Mark Rozovsky, the father of a hostage, tells about the events
Written by Ìàðê Ðîçîâñêèé
Ñóááîòà, 01 Ôåâðàëü 2003
In ‘Kontinent’ (The Continent), issue #166
Our ‘victory’ was two-thirds ‘calamity’
October 23rd, 2002. Inside the theater ‘By the Nikitsky Gate’ the show ‘Story of a Horse’ was just finishing. I had not managed to even make it back to my office when someone ran up, saying: “Mark Grigorevich, turn on the TV!”
Within a minute Tanya, my wife, and I had our coats on.
The capture of hostages at the Dubrovka theatrical center, which the whole world knows about from television, meant to me something the most terrible of all – the possible loss of my daughter. For a year she had been an actress at ‘Nord-Ost’, and could even be there at this very moment.
While in the car, I phoned my ex-wife Lana: “Where’s Sasha?” Her reply was an awful whisper: “In the auditorium.” “And you? Where are you right now?” “I can’t talk,” and she hung up.
Thus began three days of an around-the-clock nightmare.
* * *
Over and over I keep trying to phone Lana, without result. Finally I find Sashka’s number and I dial it at least 30 times, but it is no use, the line is dead. Tanya is also calling for, since I am behind the wheel.
We drive to the roundabout on Dubrovka. Here is the first police cordon, and the GAI (highway patrol – trans.) send us down Melnikov Street, but we cannot get far in that direction, either. More barricades.
I park the car and try to go on foot, but men with assault rifles, flak vests, and helmets stand like a living wall.
“My daughter is in there. Let me by.” “You need a pass.” “Who’s giving out passes?” “Headquarters.” “How do I get there?” “You need a pass.”
Situation normal: absurd. But what is the most interesting is that it is clear to everyone that it is absurd. You cannot you cannot fight it in Russia. We got used to it long ago, to the absurd, but it is another matter entirely when you observe the absurd from the outside, and completely different when from the inside and the absurd presses on you from all sides and you feel your own impotence, your nothingness before worldwide, everyday stupidity. Through logic, I continue trying to bring pressure to bear: “How can I get a pass to headquarters if you don’t let me into headquarters where I can get a pass?”
The question is met with a less than logical answer: “We were told — pass only. And that’s what were doing.” And so, getting in through insolence did not work. We needed to find a way around it.
The foul rain is freezing. Dark. The crowd around the cordon grows as more relatives of hostages arrive. Each one makes a useless attempt to get closer to the building where their loved ones are in dire straights.
None of the officials comes out to us. There is no information on what is going on, and what ensues is hysteria, panic, and rumors, rumors, rumors. Someone says that there are a hundred Chechens in the building, forty of them women, and all are suicide martyrs. They say that the Chechens have filled the building with explosives and were waiting for orders from Bin Laden.
It doe not sound very plausible, but after September 11th one can believe any horror.
Someone starts another rumor: “On the roofs of the nearby apartments are Chechen snipers.” “Why?” “To shoot us at the same time the kill the hostages.”
Another version runs through the crowd: “Now Putin’s going to arrive. Then they’ll start to shoot.” “How’s this? Putin’s going to come here? He’ll direct everybody from the Kremlin, instead.” “He’s not directing, but coming to negotiate.” “What negotiations? With the bandits? He won’t come.” “Then all our people will die.” “Together with them!” “That means there will be an assault.” “Then everyone will die.” “That means there won’t be an assault.”
It has now begun, the nationwide discussion of: “will there be an assault or not?” It began in the first hours after the act of terror and immediately a blind alley appeared. Both variants were fraught with tragedy, and so, consequently, they had to choose the lesser of two evils.
“But where’s the guarantee that…?” “There are no guarantees!” — this became terribly clear to me on the very first night out at the barricades.
Rain continues to fall from a black sky. There are puddles under out feet, cloven by the wheels of armored cars and ambulances arriving at the building. Oh daughter of mine, what is happening to you right now?
