Alexey Navalny’s father and mother, left, are joined by others as they pay their last respects during his funeral in Moscow on Friday. AP
The last image we saw of Alexey Navalny alive was him smiling and joking. The final image before he was laid to rest is more sobering. Conforming with Orthodox tradition, the body of the Russian opposition figure is pictured in an open casket. A man who was once politically and physically energetic and fiery, is now still and at peace.
It is a haunting image, with candles illuminating the scene. Navalny’s face appears almost ghostly white amid the piles of carnations that cover his chest. His mother and father are seated beside the coffin, clasping each other’s hands, saying goodbye to their son.
It is the culmination of a quest that his mother embarked on 14 days ago when she traveled across Russia’s vast wilderness, above the Arctic Circle and to the Siberian penal colony where Navalny met his end, to badger Russian authorities into allowing her to retrieve the body.
In the casket, Navalny is dressed in a shirt, tie and waistcoat – a change from his prison swatches, and a reminder that he was once a prominent politician.
Gaunt and sunken even before his death, Navalny’s lifeless face represents the energy that was sucked out by the Kremlin and its remote penal colony.
It is a picture that defines the moment – the extinguishing of political opposition in Russia.
Source: edition.cnn.com
