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«I had only one thought. I thought that I had to get out. I knew that if Russia started to storm (the theater), there would be countless victims. And, of course, that's how it turned out…» Karagandan Svetlana Gubareva. American Sandy Booker. Chechen Movsar Barayev. The Moscow theatrical center. ‘Nord-Ost’. Taken hostage. Shock. Fear. The storming. Death. Exactly one year ago people, destinies, understandings, and tragic coincidences were all intertwined. Exactly a year later Svetlana Gubareva talks about it all. Svetlana Nikolaevna brought a full bag of documents and videocassettes. We talked for over four hours. About life 'before'. How her life was almost turned out otherwise. Her visa to the US was almost ready. All the documents were ready; Svetlana with her daughter Sasha and American fiancé Sandy Booker were walking about Moscow. Here are pictures of her loved ones. Sasha and Sandy at a delfinarium. In a trench at the World War II museum. Sandy in a Kazakh folk costume hat, and here, sitting at a computer printing up a translation for his Russian family. On their faces is happiness, smiles. On October 23rd, 2002, they bought tickets for the musical at the Dubrovka theatrical center… About her life 'after'. The Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow, where Sasha is buried. Documents and films about the terrorist seizure of the Dubrovka theater. Correspondence with foreign journalists, regular meetings with those who spent 56 terrifying hours in the audience, and with those who lost loved ones there. «I'm trying to figure out what all went on back then»…
Invitation Karagandan Svetlana Gubareva met an electrical engineer from Oklahoma through the Internet. In February of 2002 she found his ad on a Russian personals site, and decided to send him a message. Sandy immediately replied. They wrote to each other, exchanged pictures, called each other, and already by June they were meeting in the Russian capital. «The second time we went to Moscow was in October,» said Svetlana. «Though we had decided to meet a little later. We figured that if everything turned out all right we'd go to the US sometime before New Year's. But the appointment for an interview at the US embassy came quite unexpectedly. On October 12th I got a letter saying that we should be at the interview on the 23rd. Sandy wasn't supposed to come, but he got lonesome and found a good reason to come — they needed some documents from him about his financial situation, proof that he could support us. And so he decided to bring all the needed documents himself even though he could have just sent them to Moscow by mail. »Early morning on October 23rd we stood at the gates of the embassy waiting for them to open. And we were the first to enter. Everything went well. The consular official was very surprised to learn that Sandy was waiting for me out in the hall — it's not very common for the fiancés to cross the ocean to help out their ladies. The official asked how we had met, how many times we had met, and said that if everything was okay in two days time we should receive our documents… While we were sitting there at ‘Nord-Ost’, our biggest worry was that our passports were at the consulate and we had nothing with us to prove we weren't Russians."
Coincidence «We went to the musical quite by chance. It was my idea, I'd heard about the show for some time, it had been advertised everywhere. They said that a real airplane lands in the second scene. That would have been very interesting to see. Well, and except for that, we didn't know if we'd ever be back in Moscow again. And so there were, walking along the Tverskoi and there by the metro station were two ticket kiosks. I went by one, looked in, but I didn't buy anything. I stopped at the second one and thought 'Buy tickets? No, let's keep going'. But the saleswoman was shouting 'I'll give you such great tickets!' and promised a great show. She had two tickets left for the 15th row and two for the 17th. I refused: 'We need three together'. But she insisted that we could change them at the theater with someone. And so she talked me into it. We ended up sitting together at the end of row 17. Seats 24 through 26. There were a lot of people in the audience; the hall was about two-thirds full. In all honesty, I didn't really think much of the show. I wanted to leave, but I thought I should wait for the bomber to land. The most interesting things usually happen in the second act. And so we stayed…»
Taken prisoner October 23rd, 9:00 PM Svetlana Nikolaevna showed me a film made by an English director by the name of Dan Reed, called 'Terror in Moscow', in which the hostages recounted minute by minute the terrible events in the ball bearings plant's cultural center (on Dubrovka). All of the documentaries concerning the tragedy at Dubrovka start with the same footage: a video camera is fixed on the show, filming the moment that the theater is seized. The lights in the theater hall had been turned off, and only the stage was brightly lit. Dressed in aviator's jumpsuits, the tall actors were smiling and dancing. Then, unexpectedly, from the left side of the state a man in a black mask appears, wearing loose camouflage clothing and carrying an assault rifle. Something is shouted and he pushes the actors into the audience from the stage and shoots at the ceiling. «My first thought was that this was the Chechen syndrome, being carried over into art,» Svetlana Nikolaevna says. «A director's idea. Only much latter did I realize what was going on. For the longest time I couldn't get used to the idea that it was really happening. I had a strong desire to simply stand up and say, 'Well, this has all gotten on my nerves, I'm going home!' and I had to force myself to stay in my chair. »Judging from everything, these people had entered the theater earlier. I think that many of them had been at the show a few times in order to familiarize themselves with the building. I heard that many hostages say that the Chechen women came from the audience when the hostage taking began, but I remember that they came in. Maybe their first detachment sat together with us, and left afterwards. I don't know."