I am lost in the crowd, but a girl recognizes me: “Mark Grigorevich, I’m from ‘Echo of Moscow’. Will you speak live on the air with Sergey Buntman?” “But what can I say to him? I don’t know anything.” “Say what you think is necessary. I’m connecting you.” She holds a cell phone out to me. I tell Sergey that my daughter is there. That I am in shock and I fear an explosion, just like everyone else is, and that I fear for the lives of all the hostages sitting on that powder keg. “What do you think needs to be done, in your opinion?” the ‘Echo of Moscow’ anchorman asks me. Bewildered, I answer: “I don’t know. The important this is to save the people.” What else could I say?
* * *
The war in Chechnya?
No, the war in Moscow. Now it has gotten close to all of us, and breathes the foul stench of death in our faces.
Only a moment ago all of us standing here were separate. We were strangers, but suddenly we became very close in our common calamity. From now on we would carry a common name. Now we are no longer a crowd, nor a coincidental gathering of very nervous people. Now we were “the relatives of the hostages”.
“The terrorists have only one demand: to stop the war in Chechnya.” “And nothing else?” “Nothing.” Strange. I am not a terrorist, but I also want the very same thing, that the war in Chechnya would end, but I am not getting ready to blow anyone up over this. “The bastards! They are playing with the lives of innocent people!” Yes, but by now means are all the people dying in Chechnya rebel gunmen. Samashki, Stary Atagi, Pervomaisk and Budennovsk, Basayev, Budanov, chopped off ears and heads, refugees and mothers’ tears on both sides. You cannot say who at any of those places, in every death, was the most right, or who was the most innocent.
War is evil. Terror is an evil deed. There is no justification for one, or the other.
My mind is muddled from terrible worry and the most unpleasant feeling, perhaps the worst feeling a man in a moment of misfortune can have, the feeling of impotence.
No matter what you say, they are not listening to you. No matter what you do, it will not save anyone now. I am seized by fury because of my inability to influence, personally influence, the situation.
* * *
I make another attempt to make it into the headquarters. I find an officer who looks like he is in charge. I try to talk calmly and say something along the lines of: I am the father of a girl in the building, and I can offer myself as a hostage in her place. The Chechens will go for this, since I am more valuable to them than the life of a baby, and while doing this I can carry out any secret mission headquarters wants from me. The officer looks at me, as if I were an idiot, then a bit sarcastically (or perhaps, it seemed to me that is was sarcastically) he says: “Step aside, citizen.” Cursing inside, I step aside.
It is all right; this is just how it is. They have us all “step aside” from this Chechen war. It only “reaches” us when our children end up coffins – tin (army issue – trans.) or regular ones. And in so doing they shamelessly call us “citizens”. But who are we? All the politicians call us “Citizens of Russia!” So, step aside, citizens of Russia!
Once again I go decisively up to the officer: “Perhaps you could let me in? Maybe tell your superiors? Understand, I was supposed to, excuse me, I am Mark Rozovsky, I was supposed to participate in all this.” Once again the officer explains things to me with the same quiet firmness: “There's no needy, Mr. Rozovsky. There are professionals there, specialists. They know what to do. They know what and how. They’ll manage without you, and make the right decisions. Don’t worry.”
These are the last words I remember, and yet they seem symbolic. But only later, after the assault, did I realize this.
* * *
Oceans of rain beat down on the asphalt. Tanya and I are chilled to the bone, and run to a gas station where I buy a bottle of brandy for the purposes of “warming up”. Together with a little flock of young journalists, we hop from backyard to backyard to get a little closer to the building, this time from a different side, but there we run into a cordon that was no less harsh. And presidential assistant Yastrzhembsky.
We run up to him and hear: “All the children have been released and are in a bus. You wife has also been released.” He means my ex-wife Lana. “She is in the headquarters with Nechayev.” He means her present husband, the former economics minister and now president of a financial corporation. Nechayev, fortunately for him, has more opportunities to get inside headquarters than I.
