Alexei Navalny’s memorial service was planned for 2 p.m. in the Church of the Icon of Our Lady Soothe My Sorrows in Maryino, a district in the outskirts of Moscow where the Navalny family had lived for many years.

The day before, the police put fences all over the neighborhood. People started gathering near the church since early morning.

French and German diplomats came to pay their last respects.

The police allowed the family and several reporters in the church for the service. Other people were gathered outside, multiple lines to the church stretched for hundreds of yards.

The memorial service, according to members of Navalny's team, took less than 20 minutes. Religion historian Sergei Chapnin claims the priest at the Maryino church was pressured by authorities to cut the ceremony “as short as possible.”

After the memorial, the coffin with Alexei Navalny's body was taken in a hearse to the Borisovskoye cemetery. Thousands of mourners followed there by foot.

Only the relatives were admitted to the grave at first: the mother and father of Alexei and the mother of his wife Yulia.

People waited for many hours to get into the cemetery. Police let them through in small groups until late in the evening.