“Hope is dead”: Young Russians in Moscow expressed shock and despair on Friday after the death of Vladimir Putin's main opponent Alexei Navalny, which symbolized the disappearance of the dream of change in the country.
• Also read: Russian opponent Alexei Navalny dies in prison at the age of 47
• Also read: Navalny: poisoned, imprisoned and died under Putin
“I'm shivering! I feel such feelings as if I had lost a parent,” reacts Maria, a 22-year-old computer scientist who, like the other respondents, prefers not to give her last name.
She emphasizes “a great loss for the entire Russian opposition,” a “tragedy.”
Although Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin's arch-enemy, has been in prison since his return to Russia in early 2021, for a part of the population he still represented the distant hope of an end to authoritarianism and the era of Putin.
The charismatic anti-corruption activist was particularly popular among young people in big cities, such as Moscow, where he came second in the 2013 local elections, the last in which he was allowed to run.
Authorities said he died Friday in an Arctic prison where he had recently been transferred.
“We hope it’s not true. Honestly, it's hard to believe. It's scary to think about what will happen next, what the state can do to its citizens,” laments Marc, an 18-year-old student.
Valeria is a tour guide. For the 28-year-old woman, Alexei Navalny was “a symbol of hope for a better future for Russia.” “I have the impression that with his death this hope also dies,” she laments.
“If this hope was still there in one way or another, it is now even weaker,” the young woman continues.
After nearly a quarter-century of Vladimir Putin's power and two years of conflict with Ukraine, “many people will give up because people always need a symbol in any form of resistance,” she said.
Mr. Navalny's death after a poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin and three years in prison deprived an already anemic opposition of its figurehead. Almost all of the protesters are behind bars or abroad.
“I still can't believe it, but if it's true, it's a personal tragedy for me and for many people I know,” Arthur, a 27-year-old student, told AFP.
For him, as for many others of his generation, “Navalny represented a certain image of positive changes in the future, of future reforms that can help us achieve better conditions than before.”
Arthur even says he is “angry” and feels “the desire to leave.”
Russia has experienced an exodus that is difficult to quantify since the start of the attack in Ukraine and the partial military mobilization ordered by Vladimir Putin in September 2022. These are often young, educated people who live in big cities: Navalny's audience.
“We no longer believe in the possibility of change for the better,” complains Arthur.