The first victim October 23rd, 11:00 PM «But I finally realized how dangerous it all was when they shot Olga Romanova… It happened two hours after the capture. In the English journalists' film, there's some partial footage done from the center of the theater. On the screen a frail little girl in a dark jacket and beret decisively heads for the glass doors, the main entrance to the cultural palace. She yanks on the handles. The door doesn't open. She grabs another. It opens and she disappears inside. »I can't understand how she managed to get by the three rings of soldiers surrounding us!" Svetlana yelled indignantly. «Later someone told me that a man from the street wanted to get into the theater to be with his family, and they threw him in jail! Why didn't anyone stop Romanova? When she pushed her way into the hall we were sitting with Barayev in the same row. Only we were at one end, and he was at the other. So I could here very well what was happening. She didn't carry deport herself, adequately. They sat her down with Barayev. He asked: 'Who are you?' But she answered with a challenge, yelling to the audience: 'Why should you be afraid of these guys?!' The people muttered to her: 'Sit down, they'll kill you.' But she just got more inflammatory. I can't really say if the girl was drunk or not, but when they took her out to shoot, it didn't seem to bother her. She walked evenly. And it's even visible on the film that the FSB secretly made from the inside. »Olga Romanova was 25 or 26. Later I met a classmate of hers named Natasha. According to her girlfriend, Olga had to connection to the secret service. She lived next door to the theater, and Natasha said that Olga was just a very emotional person. Waitresses from the concession stands, light operators, managers. And spectators: parents with their children, teachers with their classes, young people on dates, foreign tourists. Documentary footage has captured the tension in the closed spaced of the red hall, tinged with an artificial yellow light. In the center seats and on the balcony lay big bright green cylindrical bombs. About the stage walk men with assault rifles. At the ends of the rows stand or sit girls, covered in black, girded with bright packets of explosives. And kerchiefs, covering their faces, leaving open only their large dark eyes. In their hands the 'martyrs' hold pistols and grenades. «All the Chechen girls were so young! …Sometimes it seemed to be the balcony was empty. Later I found out that many up there had taken their seats apart and laid them between the rows in order to sleep, but I didn't see those people. Some people broke apart the dividers between the seats and armrests, in order to lie down. But we were „law-abiding“ and didn't break anything. And that's how it was, how we hung out for days in the hall: changes seats, for example, a bit further from the bombs, which stood under the balconies, or by the foreigners. So we changed places four times. „They fed us with whatever they found in the concession stand, mostly chocolates and other sweets. Chechen women sat behind their men. No, we weren't hungry, because they gave us enough to eat, and various juices. There was milk, and chocolate fills you up. Because we sat on edge, we weren't hungry or thirsty. Those who sat in the center probably had it worse. Food was carried from the buffet and passed out by rows. And I saw with my own eyes people who just grabbed up everything in their row. 'I need it too', they said and didn't pass anything on… “The Chechen women took the seating by the toilets. The women who sat on the balcony went to a normal bathroom located nearby, but men were given some kind of area to use. In the front rows we had it a bit rough. In order to go to the regular bathroom, you had to cross the hallway with the glass wall. And beyond the glass out on the street lay snipers who might shoot at any moving target. They assigned us the orchestra pit for a toilet. Boys on the right, girls on the left. Many found this degrading. Women in expensive outfits, of course, were indignant. „I'm supposed to crawl into that hole?!“ But I just took it in stride. If you've got to, you've got to. Nothing pleasant about it, of course: the pit quickly filled up with two-three centimeters of this nasty mess. The smell from there quickly spread through the hall, but we sat at the end of the row, were there was a little breeze from the broken windows.»
