Relatives stood by Nemtsov`s open coffin as a mourners filed into the Sakharov Center, a prominent civil-rights organization in Moscow, to pay their last respects at a public memorial service on March 3.
Women wore black head scarves, and slides showing Nemtsov at various times in his life were projected beside the white-draped coffin as a pile of flowers brought by mourners grew larger.
Black-and-white photos of the slain former deputy prime minister, whose career stretched from the promising days of growing democracy following the 1991 Soviet collapse to what Kremlin critics say is a clampdown on dissent under President Vladimir Putin, hung on a brick wall behind the coffin.
Several European politicians said Russia had refused them entry to attend the funeral, including the speaker of Poland`s Senate, Bogdan Borusewicz.
"I wanted to pay respect to the slain Boris Nemtsov and to all Russians who think like him," said Borusewicz, a key Solidarity dissident.
Latvian lawmaker Sandra Kalniete told she was turned back at Moscow`s Sheremetyevo Airport.
"I feel really proud to be labelled an enemy of Russia today. Russia in its current state does not have many friends," Kalniete said, adding that she had met Nemtsov on his visits to the European Parliament.
Among the most senior foreign officials scheduled to attend the funeral is Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who called the killing a "provocation" to destabilize the country, will not attend.
Instead, he is sending his representative in parliament, Garry Minkh.
Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny`s request to be released from prison to attend Nemtsov`s funeral at Moscow`s Troyekurovskoye cemetery was rejected by a Moscow court.
The Troyekurovskoye cemetery is also the resting place of another murdered Kremlin critic, Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
The Sakharov Center has been branded a "foreign agent" under a law that Kremlin critics see as a part of a growing campiagn to silence dissent during Putin`s third term.
It has come under pressure in the past from the authorities and from pro-government activists.
The woman who was with Nemtsov at the time he was killed said she had been questioned extensively by authorities.
Anna Durytska said she did not see the gunman who pulled the trigger.
The 23-year-old model was allowed to leave Russia and fly to her native Ukraine late on March 2.
"Ukrainian diplomats in Moscow provided all the necessary assistance for her return home," Yevhen Perebyinis, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on his Twitter feed.
On March 2, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Nemtsov`s killing should not be used for "political purposes."
He told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that Putin had "immediately handed down all instructions and is ensuring special control over this investigation."
Investigators said they are looking into several possible links for Nemtsov`s slaying, including an attempt to destabilize the state, Islamic extremism, the Ukraine conflict, and his personal life.
Many opponents of Putin hold the Russian leader responsible for creating an atmosphere that encouraged the crime by fanning nationalist, anti-Western sentiments and vilifying the opposition.
Tens of thousands of supporters marched through central Moscow on March 1 in a silent tribute to Nemtsov.
Hours before he was killed, Nemtsov gave a radio interview in which he slammed Putin`s "mad, aggressive policy" on Ukraine.
Echoed by other Western officials, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has called for Russia to conduct a prompt, thorough, transparent, and credible investigation into the slaying.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on March 2 described Nemtsov as a "tireless advocate for his country, an opponent of corruption, and an advocate for human rights and greater transparency."
The business newspaper Kommersant on March 2 quoted anonymous sources in the Interior Ministry as saying there was no closed-circuit TV video of the killing because the cameras in question were not working at the time.
However, Yelena Novikova, a spokeswoman for Moscow`s information-technology department, which oversees the city`s surveillance cameras, said cameras "belonging to the city" were operating properly when Nemtsov was killed.
She told the AP news agency that federal authorities also had surveillance cameras near the Kremlin that are not under her organization`s control.
Novikova would not confirm the existence of any video of the killing, saying the police investigation was still under way.
More about:
