When we asked him what had happened and why we could not go past, he said that he did not know, but there had been shooting.  Where and who, he did not know.  When he was busy with other drivers, we slipped past and parked (we just left the car on the square) and almost at a run we headed toward the DK main entrance.  There was no light in entrance or in the foyer.

 Unidentified persons in civilian clothing stopped us and asked who we were, and when we told them they informed us that there was a hostage situation and we could not go in.  We said our daughter was inside, and they answered that some children had been released and were in a police car by

 The vehicle that the unidentified men pointed out had children inside, up to ten years of age.  How many there were, I do not know, but our daughter was not among them.  Our attempts to call her on the cell phone were unsuccessful.  There was chaos, and no one knew anything.  At some point politicians showed up, with journalists on their heels, and the bright lights of video cameras began the tragic show.

At 10:30 pm our eldest daughter called.  She was at home and told us that Kristina had called and said that they were hostages and all the child-actors were on the balcony of the hall, together with the teachers.  Somewhere around midnight my wife and I, and the mother of one of the other young 'Nord-Ost' actors, decided to go to our house, since we had to dress in something warmer.  We were in light jackets and autumn footwear, since we had only been going to pick up our daughter, while outside it was very cold and snow mixed with rain was falling.  Near

We turned around and within three or four minutes we were on the square again.  The policemen, however, had moved the cordon even farther from the square.  They would not let us through, but sent us to the school opposite the DK.  They said that the headquarters was there, and we could have all our questions answered there.  We entered the school.  When they found out who we were, we were immediately taken in for questioning by investigators from the prosecutor’s office, since it was a criminal case.  The report about the release of 100 hostages was false.  During the capture of the hostages, a certain number of actors from the musical were able to escape from the DK.  They had been identified as having been released.  Later it got absurd.  Practically all the station reported that all the children had been released, and that there were no children in the hall.  This disinformation continued until October 25^th, until Dr. Leonid Roshal, who went inside the theater, spoke in front of the cameras.  He said that there were a lot of children in the hall, including some who were sick (with fevers and coughing), and that he had left them some medicine.  My wife approached the doctor with a picture of Kristina, and Leonid Roshal confirmed that our daughter was in the hall, and that she was running a mild fever.  He told my wife that sometime between 2 am and 3 am on October 26^th he was supposed to go back to the hall again (there was an understanding) and he would certainly take Kristina out.  As it turned out, the special forces did not let him back into the hall, and a half hour before the assault he went home to change.  

We were in the school until noon on October 24^th, 2002, and later they moved us all by bus to the polytechnic university, where most of the hostages’ relatives were located.  We were there until 7:30 am on October 26^th, 2002.

Various representatives of the Moscow city government came to the PTU on the 24^th and 25^th, as well as members of the Russian parliament and government (Y. M. Luzhkov, O. Bocharov, L. I. Shvetova, I. D. Kobzon, and others).  They all talked about how complex the situation was and how the authorities were doing everything to get the hostages safely released, and that they were not planning an assault.  It was all a lie, in order to protect the government’s image, or more accurately, the image of the president and his personal, devoted friends – the heads of the secret services.

On October 26^th at about 5:30 am we all heard explosions and shooting by the DK (the PTU was about 300 meters from the DK).  All the hostages’ relatives ran outside and tried to get through the cordon around the DK.  The gates were closed and police with rubber truncheons prevented anyone who tried to climb over.  From 6:30 am to 6:40 am some representatives from the headquarters came and reported that the assault had been successful, that all the terrorists had been killed, and that none of the hostages had been injured.  There was euphoria from achieving victory, and because we would soon see our daughter.

From 7:10 to 7:15 am we stood in the street by the PTU and saw buses driving off from the DK building, with a small number of people in the seats, many without their outer clothing, and their heads were hanging backwards.  Despite the poor light, we noticed the unnatural color of the skin of their faces.  We wondered why there were so few and why they were so bluish.  A little while later we found out that the special services had used gas, and that the hostages were piled on the floor of the buses.

When the relatives asked where the hostages were, and what was their condition, at first they said that all the information would arrive at the PTU, but 15 minutes later they said that we should go home and wait for information there, that all information would only given out over the phone.  We got in the car and drove to some pediatric hospitals.  At Filatov Hospital we found the son of the woman who had been with us the whole time (her name was Lyudmila).  Her son was in intensive care.  We drove to another.  We went to City Hospital #13.  There was a huge crowd of hostages’ relatives in front of the entrance, but no information whatsoever.  We drove home.

Somewhere around 12:30 a friend of my wife’s phone and reported that she had perhaps located Kristina, and she gave us the number for Saint Vladimir’s children’s hospital (in the Sokolniki region).  My wife called the hospital, and they asked her to describe Kristina, and when she had done this they told her that there was a girl like that.  They would not report her condition, citing that they were not doctors.  We grabbed some juice and some other things and drove to the hospital.  Lana Rozovskaya met us at the gate.  She is the mother of Sasha Rozovskaya, a hostage with our Kristina and together the performed the same role in the musical, though with different casts. She told us that Sasha was in section #2, and Kristina was probably there as well.  They told us over the phone, however, that we should go to section #10.  On the hospital schematic we saw that this was the trauma section.  While we were heading there, I had the thought: “Perhaps she was wounded?”

Three young men in civilian clothes met us at the entrance, and once again asked us to describe Kristina.  Afterwards they reported: “Yes, we have such a girl, but she’s in the morgue.”  We refused to believe this, but decided to go identify the girl.  For 30–40 minutes we waited for a certain hospital employee, and then went to the morgue.  Our daughter was brought out on a gurney from a refrigerated room, and a sheet covered her face.  When I saw her pants and tennis shoes, all doubt was gone.  Later they exposed her face.  I signed the identification paper afterwards.