Waiting Why didn't Sasha leave when they started to let the kids go? «Well, they only let kids under 12 go, and Sasha was already 13. Secondly, when this happened, we sat in the 17th row and didn't know what was happening below… the sound carried poorly. I understood that that they were letting kids out only when they were at the exit, and by then it was already too late. »They let a few foreigners leave. From what I could make out, it was because various foreign governments made direct contacts with the Chechen representatives, going around Moscow. I was simply deeply shocked by Interior Minister Gryzlov's declaration that he was against freeing the foreigners. As if among the foreigners weren't women and children! «It was hard for us to prove that we were also foreigners, because we had no documents with us. The Chechens could care less that Sandy could barely understand Russian. So many people there spoke foreign languages. And for the terrorists it was all clear: show your identification, then talk.» How did you behave? «We slept sitting up. I had only one thought: we've got to get out of here soon. Our situation was different from the other hostages. The terrorists told us all the time: 'Don't worry, we're not at war with foreigners, we'll let you go soon.' Of course, they threatened that they would shoot everybody at any moment. They had to keep about 800 people quiet. But we weren't afraid of the Chechens like the Russians were.» Did Sasha ask for anything? «No.» Did she complain about anything? «No.» You wrote something on her hand? «She wrote down the number of my Moscow friend. And also wrote it on a slip of paper and kept it in her pocket. I was sure that we'd all leave the hall. So we talked mostly about what we needed to do after we left, whom we had to call. »Sandy tried to amuse Sasha, while I tried to find out a bit more about what was going on, to talk with the Chechens. To stand in the aisles was forbidden, but you could go from place to place. When there was some hope of letting Sasha out of the hall, I talked with Barayev and Yassir.”
Another shot October 25th, 11:25 PM «They brought him into the hall. He was rather plump, with normal musculature, a balding man. Somewhere he'd been attacked, because his head was all bloody. In his hands he had a polyethylene packet. One of the Chechens poured out the contents onto the stage, something bright, yellowish red. Without my glasses I couldn't tell what it was. It was something similar to a kid's plaything. They took the man to Movsar; it was in the aisle not far from us. Barayev asked him: 'Who are you, and why have you come?' The man said that he was looking for his son Roma. Barayev didn't believe him. 'Are you lying?' But Yassir came up and said: 'No, no! I know that kid. There's one Roma. How old is he?' 'Sixteen,' answered the man. 'No, that kid is little. Perhaps a different Roma.' And later they yelled at the hall: 'who is his son? Who here is Roma?' The people were silent. Then they took the man to the stage and put him where everyone could see, then asked: 'This means there is no such son?' 'I guess not.' The Chechens declared that the man had been sent by the secret service and took him out to be shot. I heard a couple of bursts of automatic fire.»
