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| Ustinovskaya, Yekaterina |
| Óæå 22 ãîäà... |
| 24/10/24 13:38 more... |
| author Àíîíèì |
| Kurbatova, Christina |
|
Äåòêè Ìèëûå, õîðîøèå íàøè äåòêè!!! Òàê ïðîñòî íå äîëæíî áûòü, ýòî áîëüíî, ýòî íå÷åñòíî, ýòî óæàñíî. |
| 30/06/24 01:30 more... |
| author Îëüãà |
| Grishin, Alexey |
|
Ïàìÿòè Àëåêñåÿ Äìèòðèåâè÷à Ãðèøèíà Ñâåòëàÿ ïàìÿòü ïðåêðàñíîìó ÷åëîâåêó! Ìû ðàáîòàëè â ÃÌÏÑ, òîãäà îí áûë ìîëîäûì íà÷àëüíèêîì îòäåëà ìåòàëëîâ, ïîäàþùèì áîëü... |
| 14/11/23 18:27 more... |
| author Áîíäàðåâà Þëèÿ |
| Panteleev, Denis |
| Âîò óæå è 21 ãîä , à áóäòî êàê â÷åðà !!!! |
| 26/10/23 12:11 more... |
| author Èðèíà |
| Ustinovskaya, Yekaterina |
| Ïîìíèì. |
| 24/10/23 17:44 more... |
| author Àíîíèì |
| Hostages S. Kononova and E. Zinovieva tell their stories |
| Written by Äìèòðèé Ðóäíåâ, Àíàñòàñèÿ Æîõîâà | |
| Ïîíåäåëüíèê, 28 Îêòÿáðü 2002 | |
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WE JUMPED FROM HELL In ‘Izvestiya’ 28/10/2002 Some of the hostages managed to escape even before commando units stormed the theatrical center. Svetlana Kononova is still hospitalized at the 7th municipal hospital. She managed to escape from the theater on Thursday night, and was visited in her hospital room by ‘Izvestiya’ correspondent Dmitry Rudnev. IZVESTIYA: Svetlana, tell us: how did it all happen? SVETLANA KONONOVA: At first, most people could not understand what was going on. Suddenly, right in the middle of the show, these men in military clothing show up and they jump from the stage into the auditorium. They ran along the walls and aisles and blocked the exits. No one panicked, but that was probably because no one understood (what was happening). Initially, the militants behaved normally. They separated the men from the women and seated them on opposite sides (of the hall). Men sat on the right and women on the left. At our request, they brought drinks and food from the theater snack bar. IZVESTIYA: Did they try to intimidate you? SVETLANA KONONOVA: Yes. Just before Lena and I escaped, the militants said: “We’re waiting for a call from Basayev, and we’re ready to blow ourselves up.” They lined up and grabbed for their detonators. Many of the girls (in the audience) fainted. It was a big change from their normal attitude to an aggressive one. Once again, they made us move to different seats, though they allowed husbands and wives and friends to sit together. We were in the mezzanine. Someone named Aslan led the militants that were with us. They all wore masks and veils. Only one Chechen walked around without a mask. From time to time Aslan took off his mask, but only one Chechen woman removed her veil, and then only once. IZVESTIYA: What means of communication did the militants use? SVETLANA KONONOVA: They took cell phones from a few people, so that every gunman had a phone. They also had radios and they used these to talk inside (the theatrical center). In addition, they had a radio that they listened to, mostly to radio station ‘Mayak’, and there was a tiny little TV with a screen only the size of two packs of cigarettes. It only got one station. The militants spoke to each other only in Chechen. When they talked to us, they spoke in good Russian. They said they did it (took hostages) because they were tired of the war. The men were tired of living in the woods in the snow and the rain while children and old people were being killed in their land. They said that they dead set on either winning, or dying in the process. IZVESTIYA: Did the militants have contact with the outside world? SVETLANA KONONOVA: I cannot say, but they often made calls on the phones that they took from the audience. IZVESTIYA: How did the people in the auditorium act? SVETLANA KONONOVA: Everyone kept a stiff upper lip. Yes, psychologically, it was very difficult, but after they released the children and pregnant women, the whole hall applauded. IZVESTIYA: What do you feel while sitting in the hall? SVETLANA KONONOVA: Fear. It only left me while I was asleep. IZVESTIYA: How did the Chechens release people? SVETLANA KONONOVA: Their commander always did this. Usually they would select two or three that they wanted to release, and without any warning they would talk about it in Chechen and then point to someone and say: “Stand up, you’re free.” I saw this horrible scene when they were releasing this little girl. She and her mother were crying, and her mother was screaming: “Take her, take her away from here!” and the child wept bitterly. IZVESTIYA: Were there any moments that relieved the tension, or that you remember more