One by one, thousands of mourners and dignitaries yesterday filed past the white-lined coffin of slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, many offering flowers as they paid their last respects to one of the most prominent figures of Russia’s beleaguered opposition.
So many came that when the viewing ended after its scheduled four hours, a line of people hundreds of meters long still waited outside the Sakharov Center, named after the Soviet-era dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov.
Nemtsov was shot to death on Friday last week while walking on a bridge near the Kremlin with a companion. No suspects have been arrested.
Photo: EPA
The killing has deeply shaken Russia’s small and marginalized opposition movement. Many opposition supporters suspect the killing was ordered by the Kremlin in retaliation for Nemtsov’s ardent criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Those who filed by ranged from committed opposition activists to ordinary citizens young and old.
“He was our ray of light. With his help, I think Russia would have risen up and become a strong country. It is the dream of all progressive people in Russia,” 80-year-old Valentina Gorbatova said.
Photo: AFP
“I am here to show that aside from the 80 percent of Russians who don’t watch anything but state television and don’t think for themselves, there are ... us, who do think and see that the government system is unfair and that we need to change a lot in our country,” said Marsel Shamsudinov, who had come from the city of Kazan, 700km to the east, to pay his respects.
Some European officials from Poland and Latvia were not allowed to enter Russia for the ceremony, which drew a condemnation from the European Commission.
“This refusal to allow several individuals, for example [Latvian MEP] Sandra Kalniete, to enter into the territory of the Russian Federation is a clear breach of basic principles,” commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said.
Nemtsov, 55, had been a deputy prime minister under former Russian president Boris Yeltsin and later became one of Putin’s most vehement critics.
After the public viewing, Nemtsov’s body was taken for the funeral and burial at a cemetery on Moscow’s western edge. A Russian Orthodox priest chanted over it as relatives and about 100 bystanders looked on.
Among those attending the viewing were US Ambassador John Tefft and former Russian prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who has gone over to the opposition.
Russian deputy prime ministers Sergei Prikhodko and Arkady Dvorkovich and Yeltsin’s widow, Naina, and their daughter, Tatyana Yumasheva, also came, along with tycoon and New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who ran against Putin in the 2012 presidential race.
“They probably know that if they don’t come, then at some point people will be coming for them,” Irina Khakamada, co-leader of a liberal party in parliament with Nemtsov, said of the Russian officials’ presence.
Additional reporting by AFP
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