I rejoice, but not for long. I dial Andrey Nechayev’s number and hear, as they say, straight from the horse’s mouth: yes, Lana has been freed by the special forces (but no other details). Sasha, however, is not in any bus, but continues to be “there”.
Choking on the words, I ask Lana: “I’m a hundred meters from you. Ask Andrey to come out and let me into headquarters. I can be useful, tell anyone who matters.” “No, it’s not necessary,” Lana replies. “Nothing like that is necessary,” followed by a dial tone. We are cut off. Of course, Lana is not herself right now. She is free, but her daughter is still under the threat of death. She is physically, and geographically, nearer to Sashka than I am right now!
My distance, my worthless, useless hanging outside here by the cordon, and my growing feeling of impotence before the approaching calamity that could occur at any moment, all this has trampled my soul and brought me to a state of heavy depression. Where is the way out? There is no way out.
Perhaps all along these Chechen dregs were trying make us feel complete crushed.
Unexpectedly, from the direction of the captured building I hear automatic gunfire, and something explodes. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!
Then it all quiets down, and there is silence once again, a sinister, unendurable silence. It means that the assault, thank God, has not begun. It means that, for now, the people’s deaths are not inevitable.
The rest of the sleepless night Tanya and I spend at home in front of the television, along with the entire country, jumping from channel to channel in search of new pictures and information about what is going on. This psychosis has only now just begun, will be repeated an infinite number of times, but we cannot tear ourselves away.
When I close my eyes I see Sashka in front of me. Sashena, Sashulka, her eyes, her smile, and I hear her voice, distinct to the point of derangement: “Pa-aa-apa, when are you going to do ‘Plague Feast’ again? Our whole class has decided to go.”
* * *
I have never been to Chechnya, and, perhaps, I never will. For some reason it does not beckon to me. But if I do go, I will definitely toss back my head and try to look at the sky there in a bit more detail. Is it really that different? Is it not really just the same as our own, but with rocks instead of clouds? Instead of an azure color, is it black? Instead of a round sun, is theirs a square one?
I do not believe this. The people there are probably the same as us, too. Two legs, two arms, a head on their shoulders, and a heart on the left side.
Of course, that is on the outside. We cannot tally what is inside them. That, which is inside their heads, does not fit into ours. That, which is in their hearts, we cannot understand.
No matter how often you explain the word “jihad” to a Christian, he, with uncertainty, will keep repeating the words: “thou shalt not kill”, yes, “thou shalt not kill”.
No matter how often you prove to a Jew and all paths lead to Mecca, he will still kiss the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
We are all different. Therefore it is ridiculous to demand that the whole world live “according to Sharia law”. I, for example, do not want to, and I will not.
Go ahead and kill me.
And I am not alone.
* * *
Seven hundred and some persons went to the musical ‘Nord-Ost’. Plus sixty actors. Plus the service personnel. Plus fifty terrorists. Altogether eight hundred or more. Two hundred persons will assault the building. This means a thousand altogether.
And in an instant all will die from an explosion: children and adults, women and seniors, armed and unarmed, all unique and inimitable.
I hear Bin Laden’s message on ‘Al Jazeera’ television: “The mission of primary importance at this stage of the war should be the fight against the unbelievers, the Americans, and the Jews.”
From Saddam Hussein: “I condemn the act of terrorism against Russia. Our main enemies are Zionism and the American way of life.”
It used to be that there were these so-called “hot spots” on the world map. The Near East, Afghanistan, Chechnya. Now the “hot spots” have spread across the entire globe. In quiet and faraway Australia the tin coffins are arriving.
But what is the reason? Are there reasons? Is there no primary cause for terror, this, the greatest calamity mankind has faced as it enters the third millennium?
