Navalny’s Death is the Death of Russia

‘Putin has won.’

When I was 12, my father came home one day and said, “I met this guy today. A very interesting fella. He wants to become the mayor of Moscow. His name is Alexey Navalny.”

Around the same time and a little earlier, I remember watching protests on familiar streets of my birth city. Roughly 150,000 people went to the streets, and this “very interesting fella” was one of the leaders of the demonstrations. Famous artists, poets, writers, and musicians went on stage to chant “Freedom to Russia!” and demand fair…