot swallow it. If that small spark in our hearts burns, then there is nothing to fear. Evil can only prevail if it enters our hearts.”
Someone in the crowd noticed that in the memorial prayer, Father Safronov referred to Navalny not as “the slain” or “the innocently slain,” but as “the one now commemorated.” He explained that this was “an accepted liturgical formula for days of remembrance of the departed.”
Among the crowd, people murmured about the missing monument at Alexey’s grave, even though his associates had raised money for one. They had held a design competition for a memorial, and a winning proposal was selected a year ago: two stone blocks with Navalny’s name spelled out in titanium or steel letters between them. The fundraising page had carried a hopeful note: “Work on realizing the design has already begun.”
The crowd kept coming. People moved through snowdrifts left behind by a blizzard that had swept through that morning. Snow settled on portraits of Alexey Navalny, drawings, flowers, rubber ducks — a nod to the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation targeting then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev — as well as candles and vigil lamps. Beneath the snow, hastily written signs remained visible: “Love is stronger than fear,” “Russia will reclaim its former strength,” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and “Lyosha [a diminutive of Alexey], we love you.”
On the crossbar of the simple wooden cross on Navalny’s grave, someone had placed a small golden sculpture depicting a heart made from two cupped hands — the gesture Alexey famously made to his wife, Yulia, in court.
Many visitors came to Navalny’s grave to leave flowers and handwritten notes, then remained there for hours. By midday, the grave was no longer visible, obscured by the crowd.
People sang a verse from “Ray of the Golden Sun,” featured in the 1973 animated short On the Trail of the Bremen Town Musicians:
The night will pass, a clear morning will come, / I know that happiness awaits us both, / The night will pass, the stormy time will pass, / The sun will rise.
The “Serenade of the Troubadour” gave way to songs by artists now designated in Russia as “foreign agents.” Several teenagers sang ”Abel Street” by rapper Noize MC, written in memory of Navalny:
Cain will repent — killing Abel was wrong. / The signals will flip, they’ll switch sides. / They’ll name that damn street after Abel.
At the end of the performance, one of the teenagers recited from memory the “foreign agent” disclaimer: “This information was created and distributed by ‘foreign agent’ Noize MC…”
“That’s wrong — it has to be 15 seconds,” his friends pointed out, citing the Justice Ministry’s rules for audiovisual materials. So the teenager began again from the beginning.
The group also wanted to sing Noize MC’s “Bright Stretch,” a song made famous by a viral street performance in St. Petersburg by the singer Naoko (Diana Loginova) and her band Stoptime. After the video spread, the musicians faced repeated short-term arrests, and Loginova and her partner, Alexander Orlov, ultimately fled the country. The teenagers at Borisovskoe Cemetery, though, could not remember the lyrics to “the Naoko song.”
Before the cemetery closed, the crowd chanted: “Alexey, Russia will be free! And Russia will absolutely be happy! Happy, the way you wanted it! It absolutely will!” They applauded and made their way to the exit.
In a nearby snowdrift, someone had planted a sign bearing a line from Leonid Kaganov’s poem written in memory of Alexey Navalny: “We waited for a miracle to come, and this was it.”
Story by Bereg
Translation by Kevin Rothrock