than any other? SVETLANA KONONOVA: Yes. It was one of those moments after the women were released to their husbands, and we were sitting and waiting for them to start bringing us food. One of the girls sitting near me began joking that she felt like a little cake and clear water, and then right in front of us they carried a box of cakes. She got indignant that they did not give any to us. The pastries were taken to the men. One box after another was taken to the men, and so the girl, more than a little upset, she gets and angry and rather loudly starts demanding some cake for herself. There was some woman who was very calm and very balanced, and here she said to the girl and her friends: “Calm down and let the men eat. We have more than enough energy for a much longer time than men do, and we can take a lot more than they can without getting upset. Let them eat the cakes and keep their cool, because if the men should start to complain, just imagine what the gunmen will do.” That gave us strength and we calmed down and figured out how we needed to behave. __________ At this point a couple of people enter Svetlana Kononova’s hospital room. Among them is Lena Zinovieva, the other girl who managed to escape the terrorists. The girls hug and remain locked in embrace. Lena asks: “How are you?” and Sveta replies: “Everything is fine. In two weeks I’ll be discharged and in eight months I’ll be Russia’s finest ballerina.” “How are your legs?” asks Lena. Sveta raises one of her While the girls are talking, the ‘Izvestiya’ reporter is asked to leave the room. ELENA ZINOVIEVA, who escaped together with Svetlana, talks about what went on inside the captured theater: IZVESTIYA: How did you manage to escape? ELENA ZINOVIEVA: When the thugs grabbed at their detonators and said that it would be so easy to press the button, that they were only waiting for a phone call from Basayev, I realized that I had to escape. Prior to this, when I would use to the bathroom, I checked which windows could be opened and which could not. At that moment, when the bandits were keeping their hands on the detonator buttons, some women and girls in the auditorium fainted. I started to insist to use the bathroom, and so we were allowed to go. They escorted us to the door and followed up on where we were going. A gunman was always sitting by the bathroom. When we got there, we saw that besides us there was a woman with a baby in the bathroom. We asked her to shut the door so they could not see what we were up to. Right then I opened a window: I knew that it could open from my scouting. I went to the window and saw down below the IZVESTIYA: What happened after you were free? ELENA ZINOVIEVA: Right away they put Sveta on a stretcher and took her to the hospital, and an officer from the FSB started talking to me. After that, I met my parents, whom they summoned right away, as soon as we were free. IZVESTIYA: What did the FSB talk with you about? ELENA ZINOVIEVA: We were asked about how people were acting in the auditorium, what was the mood there, what was their condition. They asked how the militants behaved. They asked how they were armed and about their bombs and grenades. IZVESTIYA: Could you answer these questions for us? ELENA ZINOVIEVA: Certainly, after all, we saw it all in great detail. The grenades were only in the women’s hands, and some of them, along with grenades, carried pistols. The grenades were cylindrical, but I cannot describe the pistols in detail. I also saw one of the gunmen’s bombs: it was two rows in front of us and looked like an ellipsoidal piece of metal, painted green, with holes drilled in it that, if my memory serves me correctly, had some wiring stuck in them. IZVESTIYA: How do you feel now, living a normal life outside the walls of captured theatrical center? ELENA ZINOVIEVA: You even cannot even imagine what real freedom is. I drink it, I eat it, and I revel in it. Freedom is more than just life. When I jumped from the window of the theater, I jumped from Hell. I cannot believe that I did it, or how I would feel if I were still sitting there at gunpoint. «WE DECIDED TO TRY AND GET OUT SIMPLY OUT OF DESPERATION» In ‘Gazeta’, 28/10/2002 On Thursday night, Elena Zinovieva told (‘Gazeta’ reporter) Anastasia Zhokhova what she endured in the occupied building, and how she managed to escape: From every door these masked gunmen appeared, and they ordered us: “Hands behind your head!” Those who disobeyed got a rifle butt to the head. Then everyone was ordered split up. The men were placed on the left side of the hall, while the women and children were on