Thoughts after the funeral of Elizaveta Glinka

The word “funeral” and the name “Elizaveta Petrovna Glinka” cannot be combined with each other.

A funeral is a farewell forever, a parting forever.

Elizaveta Glinka is a perky and cheerful person who knows how to not only protect those who are not able to protect themselves, but also loves to joke, joke, tireless, resting unknown when, in short, Eternal, for all time.

And today these incompatible words were combined.

Farewell to Lisa took place in the church in the Novodevichy Convent. Through the wall, at the Novodevichy cemetery, Lisa will be buried. The farewell began at 8.00 am. When I arrived, there was an hour left until the end of the farewell. Somewhere out there, in a tightly closed coffin, lay Lisa. Probably two hundred people stood and sat around the coffin.

Our members of the Human Rights Council were also there.

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” either I told Maria Kannabikh, or she said it to me, or maybe we said it to each other.

I can see by the faces of my colleagues: like me, they simply do not believe that she is no longer there. That we will never hear her perky voice, sharp question, bold remark addressed to a powerful official.

Ella Pamfilova and Tatyana Moskalkova laid flowers at Lisa’s coffin.

What is Lisa Glinka's secret? – I thought, crossing the threshold of the temple. Probably because she never played any roles, but everywhere, always and with everyone - the homeless and ministers, the dying and the healthy, security forces and protest participants - she simply remained herself... And it was her ability to be herself that broke through the most impenetrable walls.

When I left the temple, the time for farewell ended and the time for the funeral began. And people kept walking and walking and walking...

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