We need to understand, to recognize, and to present to the world this awful secret, this, as you will, philosophy of terror as a phenomenon. Otherwise we cannot save neither my daughter, nor a thousand other lives inside ‘Nord-Ost’, nor millions of hostages who, though they are not in the auditorium, find themselves today hostages anyway, even though it seems to them that they are free.
* * *
The second day has come and gone. They added insomnia, but did not take away the alarm.
The television has overheated, and the telephone melted from the endless calls. Friends and strangers. Condolences, support, and moving warmth. Words, words, and more words.
But as for changes in a better direction – not hardly. The people who have been released so far can be counted in the single digits, but they are sewing optimism all around: there will not be an assault, they say, and some clairvoyant promises that everything will be fine.
Maybe for real?
From time to time I randomly dial Sashka’s cell phone. Perhaps she will answer? Is it not possible? What if by some miracle my daughter answers?
No miracle. There is only the reality of eighteen suicide martyrs who someone has already named “walking bombs”. At any moment the 2 kilos of explosives in their belts, filled with nails and ball bearings, could go off, and then… Forty children sitting on the balcony, and the adults with them, will be blown sky high as the first victims, and they will fall on the heads of those below. A mix of hands, legs, heads, and bloody rocks, all falling into one mass grave.
* * *
At five in the morning there was a call. Tanya picked it up. The call was from there: “Tanya, this is Sasha. You probably know that we’re hostages. Tell papa to gather his friends and acquaintances this morning on Red Square for a demonstration against the war in Chechnya, otherwise they’ll kill us. If there is a demonstration, they’ll let us go after . Us, that is, the children from ‘Nord-Ost’,” followed by a dial tone.
Tanya never managed to ask Sasha a thing, but it was clear from the girl’s tone, from her rapid pace, that Sasha was speaking under duress, not in her own voice or with her own words. A gun was placed to my daughter’s head.
Afterwards Sasha recounts: “All the children were on the balcony. We slept on the floor, between the seats. We took the cushions from the empty chairs and used them for pillows. And here we were sleeping when suddenly there was a gunshot. That’s how he woke all of us up.” “Who is ‘he’?” “Well, one of them. They had one handsome one who looked like Ricky Martin.” “Like who??!!” “Like Ricky Martin. The singer, papa, Ricky Martin!” “And he woke you all up in the middle of the night?” “There was also an old lady there. They.”
I noticed that after her rescue Sasha never called ‘them’ terrorists, as we did. It was always ‘one’, ‘the old lady’. No, it is not “Stockholm Syndrome”. It is a pure, childlike avoidance of ‘un-childlike’ words, her intuitive way of steering away from politics, of avoiding the dirtiness of life.
“And who was ‘the old lady’?” “She said that we had to call home and say whatever she told us, and she gave us some cell phones.”
I thought that ‘you probably know that we’re hostages’ sounded very unnatural, while ‘otherwise they’ll kill us’ was all too convincing. But what was I to do? Not go to the demonstration? Ignore the late-night phone call from there? Go back to sleep and wait until the ‘professionals’ released everyone? Until the ‘negotiators’ finally negotiated something?
Hardly waiting for morning, I rush to Red Square. I flew there at the summons of my daughter who was sitting on a balcony, under which were explosives. I could care less if this demonstration was sanctioned or not. It seemed to me that even if there was only one chance to help the children, then we had to try. “The main thing is to save the hostages”? Then let us save them, not with words, but with deeds! A demonstration, so let there be a demonstration. At least it would be something, at least something — any action to assist “the main thing”.
So I was very surprised to see cops barricading the entrance to Red Square from the direction of Vasilevsky Spusk. “If they get permission for a demonstration, then we’ll let you through. If not – remain here.”
Together with me at the feet of Saint Basil’s were my true friends and colleagues: Sasha Gelman, Yuri Ryashentsev, Misha Kozakov, Volodya Dolinsky, and many familiar and unfamiliar people who continued to trickle in. It was plain, however, that there were still not enough people to make the event look weighty.