the right side. After everybody was seated in their new places, the militants ordered us to throw our phones and handbags into the aisles, but awhile later they allowed people to call home and tell their families what demands the militants put forward. The foreigners were forced to call abroad to France, Austria, and Belarus. Our captors stood in the aisles. Sometimes they changed (with other militants) to get some sleep. The terrorist women sat among us and tried to talk to us. They maintained that Russian troops in Chechnya were killing their children and our captors’ only wish was to end the war. The terrorist women said that they came to die and had nothing to lose. For every Chechen killed in an assault, they promised to kill 10 hostages. The whole time I had this terrible feeling of fear, especially whenever they would start shooting. We hid behind the seat backs and spread out on the floor (whenever this would happen). It was only two or three times, but there was no way to relax and try to sleep. When everything was quiet, now and then we would get 20-minute naps. For the first few hours I had hope in my heart that we would soon be released, but over time it began to melt away. Next to me in the mezzanine were mainly young women, but I noticed one elderly woman. Many wept. I was with my friend Lena Kononova, and we sat next to a It was very hot where we were sitting in the hall, and it was almost impossible to breathe, but when the gunmen opened the corridor windows it got terribly cold. They fed us from the snack bar supplies. The terrorist women gave the best to the children — cakes, chewing gum and other sweets. They treated them very well, but only a few broken pieces of chocolate would reach us, and just barely. You were lucky if four got to share one candy bar. At first there was enough water, all you had to do was ask, but then the stocks quickly dried up. We collected the empty bottles and filled them with tap water and drank this. There were a lot of sick people among the hostages. Some children started having asthma attacks, and there was a child with epilepsy and a woman with kidney failure. There was very little medicine. All we had was what was in our bags. In order to take out a pill, you have to spend a long time convincing the terrorist women, and then under their supervision get an over the counter medicine from the purses strewn about the aisles. It was fortunate that one of the hostages was a pediatric cardiologist. She helped the sick. They were carried out into the corridor where they were assisted, but we did not see what exactly they did. The militants treated us humanely, and no one was been. They even let us use the bathroom. This is what saved Sveta and me. Every time I went to the bathroom, I checked which windows led where, and which could be opened. I found that the bathroom was located on the third floor, and that right underneath the windows, at the On Thursday evening the atmosphere in the room suddenly got tense. I do not know what happened, but at about Out in the corridor there was an armed gunman sitting by the restroom door. We went inside and saw a woman with a little girl in there. In order to get out the window, we had to close the door and so we asked the woman shut it. Then we opened the window and jumped out — first me, and then Sveta. Only 10 meters from us were soldiers from the ‘Alpha’ detachment, four of them, but we were afraid that the gunmen would open fire and so we tried to hide. The commandos ran over and grabbed us, covering us with their own bodies and they led us away from the building. We heard shooting right behind us. One of the commandos was wounded, but we all managed to escape. Once we were in a safe place, I immediately called up my parents and said that Sveta and I had escaped. An ambulance drove up and took us to the headquarters. There I gave testimony, while Sveta was taken to Hospital #1. The doctors found she had broken the heel bones on both legs. Now she has been transferred to Hospital #7. The doctors say that she will not be able to go home for two weeks. Everything is okay with me, but my spine still hurts a little. Forty minutes after we escaped, my parents arrived at the headquarters to take me home. The next day, at the rehabilitation center on Melnikov Street, they told us that the friends we went to the show with, Misha Maximov, Sasha Zaugolnikov, and Denis Kolomiitsev, were all alive and at Hospital #13. None of them has been released yet, but they promise to let two of them go home tomorrow. |
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