Have you ever been to Lenin’s Tomb in the Moscow Kremlin? Viewed the eerily preserved body of the man most responsible for the destruction of the lives and the soul of an entire people, yet still displayed and guarded as some sort of demigod in whose waxy presence you may whisper only in the most hushed tones, if at all? (I speak from experience — I was shushed there in 1988.) Have you seen the hallowed tomb where for nearly a century people have stood in a steadily snaking line for hours, just for the privilege of gazing upon his Madame Toussaud-inspired corpse?

In all likelihood, most of you haven’t. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is Russia’s prime sample of the art of embalming.

Now consider this: In a perfect example of Dostoevskian irony, while this murderous monster lies worshipfully enshrined, the body of the man who only four short months ago gave his life trying to save those same people — Alexei Navalny — lies buried in a neighborhood cemetery far from the center of Moscow, where Vladimir Putin fervently hopes he will be forgotten as just another footnote to history.

Recently hailed by millions around the world as the potential savior of the Russian people from the ravages of Putin’s oppression, where is Navalny’s catafalque? Where are the lines of people who initially gathered to honor him on that cold February day? If indeed they are still there, why are we not seeing them in the news?

And where are the people who were to carry his torch in his absence — the very people who worked tirelessly by his side for years, and on whom he depended to carry his words to the public during the endless months of his Siberian confinement? So publicly vocal in their outrage at his obviously orchestrated death, they too are seldom heard from in the news media now.

They are not idle; they are regrouping, planning their next steps, working fervently and tirelessly so that they might carry on as he would have wished, unearthing the latent corruption so firmly embedded in the Russian hierarchy. To do any less would be an unspeakable injustice. So the question becomes: Where is the public outcry from the media?

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To his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, to Maria Pevchikh, and to Ivan Zhdanov — all Directors of his Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF): I know that your hearts and souls are in your continuing work on behalf of the Russian people and against the evils of the Putin regime. But where is ACF’s public face?

Amidst all of the world’s woes — wars in Ukraine and Gaza, threats from China and North Korea, natural disasters, economic and environmental issues — your voices and faces are not being carried by the mass media as Alexei’s once were . . . and as they deserve to be now. And it disturbs me greatly.

For many months while he was shuffled from prison to prison, hidden from public view, I wrote a series of articles titled “Where Is Alexei Navalny?” I hate that I have to write another . . . this time in search of his legacy.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
6/8/24