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Julia Navalnaya is also voting in the Russian election.
In front of the Berlin embassy she encounters contrasting opinions.
It's a generational conflict.
Berlin - As Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, passed the first checkpoint on her way to the Russian embassy in Berlin to vote in the presidential election, a group of young Russians carrying anti-Putin signs shouted: "Julia, we are with you!
Do not give up!"
Closer to the embassy were the counter-protesters: a group of men and women in their 50s and 60s holding the Russian tricolor and a Soviet flag.
They began singing the Russian national anthem to drown out the voices from across the street - teenage activists screaming into their microphones that Putin was a "murderer" for continuing his attack on Ukraine.
Contrast program in protests over the Russia election – Russian population divided
When a silver-haired woman asked a young couple standing behind her in line to sing along, they gave her a sour look;
When the activists asked Putin supporters how they could support the president in the midst of such a destructive war, they responded that he was "defending Russia from NATO."
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As people in the German capital waited for hours to cast their votes on Sunday (March 17) - in an election in which Putin faces no real opposition on his way to a fifth term in office - the vast ideological divides in Russia became clear .
Younger Russians, many of whom fled their homeland shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, were pitted against older generations who were born or raised in communist East Germany or moved to the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“People don't have any real arguments why Putin is good, they just come with these crude accusations that we're too young and don't understand anything,” said Diana, 31. Like others in this report, she spoke on the condition of only hers to be called by her first name because she feared authorities in Russia might target family members.
The Russian election also reveals divisions in Berlin
“Putin's government is waging a war of aggression, and our entire country is equated with murderers, although being Russian does not equal Putin, and here in this series we can see at least a thousand examples of this,” Diana said.
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In the background, her friends were arguing loudly with another group of older Russians who had come to vote for Putin.
“I lived in Russia, I know what oppression and repression are, and now I live in Germany, a great country where we enjoy our freedoms,” one of Diana's friends said to a woman in her 60s who came to his house Face laughed.
When a
Washington Post
reporter asked the woman why she was voting for Putin, she said she was “pro-Russia.”
“Democracy is a dirty word, an empty word for me.
I have lived a long life and I know what this 'democracy' is," she said.
She was then led away by her companions and told not to speak to Western media.
Russian election only in Berlin and Bonn – long journeys and queues for a bit of autonomy
Diana traveled several hours from southern Germany to cast her vote.
In 2023, Germany closed four out of five Russian consulates in response to Moscow's decision to limit the number of German officials in Russia.
Therefore, the embassy in Berlin and the remaining consulate in Bonn were the only places in Germany where Russian citizens could vote.
Julia Navalnaya (M), widow of Alexey Navalny, stands in line in front of the Russian embassy to vote, photographed in Berlin on March 17, 2024.
© Maurizio Gambarini/Imago
Hundreds of voters waited for up to six hours in a line that stretched a block around the embassy and zigzagged through barricades erected by police.
Many knew Putin's victory was preordained, but they said it was important to exercise their right to vote.
“I want to cast my vote so that it is not cast for me, and it is clear that this happens often in our country,” said Elizaveta, a young student, alluding to the widespread reports of voter fraud and election manipulation that have weighed on previous Russian elections.
“I was thrilled to see so many people, although I think we know for sure who will win.”
“Lunch against Putin”: Last day of the Russian election most important for Navalny’s team
Most of the key opposition figures, including exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, spoke at a concert in front of the embassy, underscoring the German capital's new role as a center for the Russian opposition in exile.
For Navalny's team, now operating out of Germany and Lithuania, Sunday was the most important day of the three-day Russia election as they urged Russians at home and abroad to come to the polls to take part in the "Noon Against Putin" demonstration ” – in honor of Navalny’s final call to action before his sudden death in a Russian penal colony in February.
Navalnaya votes for Navalny in the Russian election – and is grateful for demonstrations
"I see that all these people came to our demonstration at noon, because the whole time I was waiting in line, people were shouting and chanting words of support, and I thank them all," Navalnaya said, as she left the embassy.
In a recent video speech, she said she wanted to continue her husband's work.
"I'm sure you're all wondering who I voted for - of course I wrote 'Navalny' on the ballot paper, because it can't be that Putin's main opponent, who was already in prison, was killed a month before the election," said she.
Germany stood up for Navalny when he was on the brink of death in 2020 because he became seriously ill after being poisoned with a nerve agent.
Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately offered the Navalny family treatment in Germany and personally visited the politician at the Charité Clinic after he woke up from his coma.
Navalny from imprisonment to death in Russia - which came close to being released
In early 2021, Navalny returned to Russia and refused to become an exiled politician.
He was arrested immediately after landing at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and later sentenced to 19 years in prison for his anti-corruption work.
He died suddenly in February at the age of 47 in a remote Arctic prison.
Authorities attributed his death to natural causes;
his team accused the Russian government of killing him.
Maria Pevchich, a close aide to Navalny, claimed that he was about to be released as part of a prisoner swap that would have seen him and two U.S. citizens exchanged for Vadim Krasikov, a convicted Russian hitman serving a life sentence in one served in German prison.
But Putin, according to Pevchich, cannot tolerate his main rival running around freely.
“In my opinion [Navalny’s death] is a sign that the system is slowly crumbling,” Elizaveta said.
“It seems that everything is going in this direction, that our autocracy is slowly disintegrating.”
About the author
Mary Ilyushina
, a foreign affairs reporter at The Washington Post, covers Russia and the region.
She began her career in independent Russian media before joining CNN's Moscow bureau in 2017 as a field producer.
She has been at the post office since 2021.
She speaks Russian, English, Ukrainian and Arabic.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on March 17, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.