Remembrance Vigil: Nizhny Novgorod schoolchildren paid tribute to the victims of the Beslan tragedy.

      NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" - Polina Zubova

      On September 1, 2004, in the small town of Beslan in North Ossetia, children and their parents were gathering for a ceremonial assembly on the grounds of School No. 1. Twenty-one years ago no one could imagine that their lives would change forever and that a nationwide holiday would become a day people would not want to recall.

      A Nizhny Novgorod delegation arrived to honor the memory of the innocently fallen, consisting of schoolchildren from the Balakhna and Volodarsky districts, students from School No. 81 of Nizhny Novgorod, as well as cadets from the V.F. Margelov Nizhny Novgorod Cadet Corps. The project "Memory Watch: Beslan" is being organized for the fourth time by deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Igor Ruzankin, this year with the support of Governor Gleb Nikitin and the Nizhny Novgorod government.

      The mourning events under the general name "Memory Watch" last in Beslan from September 1 to 3. That is how many days the terrorists held hostages. The school year for local children only begins on September 4.

      September 3 has been declared the Day of Solidarity in the Fight Against Terrorism. Nizhny Novgorod schoolchildren, representatives of the regional Youth Parliament and deputy Igor Ruzankin spent the whole day at School No. 1, reliving the chronology of events and remembering those who died in this terrible tragedy.

      The weather was overcast from early morning. Usually at this time of year North Ossetia has 30-degree heat, as it did the day before. As we approached the school, a drizzle began and a strong wind kept trying to get under the boys' youth army uniforms.

      People kept arriving at the school. Some came for the liturgy, some for the mourning ceremony. But the gym was filled with people before noon.

      Tears began welling up even outside. Next to the main school building there are several stands with a brief chronology of those terrible events. Even without details the heart ached for those people who simply wanted to celebrate the Day of Knowledge, and there was a lump in the throat. The tragedy is revealed moment by moment within the exhibition. Added to the general horror were the emotions from the reactions of the kids — peers of those who were held hostage for those long 52 hours.

      When we entered that very gym, the weather, as if obeying the collective mood, suddenly worsened. Thunderclaps intensified an already tense atmosphere. Despite the cool outside, it was unbearably stuffy inside the gym. And one question kept nagging in my head: what must it have been like for those locked in here then, in the hellish +35°C, when the ceiling and windows were still intact?

      People silently approached the walls pocked with bullet holes and shrapnel marks, left bottles of water — a symbol of the cruelest torture for the hostages — and children's toys. Plush animals stood out against the backdrop of the ruined gym. The floor sagged in places underfoot, damaged by the ceiling that collapsed after the explosion, or perhaps retaining the outlines of the hostages.

      In the afternoon a column of relatives, survivors and those who had come to pay their respects — so quiet despite the large number of people — moved toward the memorial cemetery "City of Angels." As they approached the alley, the clouds suddenly parted and bright, scorching sun illuminated the memorial. It became hot again. But the heaviness in the chest did not lift even because of the good weather. Likely, for Beslan residents it never does.

      In the evening, when most people had dispersed, we returned to the school. Three hundred and thirty-four candles lit in memory of the dead trembled in the wind and went out. There was no desire to talk.

      The tragedy became part of life

      Two decades have already passed, but for survivors of the Beslan tragedy those three September days remain part of the present. Aslan Kudzaev, like many others, lives with these memories every day. There is nowhere to run from what happened in a small town, and Aslan has to see the ruins of the school every day because he both works nearby and lives close.

      The attack caught him, like the others, by surprise. Aslan had organized a celebratory photoshoot for the newspaper because his elder daughter was starting first grade.

      "I wanted to make a small holiday for myself and my daughter. The idea was to do a big article about first grade. But the editor said, 'It's always Beslan, Beslan. Let's go to the rural schools instead, and before that let's photograph your daughter.' That's what happened. We arrived a few minutes before the bell. A tenth-grader who was supposed to give the first bell took my daughter to be photographed with the bell and a bow. While we were standing and taking pictures, we turned and saw a column of armed people lined up on the side of the railway. At first it seemed like routine drills. No one could conceive that something like this was possible. But when bursts of automatic gunfire passed overhead, everything became clear," he told us.

      Aslan himself, his wife, two daughters and his mother-in-law became hostages. Everyone survived except the mother-in-law, who died shielding her eldest granddaughter with her body during the explosion.

      One of his most terrible memories is the day he was a step from death but managed to escape. The male hostages were taken out of the gym into a corridor on the second floor and then were led one by one into the Russian literature classroom. Aslan and another hostage remained in the corridor when bursts of automatic fire were heard from the classroom. Soon they were taken inside as well.

      As Kudzaev explained, they were left alive only because there was no space left by the wall in the classroom for a new group to be shot. The hostages were ordered to break out a window frame and throw out the bodies of the killed, after which their turn to stand against the wall was to come.

      At the moment when one of the militants exited the classroom, Aslan saw a last chance for survival. The second terrorist, distracted by reloading his weapon, let down his guard. Kudzaev tried to persuade his companion to run, but he refused. The man rushed alone toward the same window through which bodies had just been thrown.

      The thick, nearly one-meter-wide walls of the old building became his salvation. To reach them the militant would have had to stick out and he was afraid to do that. The escapee was shot at several times, but then the arriving special forces and local Cossacks covered the area with smoke grenades. The resulting smoke screen allowed him to crawl to a small ravine nearby where he could no longer be reached.

      He sees nothing heroic in his act. At that moment he was simply saving his life. Then, in 2004, he did not think that this split-second decision would save not only him but also the future of his family. The younger son born three years later is direct proof of that. However, part of his heart, part of his life, remained forever in those three days.

      "Any events in life, whatever they are, somehow change a person's character, views and values. I began to look at everything differently, I became more cautious. We must draw conclusions from what happened," Aslan added.

      Our peers

      The children went through the exhibition twice. It was hard for them to watch documentary footage and read life stories of kids who will never be able to fulfill their dreams. Of course, they all know about this tragedy from school. But to see it with their own eyes and to talk with those who were in the gym then — that's a completely different experience. Such events cannot be grasped only through dry words in a paragraph. They must be felt.

      "I understood what kind of place this is, but I didn't imagine I would experience such emotions. When Igor Evgenyevich talked with us before the trip and prepared us, I didn't think it would be so hard. When we entered the school's grounds, visited the museum, walked through the gym, it became unbearably heavy in my soul, as if the pain filled my whole body. I was moved to tears by a woman who stood with a portrait of her son and told his story. It's very difficult to talk about the emotions you feel in this place because you have to simply come and be here to understand and rethink it," shared Anastasia Burtseva from the Balakhna district.

      The girls, and some of the boys, let their emotions out. Each thought not only about the dead but about themselves and their loved ones. They hardly spoke to each other but did not hesitate to comfort one another.

      Every member of the delegation's gaze involuntarily caught on the portrait of the youngest hostage — Georgy Daurov. At the time of the 2004 events the fair-haired, blue-eyed little boy was only two years old. He would be 23 now.

      Indeed, it was impossible to remain indifferent when seeing personal belongings, diaries and outfits of the dead children.

      Such a reaction proves once again that the younger generation must be informed about such tragedies. It is important to teach children what is right and what is wrong. Otherwise we risk repeating lessons we failed to learn.

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