Still later, in March of 2002, after I acquainted myself with the autopsy report, our ordeals in trying to discover the truth of Kristina’s death began.  I am not a direct witness to the events that went on inside the theatrical complex.  But everything that happened in the hall, from the moment of its capture to the moment when the hostages and terrorists felt and visually saw the gas, I know from conversations with the former hostages who survived the gas attack, who also lost relatives and loved ones.  I have reliable information that my daughter was alive up until the special services used the gas.  Moreover, when the hostages felt and saw the unidentified gas, Kristina made all possible attempts to save not just herself, but other child-hostages (she tore her prop dress into rags, wet them with water, and handed them first to the other children, and later she wet one for herself and put it on her face).

The later events that occurred during the so-called 'successful' operation to release the hostages remain a secret to my family, and to me. Documents, which could explain questions that bother my family, and me, are absent from materials of the criminal case. This forces me to conclude that the medical workers who participated in rendering aid to my daughter, both inside the theater and at St. Vladimir’s Children’s Hospital, are in their actions guilty of negligence (which is a crime), while the responsible persons at the prosecutor’s office, who through their inaction did not determine THE TRUTH, are covering up this crime.

All my repeated appeals to the investigative bodies, including those who effectively supervise the course of the inquiry, and my later appeals through the courts, have been directed at establishing the true course of events. All my appeals have been met with indifference on the part of the authorities. They refused my requests to conduct an additional investigation to discover the actual circumstances surrounding the loss of my daughter, such as time, place, who certified her dead, was medical aid rendered, etc.   Even my request for an additional, documentary forensic medical examination was refused, an examination to establish the cause and effect relationship between my daughter's death and the use of what the forensic medical commission called «an unidentified special substance or substances» by the special forces. The gas still remains unidentified, even though the regional chief of the FSB for Moscow and the Moscow district reported that a «special formula based on derivatives of fentanyl» was used on the terrorists and hostages.
The court in the first and second instance refused to allow me to acquaint myself with the investigators’ resolution to drop charges against the special forces and medical workers, since the given resolutions supposedly contain classified data and secrets.  But since the preliminary investigation is complete, then I have a right to access all case materials.  My appeal to the court for an additional investigation as to how medical workers rendered aid to my daughter Kristina Kurbatova also remains unsatisfied.  Therefore, in order to shed light upon those questions critical to my family and myself — questions relative to the death of our daughter — my wife, Natalya Kurbatova, and I, were forced to conduct our own investigation.

We turned to the deputy chief physician of the St. Vladimir's children’s clinical hospital.  Present at our conversation was the doctor who was on duty in the admissions department of the hospital on the day our daughter was brought in, as well as an orderly from the hospital morgue.

My wife and I had to relive through those terrible experiences, and return to October 26^th, 2002, since it was in the morgue of this hospital that we identified our Kristina, the young actress from the musical 'Nord-Ost'. Furthermore, we had to experience indifference and a certain degree of humiliation on the part of the hospital workers.

From the physicians' words it became clear that no one established our child's state of health when she was delivered to the hospital. The on-duty doctor stated that he was told that a «corpse» was being admitted, and so he did not examine the girl.  As he put it: «examining a corpse is not a part of my responsibilities. And what are you trying to get at, are you trying to say that you buried someone who wasn’t your daughter?»  What could be the reason for this doctor's unwillingness to assure himself that a girl was actually dead? There were only 8 or 10 victims from 'Nord-Ost' there, three of them children.  But what if our daughter had been alive, and they could have saved her?  Kristina’s body (without being examined and without being declared dead) was sent to this hospital’s morgue, but the hospital guard had taken the keys and there was no orderly on duty in the morgue.  The morgue logbook showed that the morgue orderly received an unidentified girl after 9 am on October 26^th, 2002.  (We have information that our daughter’s body was kept in the admissions section until 9 am.)  But who (their name and duty title, and at what time and place) determined that our daughter was already dead?  After all, the hospital physician did not examine her, and as she put it, the unknown medical personnel who had brought Kristina into the hospital had not shown any identification papers.  There were no documents at the Moscow city emergency ambulance station, which I wrote to.  In a conversation with S. A. Zubov, a division leader at the OMR MS, I was informed that someone in a camouflage uniform had brought my daughter into the hospital (his name, title, and vehicle license number – UNKNOWN).

In the rescue service's logbooks, on October 26th, 2002, in the section of the log for place of death, it indicates that Kristina Kurbatova died in the hospital, and the hospital section states: «St. Vladimir's.» So, where is the TRUTH?

Furthermore, in conversation with the Inspector V. I. Kalchuk of the Moscow city prosecutor's office, the following was stated: «I have undoubted confidence that they brought your daughter to the hospital while still alive, but since the doctors could not save her, so as not to bring blame upon the hospital they decided to destroy all documents relating to your daughter.» This was said in the presence of a disinterested witness.

Really, is this not mocking parents who lost not only their daughter, but to a certain degree their point in going on with LIFE? After all this, my wife has repeatedly been placed under observation and treatment at the Moscow Clinic for Neuroses. Really, is it not a mockery that the investigator would not even allow the victims to Xerox materials from the criminal case? Once they finally had access to these materials, in particular all materials on the forensic medical examinations, they were forced to transcribe the documents by hand. I and several other victims did this over the course of several days, and in so doing had to use a fair amount of tranquilizers and heart pills.

Tragedies can occur in any country. No one is insured against them. The main thing is what the government makes out of them. What lessons does it extract it from the harsh truth about what happened? How does it relate to the victims who must go on living with this tragedy, and with the memory of those who were killed?

Is the government a good and caring MOM, or an EVIL STEPMOTHER?


I wrote the above text personally.