There was a mass of journalists, and a few television cameras. All were extremely excited.
Live on ‘Echo of Moscow’ I called on the Muscovites to come to the demonstration: “Right now, now a bus from Dubrovka will come with relatives of the hostages.” Someone says: “Yastrzhembsky at this time is solving the problem of getting the demonstration sanctioned by the Moscow authorities. Don’t start yet. Their decision will be known in 15 minutes.”
We wait. At least there is something to wait for. Enough people had already gathered. One of the young people laid out some poster board, on which soon appeared the outlines of improvised slogans in felt-tip pen.
Some news at last: “Yastrzhembsky said that in order to receive official permission for a demonstration it is necessary for no less than a thousand people to gather.” Whom it said it to, and if he even did say it like that cannot be guaranteed, but there is no time to clarify it.
The placards are raised. I begin to chant first: “Damn the war! Damn terror! I don’t want my daughter to die at 14!” I break off yelling something, but just what it is, excuse me, I cannot describe here.
Wise Alexander Gelman does not speak as if at a demonstration. His speech is directed not so much to those around him, as it is at the television viewers. It is very good if they listen to him, if they hear him. Several other remarkable speeches follow, and suddenly, from Lord knows where, some provocateur slips in his declaration: “The Caucasus, Caucasus! Down with the Russians in Chechnya! Your Yeltsin started all this war. Take all democrats to court!” “Who are you?” I ask. “Come on, state what you are.” “I’m an Azerbaijani journalist.” He is lying. I have been in Baku many times, and I know the Azerbaijani accent. “Get out! We’re not here to flatter your xenophobia.” He looks like the man I would see from behind during the assault, when they discovered a ‘liaison’, an informer for the terrorists.
I remember as well the smiling policeman walking through the crowd with his notebook, into which he carefully recorded the texts and slogans from the signs.
The unsanctioned demonstration (if this could be called a demonstration) ended. Now we will wait: will they release the children after , or will they not release them?
* * *
They did not release them.
Rejoice, those of you who believe that there was no need to “pander” to the terrorists. Rejoice “patriots” whose children are now and forever out of danger: the war in Chechnya – others’ hands, others’ lives – will continue for an eternity, and for an eternity we will carry on about how the ‘blacks’ do not give us room, how they are filling up all of Russia. Comrade Stalin was right when he inflicted genocide on the Chechen people! Kill them! Crush them!
We will ‘Chechen-ize’Chechnya and other places. But they will ‘Chechen-ize’ us. The Caucasus for the Caucasians! Kill the Russians! Kill the Zionists! Kill! Kill! Kill!
They did not release them. However, it is good for someone! It is advantageous to all: to those who organized the act of terror, and to those who must now take action to free the hostages. Our hands are untied, since now there is a weighty argument for bloodletting: you cannot agree to anything with bandits.
Towards the evening of October 25th I arrive at the same, uncomforting conclusion: there would be an assault, and everyone around me was lying.
Confirmation of this was sprinkled directly on my head.
First: the ‘unsanctioned’ antiwar demonstration was nothing more than the desire of the ‘professionals’ not to be bothered. The public should prepare for the use of force, and all that anyone disagrees about is whether this ‘force’ should be exceptional. What is necessary, however, is something completely different: to convince society on the eve of the assault that all ‘peaceful’ initiatives have broken down, and nothing remains but to strike a “blow against the terrorists”.
And then there is Zhirinovsky. In these critical minutes it is useful to listen to him, after all, in such cases he often blurts things out on purpose, to prepare us for the most idiotic of actions. In a radio interview from Iran he shouts in his usual style that we have got to release gas, then attack. Whoever lives – lives, while whoever does not survive, they will be a minority! This means, in this scenario, my Sashka is ready: either she ends up in the majority, or in the minority. There are no other options! This is in the best case, however. In the worst case, everyone dies.
