Steve Rosenberg: What Navalny’s funeral tells us about Russia at the moment

We witness occasions, and we report on them. But within the age of 24-hour information, there may be usually valuable little time for journalists to pause, take breath and take within the magnitude of what has occurred.

In the hours after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, I used to be submitting continuous for TV, radio and the BBC information web site.

Only at 2am the next morning, after my final TV stay of the day, may I cease and attempt to compute the enormity of the second. It has been the identical with Alexei Navalny.

I talked in regards to the issues his household had encountered as they tried to get better his physique; I spoke to Muscovites laying floral tributes to him.

On Friday I watched Navalny’s coffin being carried right into a Moscow church. I noticed 1000’s of Russians lining as much as pay their last respects.

I noticed his supporters throw roses and carnations on the hearse earlier than it headed to the cemetery.

But solely as soon as I’d seen the dramatic pictures of his coffin being lowered into the grave did Navalny’s demise lastly, totally, hit home.

Today the tributes continued, as Russians – together with Navalny’s mom Ludmila – got here to Borisov cemetery and laid flowers at his grave.

I’ve been enthusiastic about the extraordinary scenes I witnessed yesterday and about what they inform us – if something – about Russia at the moment.

Considering the present wave of repression towards dissenting voices, it was unclear what number of Russians would come out to say goodbye to the Kremlin’s staunchest critic.

In recent days a whole bunch of individuals had been detained by police throughout Russia at occasions commemorating Navalny.

When I talked to individuals, young and old, queuing outdoors the church, they spoke of the hope Navalny had given them of a greater, brighter future for his or her nation.

They spoke in help of freedom, democracy, and peace.

Later, the crowds chanted the form of slogans unheard on Russian streets because the invasion of Ukraine, akin to “Freedom to Political Prisoners!” and “No to conflict!”

It struck me, right here was a Russia who had been absent from public view for 2 years; a Russia which doesn’t help Vladimir Putin, or the conflict in Ukraine, and desires to be a democratic nation.

It stands in full distinction to the Russia proven on state TV: Russia is rabidly anti-Western, pro-Putin, full-square behind the “particular navy operation” in Ukraine and embracing authoritarianism at home.

The query I’m left with is that this: have been yesterday’s scenes the dying embers of liberal democracy in Russia, a “final hurrah” for freedom of expression earlier than it’s extinguished utterly?

Those in energy right here might properly imagine so.

They’ve definitely been working laborious to attain that, adopting repressive legal guidelines designed to silence and punish dissent.

In two weeks time, President Putin will face no critical problem in Russia’s presidential election – his fiercest critics aren’t on the poll.

After what is predicted to be declared a “landslide” victory, the authorities will painting President Putin and his insurance policies as tremendous in style and dismiss his critics as a tiny minority of the Russian public.

But, here is the factor. Very usually Russians who vote for him inform me they achieve this not as a result of they’re excited by his insurance policies or his imaginative and prescient of Russia: they merely see no different.

That’s precisely what the Kremlin has sought to attain by eradicating all critical rivals from the political stage.

What I noticed on the streets of Moscow, on the day of Mr Navalny’s funeral, was very completely different: a real outpouring of help for a politician who had impressed a piece of the Russian public with another imaginative and prescient for Russia.

Mr Navalny is lifeless. But for these individuals, their want for a unique Russia may be very a lot alive.