Desperation «Movsar Barayev was rather talkative. And his outward appearance was not unattractive. He talked with many hostages. Many of Chechens were well humored. But there were a few cruel ones among them. I remember a young man; I thought perhaps not even twelve years old. I had a feeling that he was aching to assume command, that he wanted to take over things. When shooting started, the hostages all fell the ground without any command, while the Chechens insisted that everyone remain in their seats. And at that moment the boy began to run over to make everyone get up, yelling 'Sit! Everyone sit!' beating people with the butt of his assault rifle. 'Now you're going to get it from me.' Barayev at that point sat on the stage. He looked at the kid and asked: 'Have you seen the movie Slave of Izaur?' The boy stopped. 'Yeah, so?' 'Well, you look just like the task master from that film.' He embarrassed the boy and lessened the tension. »The first time we talked with Barayev it was right after our capture. He sat a row behind us. Well, of course, everyone around him turned to him and asked him questions: 'why are you here? What's going to happen?' And you know it's simply not true that the Chechens demanded relatives of the hostages to go out on Red Square and demonstrate. What he said was, when people claimed that they were against the war, Barayev replied: 'Well, you don't act like you're against the war, you don't go out onto Red Square and demand they stop the war!' A few hours after these words a lady got up from the front row and said: 'You see, the government’s not going to do anything? Our lives our in our own hands! Come on, let's call our relatives and tell them to go have a meeting out on Red Square to stop the war!' Barayev merely shrugged his shoulders. 'Go ahead and call if you want' and told his people to hand out the cell phones. «We also talked with the Chechen girls. I can't speak for everyone but the majority was there out of desperation. They said, 'we don't care were we die.' And I understood that. A Chechen girl, who stood next to me, was about my age. Her twelve-year-old son was taken from school by the federation forces, and he disappeared. Her home was destroyed in the first Chechen war. Her husband built a new one, and it too was destroyed. Her husband was killed, and her brother was killed. She left her fifteen-year-old daughter with a sister, and then came to 'Nord-Ost'. I understand, why she came here. I don't want to say that she was right, because no terrorist act is right. But it was desperation.»
Explosion October 25th, Midnight. «It happened sometime around twelve at night. I wasn't asleep, I was looking at the stage, and at that moment I saw in the corner a Chechen jumped from his chair. Suddenly he started shooting. I looked in the direction where he was firing. There was a fellow, 20–30 years old, in a thin gray sweater, holding a little glass bottle of Pepsi. He ran in the direction of the explosives. It was obvious that his nerves had given out. The whole hall gasped. The bullets didn't hit the fellow, and they dragged him away, didn't hit him. When they brought him to Barayev, Barayev was amused by the act, and asked: 'What did you do that for?' The fellow mumbled something: 'I don't know. I wanted to save all of us.' They pushed him from the hall. Barayev said that he would be judged according to Sharia law. He wasn't shot. What happened to him, I don't know. Some bullets hat hit the people who he ran by.— Tamara Starkova and another man. There was a one doctor there, he said that woman had a penetrating wound of the abdominal cavity, and the man was wounded in the head. I heard the people next to me calling for help on their cell phones, asking for doctors to take away the wounded. All was shocking — why didn't anyone want to arrive for so long? Then one Chechen took the phone and said: 'if you think that you can smother us here, you are mistaken. You are smothering your own people. At least come and get your own!'»
Hope «It was completely clear that the Chechens were under external command. Some decisions Barayev made himself. But as for liberating some of the hostages, the orders certainly came from somewhere higher up. Sometime about a half-hour after Tamara was wounded, there was some talk about freeing us. As I understood it, for this someone in the US had contacted someone. When everyone in the hall had calmed down a bit, Barayev asked: 'well, any Americans here? Call the consulate, talk to them, and tomorrow morning we'll let you go.' Barayev gave Sandy a phone, and we called the consulate, and started to talk but the batteries gave out. I told Movsar: 'The phone doesn't work' and he told me: 'Over there they're talking about the wounded, go and take their phone.' I was surprised that it had already been an hour since we'd been calling about the wounded, that they needed medical help. But when I went over there, it turned out that the other hostages were still trying to convince the authorities to send help. It was a big shock for me. And the radio and televisions all were saying that they were ready to save us! But how did it all turn out in the end? The doctors didn't arrive until 3 AM. »I waited for them to finish their calls. I was given a phone, and a called the embassy once again. They asked me: 'What time should we come?' I asked Barayev. He said: 'whenever is good for them.' I understood that it wasn't a serious conversation. Again I went over to Barayev and said: 'Go ahead, you set the time.' I gave him the phone. They decided on eight in the morning on the 26th. About 5 AM the storming of the theater started. Just three hours separated life from death…"
The Assault October 26th, 5:30 AM «Here they're carrying Sasha out,» Svetlana Nikolaevna hits the 'pause' button and goes up to the screen. A healthy man in a camouflage uniform carries in his arms a thin girl. Her head hangs awkwardly; her long hair dangles from side to side. The special forces soldier comes down from the wing of the theater and, like a doll, drops the miniature figure to the ground.