And this worse case is more realistic.
The second sign of an impending assault – the end of live television broadcasts from the scene. It was declared that from the morning of October 26th onwards, the reporting would now have a selective, informational character.
The third sign is related to the second: they report that the terrorists intend to start shooting hostages beginning at 6 in the morning. But who reported it? Such an important, and I would say, the most important report during the course of this act of terror according to the logic of the evildoers should be made by the evildoers themselves, it should have been Barayev’s duty to say something about it on television if he wanted to frighten the whole world even more, is this not so? But for some reason he does not do this. We receive the most terrifying information from an indirect source, without any confirmation on the part of the terrorists. This means, one can assume, that the sought-after excuse for the assault is being prepared along with the assault.
The barricades around the ‘Nord-Ost’ building are moved out another 50 meters. Then another 100.
This means a battle, an explosion, and shrapnel.
The closer it gets to the morning of the 26th, the louder they maintain that there will not be an assault, but the signs of an impending calamity are multiplying. I could already physically feel that an assault was unavoidable. They freed up space in hospitals for the incoming injured. Somewhere there was a report that the special forces were training in an identical building (I know that it is the Meridian DK, where we performed more than once). Finally there arrives a healthy, if not cynical realization that the assault is ‘advantageous’, it will be a ‘link in the worldwide, just struggle against international terrorism.’
Everything was coming together magically, except for the fact that Sasha and another 800 potential victims were still inside ‘Nord-Ost’.
* * *
On October 25th I got a call on behalf of Savik Shuster: “We invite you to participate in today’s live broadcast of ‘Freedom of Speech’.” I knew that this appearance was my duty.
In the studio’s antechamber I meet Anpilov and a group of his comrades. They had rushed to the broadcast, but had been refused admittance: “We didn’t invite you.” To my surprise, Anpilov’s people raise no objections and disappear as quietly as they had appeared. Only the invited remain.
I approach Shuster and ask: “Is it a bad idea to emphasize that I am Sasha Rozovskaya’s father? After all, if they are watching your broadcast in there, it might affect the fate of my daughter.” “Yes, it might,” says Savik, looking attentively into my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’d like to be maximally careful today.” “I understand,” says Savik.
Of course, we were only spitting in the wind. I did not know it at the time, but ‘Izvestiya’ had already published a full list of the hostages, and Sasha, of course, was on that list.
Ten minutes before broadcast all the participants are warned: “Choose your expressions carefully. It will not just be the television viewers watching, but also the terrorists. So, do not ‘injure’, ‘frighten’ or ‘excite the animals’.” I take this advice as an extremely responsible order. Thank God, I am not the only one who feels the growing danger of an assault. All speaking there are in agreement: not to allow senseless deaths, so it follows that the war in Chechnya must end, and not just because it was what the terrorists demand, but because for any people, any war sticks in one’s craw.
My appearance on ‘Freedom of Speech’ on October 25th is muddled and tongue-tied, but I am terribly worried and have not slept for two days.
“The time has come,” I say. “Not for words, but for the matter to end, no matter what. Those who are holding hostage our children are committing violence. They are severely mistaken if they believe that violence can be conquered with violence. Unfortunately, we are divided by the same fallacy as well, and we too are driving the situation down a blind alley. One violence gives birth to another violence, and a third, and latter a fourth, five, hundredth… And the chain is endless; only the dead ever reach the end. It is said that our Motherland is responsible for its children, and if she has sent her children to die senseless deaths in Afghanistan and Chechnya, then this must finally cease.”
“Today,” I say. “The only means, it seems to me, direct, honest, and without unnecessary words, without demagoguery, and without discussions about how ‘the most important thing for us is the man’ (and then do nothing), the leadership of the country must make a responsible political decision and remove ‘excess forces’. I am no specialist; I do not know what ‘excess forces’ are — perhaps to remove all of our armed forces from Chechnya. The president must come out to the people, it seems to me, as an average, everyday citizen, and say: ‘My dears! Today in the name of human lives, in the name of freeing the hostages, the children, the women, and the men, I am required, I emphasize, required! To do that, which these people demand of me’.”
