Preface. The falling
On the morning of August 29, 2023, traffic jams were accumulating near the Serafimovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg. Police cordoned off surrounding streets and blocked the gates: visitors were only allowed in after having specified whose grave they were visiting. Journalists crowded at the entrance: they were waiting for the funeral of a man who until a few weeks ago had been considered one of the most influential people in Russia — and one of the most dangerous people in the world.
The funeral to be held was for Yevgeny Prigozhin, a billionaire who had made enormous sums of money supplying food to Russian schools and military bases; a criminal who had served time in his youth for robbery and assault; a restaurateur who had fed the most influential politicians on the planet in his establishments; the owner of a “troll factory” that fought Kremlin opponents on the Internet and tried to influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election; the recipient of state awards from Russia, Syria, the Central African Republic, Libya, Sudan, Burkina Faso, and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics; and, finally, the creator of the Wagner Group, an armed unit of ex-military and criminal thugs who have spent over a decade fighting on Vladimir Putin's behalf around the world.
There was only one problem: no one knew where Prigozhin was to be buried. The Kremlin said that it had “no information.”2 The Smolny, where the St. Petersburg city administration is located, said that the burial was classified and that all those involved had signed non-disclosure agreements.3 Neither Wagner fighters nor the deceased’s acquaintances knew anything either — Vasily Vlasov, a State Duma deputy who had suggested naming a street in St. Petersburg after Prigozhin, told journalists that he was “just walking around Serafimovsky Cemetery that morning without any particular purpose.”4
A few hours later, people began to arrive at the cemetery with flowers, and a funeral service began in the chapel. However, it turned out that the person being buried was not Prigozhin at all, but some ordinary man. Journalists rushed to the city centre: their colleagues had noticed a funeral cortege near the Manege of the First Cadet Corps. Among the cars was the BMW 760 in which Prigozhin himself had travelled throughout his lifetime. A bearded guard would not let anyone into the building: “You can’t go there now, it's a private event. People are in grief.”
Soon, a hearse arrived at the Manege — close to the doors, so that the coffin could be loaded there — and then left again to an unknown destination. The nearest cemetery was the prestigious Smolenskoye, but a couple of hours later the mysterious cortege was spotted at the Beloostrovskoye cemetery in the St. Petersburg countryside, where several dozen Wagner fighters who had died in the war in Ukraine are buried. Several stout men in black got out of a minibus, which observers mistook for a hearse, laid flowers at the graves of Wagner fighters, and drove away. There was no coffin in the car. Nor was there any farewell to Prigozhin taking place in the Manege: when journalists entered the building, they found it empty, without any trace of a memorial service.5
Someone had simply put on a show for the public, driving journalists around the city all day with an empty hearse. During his lifetime, Yevgeny Prigozhin was a master of post-truth, confusing leads, denying the obvious, lying blatantly and with pleasure. He died in special operation mode — and even at his own funeral, he remained the main troll.
On August 29, while the police cordoned off Serafimovskoye cemetery and correspondents shuttled between the centre and the suburbs, Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried next to his father at Porokhovskoye cemetery (one could also see the irony in this fact itself - throughout the spring of 2023, Prigozhin loudly demanded shells for Wagner from the Russian authorities and even organised a mass flash mob around this; since the late nineteenth century, Porokhovsky has been the burial ground for those who made the above mentioned shells, i.e.. employees of the nearby gunpowder factory). They buried him quietly, in secret from everyone. There was no guard of honour, none of the three salute shots which by law are due to a man awarded the title of Hero of Russia, no wreaths from the leadership of the country or celebrities. There were no journalists. There were no crowds of mourners come to bid farewell to their idol — although there were plenty who wanted to, and even after the funeral, law enforcement guarded the cemetery until the following morning, standing in the dark among the graves like a company of zombies.6
The next morning, the cordon was lifted, and those who wished could enter and see a simple wooden cross on the grave. Beneath it was Prigozhin’s portrait - and a framed sheet with a few stanzas from a poem by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky:"Mother speaks to Christ: / You are my son or my God? / You are nailed to the cross. / How will I go home? / How I step on the threshold, / not understanding, not deciding: / are you my son or god? / That is, dead or alive?".
This question — is he dead or alive? — continued to be asked by many people even after his funeral: Yevgeny Prigozhin’s
