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| Grishin, Alexey |
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Ïàìÿòè Àëåêñåÿ Äìèòðèåâè÷à Ãðèøèíà Ñâåòëàÿ ïàìÿòü ïðåêðàñíîìó ÷åëîâåêó! Ìû ðàáîòàëè â ÃÌÏÑ, òîãäà îí áûë ìîëîäûì íà÷àëüíèêîì îòäåëà ìåòàëëîâ, ïîäàþùèì áîëü... |
| 14/11/23 18:27 more... |
| author Áîíäàðåâà Þëèÿ |
| Panteleev, Denis |
| Âîò óæå è 21 ãîä , à áóäòî êàê â÷åðà !!!! |
| 26/10/23 12:11 more... |
| author Èðèíà |
| Ustinovskaya, Yekaterina |
| Ïîìíèì. |
| 24/10/23 17:44 more... |
| author Àíîíèì |
| Bochkov, Alexei |
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Òåððàêò â Ïàëåñòèíå, Ñåêòîð Ãàçà Ñåãîäíÿ â ãðàæäàíñêóþ áîëüíèöó Ïàëåñòèíû ïðèëåòåëà ðàêåòà, ïîãèáëè äî 1000 ÷åëîâåê, âåñü ìèð âçáóäîðàæåí. È ÿ îêàçàëñÿ í... |
| 18/10/23 02:13 more... |
| author Àíäðåé |
| Radchenko, Vladimir |
| Äÿäÿ Âîëîäÿ, ÿ òåáÿ ïîìíþ è áóäó ïîìíèòü âñåãäà! |
| 04/09/23 22:05 more... |
| author Åëåíà |
| Former hostage Pavel Kovalev tells his story |
| Written by Ïàâåë Êîâàëåâ | |
| Ïîíåäåëüíèê, 28 Îêòÿáðü 2002 | |
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“I was a For any person, vacation is like a holiday; only the latter is lesser in duration. Just like any other day marked in red on the calendar, vacation is We did not find out until later that Pasha (Pavel) did not return to work, because he was inside the terrorist-seized theatrical center on Dubrovka, and, of course, he had no time to write a memo. His explanation is presented here. THE LONGEST DAY It is overcast and rainy: a typical Moscow late autumn. Rain mixed with snow is falling, and the wet, newly fallen snow on the ground crunches underfoot and splashes sticky wet under the wheels of the city’s countless automobiles. At 6:48 pm I leave Proletarskaya subway station and walk three blocks along dirty, noisy Volgograd Prospect to the I check my coat at wardrobe — I will not see it again for 18 days — and run upstairs. Has it already started? No, thank God. Three steps ahead of me a young mother with a child is running. I think that I saw them later in the “female half” of our auditorium-concentration camp. The boy is 6 or 7. Did he make it out? Perhaps Dr. Roshal brought him out? Or is he with those children whose laughter no longer pleases our world? My memory sharpens faces I have seen, and brings to mind even the tiniest episodes: who I happened to bump into during intermission, who I sat next to during the first act. No, I think the boy survived. The action begins. I am impressed by the first act. It was an original idea, to turn Kaverin’s novel into a fairy tale with good music and stagecraft. They say that the second act is even better. I do not know. By October 23rd, the musical has been showing for a year and four days, and almost every month they add something new. The whole ninety minutes I was watching the show with one main thought: how nicely everything has come together. Inexpensive, and pretty. In two days I have to leave Moscow, so Intermission. A woman in a lower row gets dressed: she puts a black scarf on her face. Well, clearly she is Muslim, and she has to do this to go to the lobby. Amina is a little older than 16, and will subsequently spend the next three days guarding our half of the mezzanine. As to how many terrorists of both sexes were already in the auditorium during the first act, only the FSB knows for sure, if it even does. The music breaks in. The actors come out onto the stage on cue. They finish singing the first song of the second act, and then from somewhere in the hall, a masked man in camouflage jumps onto the stage. He shoots into the air. Behind him are a few more. As I remember it now, the events seem to be greatly compressed, and speeded up. I cannot see very clearly, but it seems that confusion reigns in the stalls (main seating). My thoughts are still configured for the show, but they begin to scroll through options: Perhaps the security forces are catching somebody? Or someone is settling accounts (probably people from the Caucasus)? Maybe it is an exercise? Or some idiot made a bomb threat? Well, it is rather strange that the security services would shoot in an auditorium. No, no matter what, these people are not from security. Some women in Muslim outfits and masks come onto our balcony. In their hands are pistols. Chechens, for sure. Well, now I am in a jam! Yes, it sure was worth coming all the way to Moscow just to get caught in a real terrorist attack! What a creepy reality show this is turning out to be. “Yes, of course we’re real,” says one of the militants, clearly responding to someone and making his way through the rows. “Do you know what’s going on in Chechnya?” Now for certain I know that I am in a fix. The war over there, even further from the Ukraine, has now moved to the center of Moscow. Onto the stage walks a new character: Movsar Barayev. It is evident at once that he is one of the main characters, but as to who and what he is, one can certainly not tell right away. Yes, everything is clear. We are all hostages. “Hands behind your head!” And so the first day begins… Barayev’s monologue is well known, so I will not repeat it. Nor do I really want to. The main phrase that I remember is: “We’ll throw grenades at you, if there’s an assault.” Very good! Okay, we will watch things. I am not the only one here, and will try to attract as little attention as possible. The heroes can get along fine without me. And they do: someone does not want to put his hands behind his head. A