I say that it is difficult, but I do not see any other way for all of them, or for anyone, individually. I say: “They tell me that I’m ‘no patriot’, so what do you advise me to do? These days when Jewish Roshal and Jewish Kobzon bring Russian people out, for some reason I don’t see any Russian ‘patriots’ there! Why don’t I see them? Yes, bandits and criminals have no nationality, but neither does grief.”
No one hears my last words. Savik Shuster starts to read a heart-rending list of child hostages, but I still think that my last words are the most important ones. I say that all of Russian culture, all Russian history is witness to the fact that one cannot answer violence with violence, and if we sat at the same table with Fyodor Mihailovich Dostoyevski, he would tell us what terrorism was and what were its sources. I say that deaths would never bring us to our main goal – the end of the war.
You cannot hold a candle in church in one hand, while with the other you vote for the death penalty, and you cannot consider yourself a Christian and simultaneously bloody yourself with innocent victims.
* * *
And so, that, which everyone feared more than anything, began.
My heart beat faster, and I am panting. Dying from the horror, we await the explosion.
Fortunately it never comes, and it is victory. There are information extracts, in strictly measured, tiny portions, which the world hungrily laps up.
In the meantime, a chronicle of the apocalypse: special forces carrying poisoned people out of the building. Their arms loll about, and many are unconscious. They are ‘warehoused’ right by the entrance. Dead? Yes, undoubtedly there are some dead.
We watch the horrifying scenes: in front of us is Hell. It is impossible to look upon this truth without shuddering, the truth of life and death.
But in this swarming crowd my eyes search for Sasha. Would I see her, and would I recognize her?
For the morning and first half of the day I am psychotic: where is she? Calling the hospitals is useless — all official numbers are overloaded.
“Phone Roshal,” says Tanya. “You know him.” Yes, we know each other, but… “It’s awkward,” I say. “It’s not. Your daughter was a hostage. It’s very un-awkward.”
Within a half an hour it is ascertained that Sasha is at the RusakovskayaHospital. We fly there at and we enter the ward. Sashka is on an IV. Her face is pale and swollen, but her eyes are full of laughter.
My daughter is alive! She stayed alive!
* * *
129 dead. Is this a little or a lot?
The positing of such a question in and of itself is inadmissible.
Try to explain this to an actress from our theater, Victoria Zaslavskaya, who for days after the assault went about all the morgues in Moscow and finally found her thirteen-year-old boy Arseny dead. Explain to her that her son is part of this ‘a little’ or ‘a lot’. How do you think she would take it?
It is impossible to approach the mothers and loved ones of the dead with consolatory speeches, not just because it is hardest for them, but because, more than anything, they know that these deaths could have been avoided, that the assault did not have to be. It should not have been, if in your heart there is a firm belief that the life of every person on earth is unique and inimitable, and therefore, invaluable.
But today I am a happy father, happy beyond measure, and thankful beyond measure to that unidentified soldier who carried my Sasha from the building.
I asked Pavel Palych, the head physician at the RusakovskayaPediatricHospital, exactly when they brought my daughter to them: “An ambulance with 8 children arrived her at in the morning. Three were immediately transferred to intensive care. Your daughter was ambulatory and even gave her name: Sasha Rozovskaya. We asked her where she was registered, but she was unable to answer this question, her consciousness at that time was muddled and scattered.”
This means that, though she was subjected to the poison like everyone else, Sasha survived because she was terribly fortunate, because a special forces soldier carried her out as one of the first. Had she remained there another half an hour, or an hour, the outcome could have been just as tragic as Arseny’s and Kristina’s. After all, they were also in there and sitting right next to her!
