Age 19, from Moscow, Russia.

Elena Olegovna Sharova was born in Moscow on August 30^th, 1983.  Her childhood was spent in Khimki, in lower Muscovy.  She graduated from Khimki High School #16 and was a student at Moscow Teaching College #5.  She was only 19, and her dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher will forever remain dreams.

She was kind, attentive, and always ready to put her business aside on a moment’s notice and lend an ear or a hand to her friends

She was at ‘Nord-Ost’ since the day of its premier.  Over the last year the theatrical center on Dubrovka was her workplace and home.  Each day after class she hurried to the theater.  Together with the heroes of the musical, she cried and rejoiced, worried and loved…

After they fell victim to calamity, they prayed for help and protection and believed up until the last minute that they would be rescued.  But…

Almost six years have passed, but it seems that it was only this morning that she left for class, and to the theater in the evening.

Every night I listen for footsteps on the stairs and a knock at the door, but it is always for someone else…  A life barely begun was torn away.  Young people, only just beginning to live, have died.

It is very painful for me to write this.  It is a lie that time heals all wounds.

Written by  Svetlana Sharova

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A year and a half ago I went to the musical ‘Nord-Ost’ with some friends.  Entering the vestibule of the theatrical center on Dubrovka, we automatically held out our tickets to the girl in the raspberry-colored jacket.

“You don’t recognize me?” the ticket girl asked with a smile.

“Lenka Sharova!” we yelled.  “We didn’t expect to see you so far from Khimki!”

Lena Sharova graduated from High School #16 before we did.  We were not best friends in school, but we always conversed warmly.  Whenever we could not do some assignments, we ran to Lena first.  We were convinced that “Sharova knows everything”.

Tall, stately, and with blond hair piled high, Lena seemed older than her years.  She radiated confidence.  Because she acted so grown up her classmates at the college she attended after high school called her “auntie”.

Exactly a year ago, on the evening of October 23^rd, the telephone rang and I heard the awful news about the seizure of hostages at ‘Nord-Ost’.  My heart was in my mouth; Lena was there!  That morning we had met at the bus stop and ridden together to the metro station.  Lena said that as usual she was on her way to the theatrical center on Dubrovka…  That meant that she would be there until the end of the show.   A glimmer of hope remained: maybe on that awful day Lena left work early, before the gunmen jumped up on the stage?  But I did not know her home phone, and there was no one to ask.

A week later ‘Moscow Komsomol’ published lists of the dead.  There was a short line, reading: “Sharova, Elena Olegovna.  Age 19.  City of Khimki.”

Written by R. Mar'ina in the Khimki city newspaper on October 23^rd, 2003.

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