With no cameras allowed inside the church and botchy internet interfering with livestreams, little is known about the service other than that only a tiny fraction of the crowd of mourners was given an opportunity to attend.
A photo circulating online showed Navalny lying in a rose-covered open casket surrounded by a small huddle of people paying tribute, including his parents, many of whom were holding candles.
Shortly after, the casket was transported to a nearby cemetery for Navalny’s burial, leaving the crowds outside the church in the cold.
On Friday morning, Russian law enforcement detained a handful of mourners hours before the funeral began. The detentions sparked renewed fears, expressed this week by Navalny’s widow Yulia, that authorities could crack down on those who want to pay their last respects to the opposition leader.
The rights group OVD-Info reported that four people had been detained as they set out from the southern city of Voronezh to attend Navalny’s burial service and funeral. One person detained was a local campaign coordinator for Nadezhdin.
Since his sudden death in a penal colony north of the Arctic circle in February, Navalny’s team says it has faced constant obstruction from the Russian authorities.