Funeral process: How Tehran said goodbye to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

The Iranian capital has bid farewell to Ali Khamenei for the last time. Ahead is a grand funeral procession. On this day, the city square was again filled with supporters of the Islamic Republic, and his sons came out to the coffin of the supreme leader — all except Mojtaba. The new supreme leader has not yet appeared in public. And outside the official ceremony, another Tehran lived its life: residents strolled in open clothes, young people rode skateboards, souvenir shops buzzed. About how the farewell to Khamenei in Tehran is taking place in the country and what the Iranians themselves think about it — in the Izvestia report.

"Hello there! Russia?"

Sultry and cloudless Tehran pays its last tribute of gratitude to its deceased leader. The final day of farewell to Ali Khamenei is taking place in Mosalla, one of the largest prayer complexes in the capital. The next day, the main funeral procession will take place in the city, after which the ceremonies will continue in Qom. Then Khamenei's body will be sent to Iraq: on July 8, it is to be delivered to Najaf and Karbala, holy cities for Shiites. The funeral is scheduled for July 9 in Mashhad, where the Ayatollah was born.

Early in the morning, many people gathered for prayer: the coffin of the deceased supreme leader was carried out to the mourners. Khamenei's three sons, Mostafa, Masoud and Meisam, were spotted at the ceremony. This was their first public appearance since February. Mojtaba Khamenei, who became the successor and new head of Iran after his father's death, was not present at the farewell.

The journalists managed to get to Mosalla a day earlier. First, we were taken to the press center, located right in the prayer complex. From there, from the second-floor balcony, there was an epic view of the square, but we had to wait before we were allowed in. Every detail caught my eye, but it turned out that we ourselves aroused no less interest from local journalists.

- hello! Russia? One of them asked with a smile.

It turned out that he wanted to take a picture with us. Another, more talkative interlocutor, Davoud, a Russian—speaking Iranian, lived in Russia in recent years and conducted business there, but decided to return to his homeland after the outbreak of the war. According to him, many expected that Iranians would leave en masse through Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey towards Russia and Europe. However, he saw a completely different picture on the Iranian border: there were almost no people leaving the country.

— I talked to a man from London, he had a British passport. He said: "I couldn't sit there and watch my country being bombed." A woman from Hamburg with a German passport was sitting next to me on the plane. Her daughter asked her not to come, but she said she couldn't stay safely abroad. I couldn't stay in Moscow either, so I decided to return to Iran," Davood said.

Iranian journalists also approached us, asking about our work in fluent English and asking if they could record an interview with us. Representatives of the European press were also open to dialogue.

"As you may have noticed, I am not like many Western journalists," Austrian journalist and political scientist Dieter Reinich immediately emphasized, explaining why he came to Tehran.

Dieter considers Khamenei a figure whose influence went far beyond Iran, and flew here to take an objective look at what is happening, without demonizing the so-called "regime."

— The world is at a crossroads, transatlantic hegemony is coming to an end. We see how the Global South is strengthening, and how Russia and China are building close ties within the SCO and BRICS," he says.

The Austrian journalist, who actively communicates with colleagues from the Russian Federation, admitted that he was glad to meet with Russians here, and, laughing, added: "Not every Austrian can hear this now." It is unknown whether other European journalists, including correspondents from Greece and Italy, were equally pleased by our presence.

After a while, we were finally released into the square, which turned out to be simply huge.

"Being here is sacred to me"

The square was divided by fences during the farewell. On the one hand, people flocked to evening prayer in a single stream, on the other, they left Mosalla. Water sprayers were working from above, and it was unexpectedly comfortable under them. Thousands of people were sitting everywhere: some with their families, some alone.

— Khamenei was our leader. It's sacred for me to be here," said one of these singles, a young Iranian.

Nearby, a group of five people was loudly discussing something, sitting on the floor. A tall man, who turned out to be a journalist, entered into a dialogue with us. He treated his colleagues with undisguised suspicion, asking them to show their identification.

— People have been coming here since the morning, some were waiting at the closed doors at night. They came because they love their leader. The people's connection with the supreme leader has been going on since the time of the Islamic Revolution, and I think the imperialists will not be able to destroy it," he said, looking from my photo to my first and last name.

It is impossible to imagine that among those gathered here there are those who do not grieve for Khamenei, our interlocutor stressed.

I really wanted to take away not only visual images from this ceremony, but also something tangible in order to feel involved in an epochal event. Already on the way out, we couldn't resist asking one military man where to buy the same Arafat as him — a kufiya (a traditional Middle Eastern headscarf that protects from the sun and dust). We tried to explain ourselves through an interpreter for several minutes, until the Iranian laughed, took off his handkerchief and simply handed it over.

The Other Tehran, Dostoevsky and Orwell

In the evening we went to Laleh Park, one of the largest in the capital. And there, another Tehran appeared before our eyes. The black veils and mourning clothes that dotted the square were replaced by the open dresses of the Iranians. Someone was skateboarding, someone was hugging each other — in Iran, such scenes look like a challenge to strict social norms.

At the exit from the park, a young Iranian man with dreadlocks and tattoos was selling handmade jewelry with his girlfriend. They immediately realized that they were foreigners and started asking about everything. We were also interested in the attitude of such atypical residents of the country to the events in their country.

— We have a very bad Internet, an endless crisis. It's very difficult to earn money," the guy said, trying to shout over the noise from the market, where at that moment either a fight or a quarrel began.

We exchanged contacts. He promised to show places in Tehran where young people relax — there are such places here too. There were many other young Iranians nearby who were selling all sorts of trinkets. But most of all, we were attracted by a table with books - there were, for example, the novels "The Gambler" by Fyodor Dostoevsky and "1984" by George Orwell.

— It's a good book. It reminds us a lot about our reality," the sales girl said and winked.

Just 20 meters away, at the end of the street, there were military personnel. Nearby, Khamenei's supporters were dismantling tents and preparing for the closing ceremony. The black veils on women and adult men, which were already familiar to the eye, appeared again. And there was a certain symbolism in it. The country's leader left, and his son took his place, but Iran itself survived, remaining as vibrant and controversial.