blow from a rifle butt, and the bloodied man falls into the seat across from me. His ear is half torn away. In various places in the hall there is occasional panic and screaming. We are reseated: the men separate from the women. I do not have to budge, since my part of the mezzanine turns out to be ‘male’. To one side sits an intelligent-looking guy, while on the other side is one of the child actors. The boy is in quiet hysterics: “Maybe they’ll release the children?” he asks me a breaking voice. His face is pale, and his hands shake. In the next row is a hefty man. Judging from his imposing look, he is clearly an actor or from the art world. He turns out be Alexander Karpov, the bard and author who translated the lyrics for the musical ‘Chicago’. There are a few other ‘Chicagoans’ in the hall besides him. Pugacheva will later come and try to save him, but to no avail. By my feet I find a large bottle of water. I know that I will probably have to sit here for at least a day, so every mouthful is going to be as valuable as if I were in the desert. In the hall reigns the sound of ripping tape: the suicide bombers are wrapping explosives. The other militants, meanwhile, inspect ventilation ducts, rip out audio equipment, and set up bombs up on stage and out in the auditorium. They are clearly preparing for a long and serious siege. It is not prohibited to speak, so I share impressions with my neighbors. My neighbor on the right, the intelligent-looking guy, is named Dima (Dmitry). His surname, I learn later from the list of the dead, is Rodionov. That evening we agree that one does not need to “stand out”, but should sit quietly. An hour and a half later they allow us to put our hands down. The gunmen meanwhile do their own “publicity” and allow us to phone relatives to report our whereabouts. Special emphasis is put on international calls to America and Israel. They look for anyone who speaks English. I humbly demur. Alexander Karpov, under supervision of the militants, calls the Turkish branch of CNN. Soon they tell us that (Moscow Mayor) Luzhkov has arrived at the theatrical center building. Our sigh of relief is soon replaced by alarmed suspense: there is no progress. Soon they allow us to use the toilet. The improvised men’s room on the first floor is a vast room with parquet flooring, where earlier the children’s troupe rehearsed. On the hangers are costumes, and a piano stands in the middle of the room. By the end of the third day the smell of wet, Foreigners, to the exit! The first night is a night of adaptation. If you fall asleep, it means your body has returned to normal, and is trying to operate in the usual way. At two o’clock in the morning the seat beneath me collapses with a crash: the bolts attaching it to the nearby seat could not hold out. Thus I end up an unwitting “pioneer”, and it is revealed that sitting on the floor is must more comfortable than in a seat, particularly for those taller than one meter seventy: I finally have somewhere to put my legs. I try to sleep again. At around half past three in the morning I get bumped. The foreigners are being moved to the rows below. I do not have my documents, since my passport has already been two weeks at the notorious Moscow registration bureau, while my ID is in my jacket. I go downstairs, clutching my coat check token. I hold it out to Aslan, the “senior” terrorist in the main seating area. That evening the Chechens say that they do not need the foreigners, and after this the number of persons willing to become Ukrainians, Belarusians, and the like, increases dramatically. People give themselves strange surnames and hid their documents. I have already managed to tell the militants that I am a citizen of the Ukraine, and now, even without any proof of my citizenship on me, I get permission to sit with other the foreigners in separate seating near the entrance. In this part of the mezzanine there are quite a few people: there is a young Serbian man and his wife, a mother and child from Kazakhstan, several Ukrainians (real or imaginary?), a man from Belarus, and another woman who recently became a citizen of Austria. For some reason they put me in the ‘children’s sector’, where there are the young actors from the On Thursday morning I try to connect with the Ukrainian Embassy. No luck. I am also unable to phone Odessa. The cell phones are gathered in a single pile by the militants, and issued to the hostages under strict supervision. After several unsuccessful attempts, they take the phone away from me. Of all of the foreigners, only the Serbs are able to contact their embassy; the rest also fail. My memory once again tosses me a scene, one of countless in the mosaic of those terrible days: Barayev is walking across the stage, talking on a cell phone. He sort of promises to release the foreigners, including Ukrainians, but “it all depends on when they fulfill our demands.” One thing is clear: I have to maintain my patience. Patience is the talisman of our On the same day, October 24th, I am able to speak with one of the main terrorists, Aslan. Speaking frankly, I thought he was the most senior of the militants. Aslan calls me over and starts asking me who I am and where I am from. The “brave highlander” has views about Odessa that very peculiar. In particular, he is sure that our mayor at the time is a Chechen. I have to disappoint him. Aslan, moreover, says that their plan was originally to capture the Bolshoi, but the latter proved too great a challenge. “Putin’s