Intensive Care «I came to in city hospital number seven, on the evening of the 26th,» continues Svetlana. «In intensive care. On my left, an IV set, on my right a heart monitor. I was told that my heart had stopped. When they brought me out of my coma and I was awake for a moment, they asked me who I was. But I don't remember any of that. Therefore when I finally came to, I was very surprised to see that the doctors already knew my name. In my room there were two ‘Nord-Osters’ and an old lady. I envied my neighbor Alfiya: her husband was brought to the same hospital and she found out right away. All the staff tried to calm me down: 'none of yours has died, your daughter is okay'. I was so thirsty. An orderly brought Alfiya and me some water. We took a few sips, and suddenly started vomiting. They couldn't even change bedpans. Continuous vomiting with blood, I thought that it would never end. My chest hurt terribly on the left side. I'm generally a patient person, but the pain was so bad that I started to cry, and I was given some pain medication. For the first time I felt that just in order to think I must move my brains. I mean, that I tried to think of something, anything, but couldn't. I forgot even the most elementary words. They brought me crossword puzzles, in order to help my memory. What really worried me was my vision: all the time I felt like I was looking through a tube. I could only make out what was in right front of me; all my peripheral vision was gone. My first thought was that it would be like this forever. And of course, the very worst were my thoughts about where were Sasha and Sandy. »I sat on the bed, looking out the window. A man had a radio, and when I suddenly heard my name, I listened closely. They reported that unfortunately there were losses among the Kazakhstan citizens. That yesterday Alexandra Letyago died at the hospital…."
Sasha «I should say that the Kazakhstan embassy in Moscow worked very well. A representative of the embassy came to the hospital right away, before the police cordoned it off. Representatives of the US and Kazakhstan embassies visited me. But none of the Russians even felt it necessary to express their sympathy. They simply crossed me out from life and that's all.» Svetlana Nikolaevna took out two school notebooks. Inside: all that the mother wrote down from the official report of her daughter Sasha Letyago's death. The woman is convinced that the medical documents are false. «They wrote: she died because she sat a long time in an incorrect position… Not long ago, in the beginning of October (2003), Putin gave foreign journalists an interview. And the question arose about the gas used at 'Nord-Ost'. The president said that it was a completely harmless gas, only people with chronic medical conditions had problems, and many of hostages had been sitting a long time in one position, and died from this. But Sasha had no medical problems ever, except for some gastritis once! I don't know of a single case where a person died from complications of chronic gastritis! And in the medical report they wrote of cerebral inflammation. And so they tried to say that there might have been a problem that under normal circumstances would not bother a person. »But Sasha had no encephalitis! She didn't complain about anything in the hall. Not about headache, or stomachache. The day before Sasha and I had a medical exam, and the doctors who were under contract of the American embassy declared us completely healthy! «The first who identified Sasha were my Moscow friends. And there the police and medical examiners were a bit shocked about how she was brought in, and right away talked about what really happened. Sasha had been loaded into the bottom of a bus packed with adults. She was simply crushed! Sasha was the only child who was brought to the adult hospital.»
