Terror in Russia
The Blood of Nord-Ost and Beslan
by
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Day 1, Wednesday, October 22.
The first act of the show “Nord-Ost” is over. During the intermission people walk in the hallways and exchange their opinions about the play. They really enjoy it. Excited, they can hardly wait for the play to continue.
The second act begins. It is supposed to start with a dance of pilots. People dressed in military uniform will show up any minute to begin their dance. The audience cannot wait. Suddenly, a man in a camouflage jumps on the stage and begins to shout. People laugh and applaud: finally, the action begins, real action! The man on the stage looks so real in his camouflage, with a machine gun. Everyone is sure: he is part of the show. Surprise mixed with horror froze up on more than six hundred faces in auditorium, when the guy suddenly raised his gun and began shooting towards the ceiling, and the shooting was also real! People still refused to admit the fact that it was the end of the show and beginning of the reality.
Meanwhile, the actors of Nord-Ost were preparing for their appearance on the stage. When they heard loud noise and shootings, a few of them sensed something bad happening. They quickly locked themselves in their dressing rooms. There was a small passage behind the stage to the dressing rooms, but the terrorists either forgot or did not know about it. Some actors took advantage of this fortunate mistake and escaped through the back door. Not everybody was so lucky. Women’s dressing rooms were on the second and third floors. The only way to run away was through the windows. It was a big risk to jump down, but it was a bigger risk to stay inside. So they did, jumped from the second and third floors, breaking their legs and arms, the first victims of the tragedy. A few actors quickly made ropes out of costumes to use them for climbing down. The Russian militants were helping on the ground, catching people and quickly taking them away from the dangerous place.
The actors who could not escape were kicked from the stage to the auditorium to take seats next to the spectators. The “show” went on...
Day 1, Wednesday, September 1
The morning of September 1, 2004, promised a good day for everyone in Beslan, a small town in North Ossetia, one of the Caucasian republics in Russia. The square in front of the school was quickly filling with people. Happy faces, loud voices, smiles and laughter - everything showed how much excited everyone was.
The moment began: first words of greetings were followed by a magnificent scene, when hundreds of colored balloons flew up in the air. Suddenly, all this was interrupted by gun shooting. Nobody around noticed how a big truck, full of people dressed in camouflage and wearing masks on their faces, arrived and stopped near the school. Down from the truck jumped a group of gunmen and quickly surrounded the school. They started shooting in the air yelling loudly and ordering everyone to quickly get inside the school. Chaos and panic began to spread among people. A few policemen tried to stop the gunmen. One was shot on the spot; the others were wounded. Little people were looking in fright at their parents, who only squeezed their tiny hands. Older kids and adults realized that something bad had happened. Taking advantage of noise and chaos around the school, they tried to sneak away. Some of them managed to escape. The rest were taken inside the school and placed in the gym.
Nobody knew how many people became hostages. The first estimate showed somewhat around 350. Nobody could ever imagine that the number would be almost ten times larger. The clock started ticking...
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On the evening of
On the morning of
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“Terror in