approval ratings fell sharply today,” the militant say. I agree with him, after which I go on an incurable journalistic streak and ask about Basayev and the other major commanders. Aslan assures me that Khattab is still. From my side, of course, there is no contradiction. Accustomed to Hell The second day passes in a strange mode of ‘unreal reality’. The phantasmagoria of the hall, in which art reigned until recently, and where now 800 sit locked in an anticipation of death, is already familiar. We are fed chocolates and given water: supplies looted from the snack bar. Each hour we watch TV on a set on the edge of the (sound and light) operator’s cabin. The negotiations are going slowly. The terrorists are nervous. At the end of the day Dr. Roshal appears in the hall. For several hours the militants do not let him in, and he departs almost at midnight, leaving with most of the drugs. In the auditorium there are diabetics, heart patients, and asthmatics. Many have fallen into depression. Some do not eat or even drink. These, it is true, are a minority. Others continue to joke, read, and talk with one another. People exchange addresses. At the same time, everyone is looking at their neighbor, and wondering: which of us will leave first? Or will neither of us? The bomb on the seats in the center of the hall stands like a silent threat. That night we are The nightmare continues. On Friday evening, a man in the hall is administered a beating. He claims that his son is here, but nobody recognizes him. Two militants drag him off into the wings. Shots, and shock in the hall. Virtually everyone’s senses are dulled, but not dull enough. Some start again with hysterics, and suddenly there is a panic in the stalls: one of the militants is shooting from onstage. I still do not know what happened there. Later, from stories of my neighbors in the hospital, I reconstruct that one of the hostages ran at one of the female militants with a glass bottle of mineral water. The shooting from the stage did not hit him, but instead wounded two people in the audience: a man is bleeding from his eye, and a woman is wounded. On Barayev’s orders, they are carried out of the room so as to avoid panic. This was at about two o’clock in the morning. Spilled brains and blood are on the seats. The Chechen women wipe it up, since the hostages have neither the strength, nor the courage. The hero of this calamity is tied up and put in a corner. Barayev promises that he will be executed tomorrow on stage, in public. “We will put into action the second part of our plan” The night of The same night, Barayev comes up to our mezzanine. Here is where a high official in the traffic police is located — a major general or colonel general or something. His surname, it seems, is Olkhovnikov. He came to the musical with his wife, who is also a police official, and their two children. Barayev “fingered” him from documents found in the coat check. They tell the general that he is coming with them to Chechnya, where he will be exchanged for jailed rebels. Then the whole family is seated away from us, and put under them a separate guard. After that, everyone is ordered to ‘stand down’. In about an hour and a half the gas is released. I was sitting almost by the exit, and so I was one of the first that the ‘Alpha’ commandos carried out (or rather, as it turned out, led out). Those sleeping on the floor were not so lucky: they suffocated almost immediately. The cardiac cases died, among them Alexander Karpov. Those who suffered from respiratory diseases died, among them Sergey Senchenko, a performer in the show ‘Harem’, who was sitting down in the stalls. From the balcony I saw him a few times, as he nervously paced around the hall, coughing up the aftereffects of a recent bout of strep throat. Dima Rodionov died. He was only 19. They were searching for Dima for more than a week. They found in the morgue, covered up under a jacket with someone else’s ID. Later, in my spare time at the hospital, I counted: there were 10 of my neighbors from the hall there in the hospital, of various genders and ages. Six of them died, two survived, and the fate of the other two I simply do not know. Such are the dry figures from my terrible personal accounting. Epilogue I woke rather quickly, on the bus as we drove to the 7th municipal hospital, the same hospital where the victims of the Kashirskoye Highway bombings were taken. Already on the bus, I identified myself and asked to call Odessa. I did not manage to let people know about me until Saturday evening, thanks to my compatriot Elena Burban, who was lying in a nearby hospital room. She asked her Moscow friends to call Odessa. Lena lost her husband, with whom she was traveling on honeymoon. They only had a day to spend in Moscow. Already by Sunday, October 27th, representatives of the Ukrainian Embassy came into my hospital room, and I ceased being “an unaccounted for Odessan”, as I was recently described by the Ukrainian press. I could write a whole other story about my stay at the hospital, about how the doctors pulled some people back from clinical death five times, and tell the stories of all who were fated to be my neighbors in the ward. Each of these stories could be the topic of a separate story. But… “The pen falls from the hand.” 129 of my comrades in misfortune lie in the ground, ages from 9 to 73. Fate laid out their cards in solitaire, but not everyone was dealt a good hand. |
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