Sandy «But they didn't give any help to Sandy… On the 28th, when they took me to a hotel by the Kazakhstan embassy, I called the Americans, and they told that it seemed that Sandy was in the morgue. I went there on the 29th to identify him. In his pocket was to have been a wallet with a large sum of money. Sitting in the theater hall we had written down telephone numbers on notebook paper that Sandy brought from the orchestra pit. Sandy put his sheet in his wallet, which disappeared. And since he had no documents, he was counted among the unidentified bodies for a long time… His mother, already an elderly woman, couldn't come to Moscow for her son. A funeral service sent a coffin with his body to the states… »They simply didn't even try to help him. Because it simply wasn't an operation for saving hostages — it was an operation for destroying terrorists. They just couldn't care less about the hostages… «To read the big, lengthy medical reports about the deaths of her dear ones, Svetlana Gubareva had to go to the Moscow prosecutor's office. There the criminal case concerning the deaths of Alexandra Letyago and Sandy Booker is still open. The Karagandan insists, that the Russian government take another look at the matter and give her straight answers to her questions. Where and when did her daughter and fiancé die? Was any medical help given and why can't she find the results? Which bus carried Sasha and why wasn't the child taken to a children's hospital?»
Indifference
Where do you plan to live now? In Moscow? «Say what? I hate that city! I don't know what I'll do next, I don't know, I don't know anything right now. It's all so complicated. I great part of this year I lived in Moscow trying to find out what happened. I collected documents, tried to get well. I had to be hospitalized another two times, and no one from this side helped a bit. The Russians didn't want to pay for the treatments, even though they'd promised. I came to the hospital and there they won't say yes or no. They tell me to call someone up. I call up some bureaucrat, he won't give me his name and says: 'Just go back to Kazakhstan. If something happens to you tomorrow I'll be stuck with transporting you.' This is crazy! I'll remember his words the rest of my life. »Well, in November of 2002 a representative of the industrialist and business union, Mr. Volskiy made the official declaration that they would provide for all those who suffered at ‘Nord-Ost’. They have a list, and they calculated how much money, 50 thousand (rubles) for every one who died, 25 thousand for being a hostage. But it all turned out to be a lie. I called, asked about the money, and they expressed their sympathy and at first acknowledged: «Yes, yes, come on over». But later, «Oh, sorry, we don't have enough money, we're going to give only to orphans.» I have an acquaintance whose husband died, and is left with two children. She called over there and they also told her: «No, no, we don't have any money, and we can't pay you either». In the end they started in February to pay just those living in Moscow, but there wasn't enough money for everyone. Dasha Frolova's mother, for example, didn't get a thing."
Five graves in Troekurovsky Dasha Frolova, the same age as Sasha, was buried alongside the Karaganda resident. Svetlana Nikolaevna taped the path to the girls' graves. It is a big, well cared for cemetery. Ancient trees all about. There the road to the caretaker, while there, turning left, the path leads to Dasha and Sasha. Next to the markers are live roses. Small toys lay there. «When we come to Troekurovsky cemetery, we go by all the graves. I know where four hostages from 'Nord-Ost' are buried. The fifth one we haven't found yet. But it's there somewhere. On the internet I looked at an article by Vadim Gazayev, 'Story of a dead girl'. It describes the fate of Alena Polyakova, who wasn't included in the official version of the storming of the theater — that during the liberation there were no hostage casualties from firearms. This girl was found in the morgue of the military hospital with bullet holes in her body. Her relatives were simply not given a death certificate, and without this document a funeral is not possible — so they had to buy one 'on the side'. So Alena Polyakova was buried under a different name. I'd like to find her mother, Olga Polyakova, but the Russian government won't allow the former hostages to get together. »I met Irina Fadeyeva during the filming of the English television program. Ira's son Yaroslav was killed. She told me that when she went to the morgue, she found a hole over his eyebrow, filled with wax and colored flesh tone. I the back of his skull was yet another hole. But wax is easy to differentiate from skin by touch. Naturally, she decided that it was a bullet wound. She told about it during the interview with the journalist, but when the article ‘Nord-Ost, Row 11, Seat Number 30’ came out, the prosecutor's office began to threaten Irina. Me went to the prosecutor's office to read the official report about the boy's death, and Yaroslav's form was just like the rest: died because he sat to long in an unnatural position."
