Meet the first lady of Russia’s opposition, Yulia Navalnaya: after her tragic love story with the late Alexei Navalny, she’s the voice against Vladimir Putin, and chairs the Human Rights Foundation

Yulia, who now lives in exile, has often been referred to as a “snow queen” for her aloofness, but the 48-year-old has become the voice for many dissidents of Russia’s current regime. Here is what you need to know about her:

What is Yulia Navalnaya’s background?

Yulia was born in Moscow in 1976. Her father Boris Abrosimov was a scientist and her mother Alla worked in government. Per Washington Post, her parents split when she was a child and she rarely mentioned them as she got older and her life became more public.

According to Reuters, Yulia studied economics at the Plekhanov Russian School of Economics before working at a Moscow bank. She then worked at a foreign trade company.

How she fell in love with Alexei Navalny

Yulia met Alexei while on holiday in Turkey in 1998, according to a Time profile. Alexei, who was a property agent at the time, reportedly spotted her on a tour bus and was immediately captivated by her looks. Alexei said, “She was the beautiful blonde who knew every cabinet minister by name.”

Yulia has been widely quoted as saying that, at the time, Alexei’s political future had not yet begun, and they were just an ordinary couple who fell in love.

The couple got married two years later in 2000 and Yulia paused her career to raise their children – Dasha born in 2001 and Zakhar in 2008. According to Time, Yulia helped her in-laws with their wicker furniture business while Alexei began his life as an activist, receiving guidance from Yevgenia Albats, a leader in Russia’s dissident movement. The Washington Post reports that the couple lived in a small flat in Moscow as they raised their children away from the eye of their political opponents.

Alexei Navalny’s poisoning

For much of her husband’s career in the spotlight, Yulia remained in the shadows. It was only in 2020 when he was poisoned that her name entered the media glare. She played a prominent role in her husband’s evacuation from Russia to Germany, where he received treatment for poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent, which is usually designed for chemical warfare.

At the time, Yulia wrote to the Kremlin to ask that he be allowed out of Russia to receive treatment. Alexei was in a medically induced coma and wrote an intimate message to his wife after recovering. He said that he did not recognise anyone and did not know what was going on, but he knew he was waiting for “her”. He said each visit was therapeutic: “Now I know for sure simply from experience: love heals and brings people back to life. Yulia, you saved me, and let them put that in the neurobiological textbooks.”

The couple returned to Russia months later and Alexei was arrested almost immediately, where he spent the remainder of his life behind bars.

Yulia Navalnaya’s life on the run

Alexei has openly spoken about how his family was impacted by his political decisions, telling Reuters in 2017 that security forces were tracking his wife and children ahead of his 2018 presidential run. During one of his campaigns in 2017, someone threw green antiseptic dye in his face.

The Washington Post reported that, while in prison, Alexei sent his wife love letters. Just one day before his death, he wrote on Instagram: “Babe, we have everything like in a song: cities between us, airport runway lights, blue blizzards and thousands of kilometres. But I feel you are near me every second, and I love you more and more.”

In February, Alexei died at the Polar Wolf Arctic penal colony. The 47-year-old was serving a 19-year sentence for “extremism”. Per Al Jazeera, his mother was told that he collapsed and had “sudden death syndrome.” According to Time, Yulia was in a hotel room when she received a news alert on her phone that her husband had died. “It was a feeling like I cannot describe, and I hope to never feel again,” she said of the experience.

How Yulia Navalnaya took the helm

Yulia went from avoiding the spotlight to taking over from her husband. Just three days after his death, she told supporters in a video message: “Share my rage – the rage, anger and hatred toward those who dared to kill our future.”

The Human Rights Foundation, a US-based non-profit group, named Yulia its chair last week, per Al Jazeera.