“Kristina cried a lot!” Sasha told me later. “In general, she was very stirred up.” “How about you?” “I held her hand. I held it tight and whispered: ‘quit it’.”
A few days later, standing at the graves of Arseny and Kristina at Vagankovo, with bitterness and pain I imagined these children on the balcony at ‘Nord-Ost’. Why had this been their fate? Why is it that they, our children, should pay for the war in Chechnya? For this damned war, which in the instant of an act of terror went from virtual to absolutely real. How can we not be ashamed? It is ridiculous to continue to live as before! For everyone, every Russian, and every Chechen!
I had known Arseny since he was in diapers. In our theater, he was what you would call ‘the regimental son’, like Sasha. We got together on all the New Years celebrations, and we spent summers on the dacha together, and we went to ‘Nord-Ost’ together: Arseny played the main character, Sanya Grigorev, as a child. When he joined the cast, he had exactly 20 days left to live.
And here they were lying in their coffins at the church in Vagankovo – Arseny Kurilenko and Kristina Kurbatova. An early death made them resemble each other, almost as if they were twins. They will never again return again to the stage, or to life.
Tears flow from people’s eyes. And at the same time ‘crocodile tears’ flow from the eyes of ‘un-people’.
Why is that I, the happiest of the happiest, now speak so cuttingly? Because until a person died, until a child died, I spoke ‘carefully’, fearing to ‘injure’. Now, however, it follows that I must be honest and express myself to the end.
Let us try to analyze everything that happened at Dubrovka and come to some kind of a conclusion.
* * *
No one ever proved the necessity of conducting an assault as the only means to save the lives of the hostages. But the facts speak for themselves: a plan to violently answer violence was accepted from the very beginning. A murderous plan, based on the eternal position of the godless, that ‘the ends justify the means’.
In Izvestiya, October 26th, 2002: “On Friday evening near Dubrovka the relocation of forces began. Our source in the FSB on duty outside the captured theater confirms this information. ‘Watch television tonight, in a few hours it will all be over,’ he promised.”
How compatible is this information with the explanation that the assault began because of the shootings (deaths) of two hostages? Or were the ‘deaths’ planned? The special forces needed a reason to begin the assault, and if there was no such reason, then one had to be thought up.
‘The assault was a necessary measure’ in so far as the terrorists promised to shoot hostages. It is not so. The truth is that there were no shootings, but if there were, then why did we not find out the names of those who were shot? They should have been buried with all honors, like heroes who had fallen in the struggle with damnable terrorism. None of this occurred. Since there was no shooting, there was but information about a shooting, the imitation of a shooting, after which the gas could be released. They had to teach the evildoers a lesson while being evildoers themselves, and so they showed them. For the benefit of the cause.
The same goal was served by the death of Olga Romanova, that same girl who dashed inside to personally demand the release of the hostages. Holy simplicity! But, by some miracle, she managed to get inside the building where they killed her, the little drunk. One question, however: who really is responsible for her death? The terrorists, without a doubt. But this murder has an uninvestigated secret: who on our side let the girl into the building? I was at Dubrovka from the very first night, and I can testify that a fly could not get through the cordon there. Does this mean that it was a setup? It means that they decided: let the little dummy go, let her in, it is not our doing, and it is just the thing we have been looking for. The preparation for the assault included not just the combat portion of the work, but also the propaganda, and so the sacrifice of someone’s life could be to the advantage of the main goal. For the benefit of the cause.
It is well if this version has no basis. But then why did no one raise a finger to call to account those on the cordon, which the invisible Olga Romanova passed through? Silence. They flung up their hands and forgot!
In a civilized government, where the authorities are answerable before their people, there would have been not just a general investigation, but also an investigation into each death, and not just as a result of the actual act of terror, but also as a result of our fight against the act of terror. But the parliament for some reason refused to create a parliamentary commission with the ability to honestly ascertain the circumstances of the tragedy at Dubrovka. This covers the parliament with indelible disgrace…