Anniversary A year passed. During this time Svetlana Nikolaevna succeeded in surviving a long legal process. Her lawsuit against the Russian government, like almost all the others, was refused. Why did you sue? «The Russian constitution and the European convention guarantee us a right to life. The government, Russia, it is true that they took away my loved ones; they did not carry out this out their responsibility. Therefore it follows that they should answer for this. To my great sadness, the only means of responsibility for a government is material compensation.» What to you want to avenge? «What can you count on in the government when a responsible person in a position of authority, who 'prevented a terrorist attack' at 'Nord-Ost' receives the nation's highest award, 'Hero of Russia'?! Now many hostages are stuck in those three horrible October days. They who lost their loved are changing their declarations; in the search for justice they are going to court, beating on the doors of the prosecutors. They've united in a community organization by the name of 'Nord-Ost'. Together it's not so offensive to get indifferent answers from bureaucrats. It's not so awful to carry one's pain into uncaring offices. When the powers all about declare victory and salvation of the hostages, we search for the reasons for our loved ones' deaths; we bother them with out of place questions. We annoying ones with our unending pretensions and complaints ruin the positive statistics, we don't sign up for a new life or the conception of such a 'victory'.» Meeting such indifference in Russia, the victims of 'Nord-Ost' wrote to the European Court of Human Rights. The special forces didn't knock out many of the terrorists when they entered the building in Moscow. The leaders of the hostage rescue operation didn't try all means to save the people; the powers didn't try to find a compromise. Too many were killed by the narcotic gas. The people who were poisoned by the gas were sent to hospitals under terrible conditions. Knowing from the very first how the gas worked, the powers didn't ready a single ambulance, or enough beds in hospitals. They allowed robbing of the unconscious and the dead. All these accusations the victims sent to the European institution. «We are a small, yet stubborn group, compared to those who suffered, only 15 to 20 who were at 'Nord-Ost',” says Svetlana. „And those who were around ‘Nord-Ost’ at the time, the relatives of the dead. Each month we get together, even on the 26th of September. The last time, we talked about what we'd do on the anniversary. Since our loved ones are buried in various places, this October 26th we'd like to go to all the cemeteries, every one of them. Later we'll sit together and talk about ours, about the painful things. On the 26th, certainly, we’ll go to the theater. I know that now they’re working on making some kind of a memorial for the victims. We'll see what sort of a monument it is. A few times we sent (Moscow mayor) Luzhkov and the Moscow city government letters asking that they make a plaque with the names of the dead. I have an answer which states that the Moscow city government it is not realistic, since the theater is not a place for such things.“
Thoughtlessness Eduard Topol wrote a story with you as a central character in his book 'Two at Nord-Ost'. Have you read this novel? „Topol has done a lot of nice things for me, he took an active role in my destiny. He went to the hospital, carried all of us fruits, and his books. Without his help they never would have given me the promised treatments. I knew that the book ‘Nord-Ost’ with my story in it was coming out, and I wanted it to be as factual as possible. But I didn't read the book because I have my own view of what happened: I was in the hall. I have no desire to read it. To experience it all over again is too hard, impossible.“ In his book Topol described the Russian bride of Barayev. Have you talked to this girl? „Yes. But I but know her only from the internet. I ran across her letter on the site dedicated to ‘Nord-Ost’. And the girl's letter was written with such sharp pain, that her pain joined with mine. The loss of my loved ones was thoughtless. The death was only for someone's political ambitions. I wrote her, she answered me. From her letters I found out that Movsar was not even 23. If you take out the ten years of the war, he was but twelve when it all started. But what is a boy at 12? Is he guilty that he turned out the way he did? It seems to me that Russia is obligated to share his guilt for what happened.
“The terror act was not long ago, it's still fresh in my memory. And I should, probably, confess that have no pity for Chechens, but I can't exactly say that their deaths were thoughtless. I looked at these boys: young, handsome fellows and girls. They conducted themselves properly with us, didn't try to offend. They weren't rude or rough or insulting. And I think that in principal they might have had completely different lives. Obviously everyone is someone's child, someone's brother or sister. Whether he was bad or good, for someone his life is important and dear.»
P. S. Karagandans can view the film that Svetlana and I watched on 8:00 PM on October 25th (2003). English director Dan Reed's film Terror in Moscow will be shown on ART.
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