On Saturday morning, Lyudmila Navalnaya arrived in the tiny, frigid settlement of Kharp for the second time in a week.
Five days earlier, she was there to visit her son. This trip, she was in town to collect his body.
Huddled under a hulking mass of black coats, the 69-year-old waited two hours at the bleak, icy penal colony where Aleksei Navalny spent his final months. It was a balmy -10°F at the Yamalo-Nenets prison, a remnant of the Soviet Gulag network.
For her trouble, Lyudmila learned the exact time of Aleksei’s death (2:17 PM on Friday) and little else. She and an attorney quickly found themselves in a Kafka novel.
They were told Aleksei’s body was transferred to Salekhard, a nearby administrative hub which Lyudmila knew well enough: She was just there. She flew into Salekhard to get to Kharp. The morgue in Salekhard was open, bureaucrats said.
Maybe it was then, but by the time Lyudmila made it back to Salekhard, a 30-mile drive, the morgue was closed. There was a phone number on the door. The lawyer called it. The voice on the other end of the line said Aleksei’s body wasn’t there. Apparently, it was still in possession of Russia’s Investigative Committee.
When Lyudmila and her lawyer showed up at the regional branch of the federal investigating authority in Salekhard, they were informed that a medical inquiry into the cause of Navalny’s death wasn’t yet complete.
That seemed contradictory. At the prison, Lyudmila was told Aleksei died of “sudden death syndrome,” in this case a deliberately nebulous allusion to an inexplicable cardiac event. Officials said an investigation had ruled out criminality, suggesting that, however absurd the conclusions, the postmortem was at least finished. Navalny’s body could be released and returned to his family and allies.
Not so. Or not yet, anyway. Lyudmila was ultimately told the investigation wouldn’t be done until next week. “Right now, we don’t know for sure where [the body] is,” Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said, in an interview with Reuters.
The story of Lyudmila Navalnaya’s bureaucratic nightmare is based on Yarmysh’s retelling and similar accounts conveyed by Navalny’s exiled team across various social media outlets on Saturday. “It’s obvious they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body,” a frustrated Yarmysh despaired. “They literally lie every time, driving us around in circles and covering their tracks.”
Yes indeed. And although Vladimir Putin hadn’t commented directly on Navalny’s death as of this writing, the crackdown on mourners at makeshift memorials around the country spoke volumes. At least a dozen Russians (a priest among them) were arrested for attending an ad hoc service in St. Petersburg.
By Saturday, the number of people detained across the country for publicly mourning Navalny was said to exceed 100. As one mainstream US media outlet recounted, Russian police were seen “cordon[ing] off some of the memorials and officers were taking pictures of those who came and writing down their personal data.”
In remarks to The New York Times, Tucker Carlson, whose lengthy interview with Putin was once again a trending topic (and once again for all the wrong reasons) said, “It’s horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.”
Putin is literally gutting everything that was beautiful about Russia.
How much longer until all that is left is a group of thugs taking and selling all the natural resources to enrich themselves?
They already have.
Navalnay is just one of the far over half a million deaths caused by Putin’s regime so far. It needs to be emphasized that although Western media has been enshrouding him as an icon of potential democracy and a friendlier Russia, Navalnay was a Russian imperialist who also flirted with fascism. There’s no shortage of quotes for anyone wanting to look it up.
His death is of course signficant regardless, in that it seals the deal on being in opposition to Putin’s regime – you simply can’t or there will be the harshest consequences.
Navalny’s political evolution was complicated, but it’s hard to argue with those who say he was becoming more liberal and pro-Western in the last few years of his life. Putin certainly seemed to think so and, given Navalny’s charisma and growing popularity among younger Russians, long ago decided that Navalny had to die.
First and foremost, Navalny was anti-corruption.
Every dissident, rebel, revolutionary, and would-be usurper is anti-corruption. It takes no effort and plays well with the masses. Hell, Trump is anti-corruption. That’s what, “Drain the swamp,” means. Words are wind.
This is an important point. Ask a Ukrainian what they think of Navalny. Ask them what they think about what he has said about Crimea. We can admit that his death is obscene, without question. But he was never a solution. Only an alternative.
Russia is a dead country that has been stripped of its wealth for hundreds of years by the few in charge. It will only end when the Russian masses say ‘enough’. I wonder if it’s possible any more for the masses to rise up against a well armed minority intent on keeping power at any cost. The majority in a number of countries are against the autocrats in charge, but so far have been unable to throw of the shackles – Iran, North Korea to name a few.
Lyrics “ALIVE” by Shaman
[Verse 1]
Cold Sky
And the heart in my chest to pieces
You didn’t believe in fear,
And you searched for the truth in spite of it,
Erasing all your soul through pain until it bleeds
You are a warrior of light
Who Stayed Alive
[Chorus]
Alive Say Your Name, Hero
You, Unconquered by fate
Returned home
Victorious Alive Alive Alive
You did not hide behind your back
Here every heart is with you
And even in heaven
You will remain forever…
[Verse 2]
You walked as before
But the fatal hour was approaching
You threw yourself into the sky
And became the brightest star
And the people under the sky
Looking at the eternal flame
And in each of them was a warrior
who remained alive
[Chorus]
Alive tell your name, Hero
You, Unconquered by fate
Returned home
Victorious Alive, Alive Alive
You Did Not Hide Behind Your Back
Here every heart is with you
And even in heaven
You will remain forever alive
ALIVE (CLIP IN SUPPORT OF ALEXEI NAVALNY) / SHAMAN