When the terrorists announced from the stage that we were hostages, I took this seriously. When the Chechens started freeing the Moslems, foreigners and children, Lyudmila Tovmasyan, from my hometown, asked if the pregnant women could leave, but the nearest gunman yelled that they were going to kill the pregnant women first. Even after this I did not panic. I simply tried to remain unnoticed.»

Natalya and her colleagues were sitting in the balcony, and their guards were replaced. Lyudmila Tovmasyan asked each of them if they would release her pregnant friend. The terrorists all told her to wait.

«Late at night, I started to take steps towards my freedom,» Natalya shares with us. «After one of my trips to the toilet, which was in the hallway, I seated myself in the farthest seat in the row. Here, when they started shooting down in the main section, the bullets whistled right over my head and hit the wall only about a meter from me. I knew that I had to protect my baby's life, so in front of the guards I slid out of my chair and whispered that I didn't feel well, that it seemed I was giving birth. The most senior of the Chechens came up to me and asked what month I was in. My baby wasn't due for another month and a half, but I said '9 months'. Then he quietly told me to gather all my things and go slowly down to the first floor, and to tell my people that they wanted troops taken out of Chechnya is seven days. He called after me and repeated not to hurry, but to go very slowly. I started down the stairs, and the flights were all glass and I saw that there were snipers all around. Of course I didn't go get my coat in wardrobe, but went straight out onto the porch. It was deathly quiet. And here, right over my head a clear voice said: 'Hands behind your head, turn right, and run!' I looked around, but there was nobody there. I got confused and I'm standing there as if rooted to the ground. Then that same voice said a little softer: 'Put your arms down, dear, and come on, come on, go to the right'. I approached the barricade and suddenly I was grabbed by several sets of arms, and taken to the headquarters and questioned. The doctors from the ambulance service wanted to take me to the hospital, but I wouldn't have it, I said: 'I need to go to the hotel and call my husband.' I had managed to call him from the captured theater hall by cell phone, and my husband knew I was at Dubrovka. They brought me to the Izmailov hospital complex. I called my loved ones, and then afterwards they gave me a shot from which I slept for three days. But you know, my baby the whole time was 'kicking' in my belly. He didn't calm down until I was back in my hometown of Chelyabinsk.»

Natalya's child was supposed to be born on December 5th, but on November 28th she had complications and started hemorrhaging. The former hostage was given an emergency caesarian section. The Chelyabinsk doctors, who had followed the events taking place at Dubrovka, were especially attentive to this 'northeastern' delivery. A strong, healthy boy weighing 3 kilos, 950 grams (8 lbs, 11 oz — ed.) came into this world, and they named him Sasha, for his father.

Now Natalya and her husband Alexander are very proud of their boy. 'Sanka' is growing into a calm, even-tempered, and very sociably little person. At 9 months he confidently took his first steps and began to clearly say 'mama', 'baba', and 'lyalya'. «He's a real man!» Alexander delights in his son.

When the boy was only a month old, Natalya went back to work. «I'm a private entrepreneur,» says the young mother. «There's nobody to replace me.» Every three hours she went home to breastfeed her little son. Now Sashka eat a lot on his own, but he still loves mama's milk most of all. At a year and seven months they are getting ready to take Sanka to kindergarten. The little chap is already growing painfully independent.

«He's my guardian angel,» says Natalya, looking at her son. «After all, it was because of my pregnancy that the terrorists released me from the auditorium on the very first night.»

Eleven months after the tragic events at Dubrovka Natalya once again had to travel to Moscow. «For the two days I was in the capital, in spite of the peaceful situation, this feeling of fear never left me.»

But Lyudmila Tovmasyan, who so persistently asked the terrorists to let her pregnant friend go, never awoke from the choking. She returned to her native Chelyabinsk in a tin coffin.

* * *

Twenty-three year-old Oksana Ignatovskaya, more than 8 months pregnant, spent over a day in 'northeastern' captivity.

She left the theatrical center on Dubrovka on October 24th, at 1 in the morning. Her husband Nikolai and the other hostages remained in the auditorium. «When they released me, they asked me to say that there was no genocide going on in the hall,» Oksana recalls. «Later they opened the door for me, and I left, going down to the first floor. They told me through a microphone to go out outside. There was no one in the foyer — no gunmen, and no police.»

Later, already at home, Oksana's first call was to the television station, to make a statement on the air. She described the situation in the captured auditorium, and told her husband that she loved him and that she and their future child needed him very much.

The Ignatovskys ended up at 'Nord-Ost' on October 23rd completely by accident. «We had tickets for the 19th, but my husband had to go the University of the Friendship of the People on that day,» recalls Oksana. «He was studying magistrates, so we changed the tickets to the 23rd.»

Oksana watched the assault on the theatrical complex on television, looking closely at all who were led out from the building. She managed to find out that Nikolai was in serious condition at the Sklifosovsky Institute, but on the night of October 27–28 she herself was taken to the obstetrics department of the Bauman 29th Municipal Hospital.

That morning, though three weeks premature, Oksana Ignatovskaya successfully gave birth to a healthy daughter. The baby weighed 2 kilos, 990 g (6 lbs, 9 oz — ed.)

Nikolai at this time was in intensive care and had no idea that he was a father. The couple knew that they were going to have a daughter, but they had a hard time deciding on a name. Both liked the names Vika and Darya. In the end they decided that Dasha sounded better.

Oksana heard her husband's voice by cell phone two days later, on October 30th. Nikolai had been transferred by then to the detoxification department. When his wife and Dasha were discharged, Nikolai talked the doctors into letting him out as well. He went straight from his hospital ward to the maternity hospital, unshaven and in a stranger's raincoat. After being at home for a week, Nikolai had to return to the hospital. Three months later he again needed treatment. These were the long echoes of the 'Nord-Ost' tragedy.

The Ignatovskys do not like to remember those terrible days in October. They demanded no compensation from anyone for psychological damages or physical losses. «Why, the main thing is that Nikolai is alive and healthy and here with us,» says Oksana, pressing her daughter to her bosom.

Dasha will soon be one year old. The baby's first birthday will be celebrated in family surroundings. Everything is now fine with the Ignatovskys: papa is working; mama is studying at the Second Medical Institute, while daughter is growing into a bright and happy little person. But the word 'Nord-Ost' has become for them, and remains, a symbol of misfortune.