Be sure to get used to it

The editors sent me to a mourning rally on the occasion of the anniversary of Nord-Ost. I realized: at school we were not told the main

When the Nord-Ost happened, I was four years old, and I remembered almost nothing.

All the horror of those years for me, as for many guys of my age, merged into one vague memory. On September 11, Nord-Ost, terrorist attacks on the Stavropol Territory-all this went in a continuous stream on the screen of the Chinese TV, and this was so much that news stories about bomb explosions and hostage captures began to be perceived as an endless film about the death of people. Strangers. Mom watched all this, and sometimes suddenly left for a long time into the kitchen of our small -meters, and I hugged a plowing dog with a chap and calmly fell asleep to the sound of a TV.

This film accompanies me from birth, so I'm not scared now, so I did not cry after Volgograd and Peter, so

My peers VKontakte are now making memes about Kerch. We have not forgotten how to empathize with the victims of terrorist attacks - we did not know how to do it.

At school, we were told about Nord-Ost-once, in the context of Chechnya. It was said that the militants who captured 912 people were Chechen separatists.

At school, we were told about the assault, as a result of which 130 people died. But we were not told who is to blame for this, and why we need to remember this.

On October 26, 2018, I have been going to the theater center on Dubrovka - in the editorial office I learned that for 16 years now a commemorative ceremony has been going on every year before the center. I go there to talk with the victims of the attack of 16 years ago, because I want to understand what happened there, and how to live after that.

I pass through the frame of the metal detector, past a smiling policeman on high studs and with bright red lips. Three bronze cranes remain to me, soaring in the gray October sky - a monument to the victims of terrorism, on the right - the new snow -white temple of Methodius and Cyril.

With the gray wall of the theater, the eyes of the dead look at me. One of them is serious, someone flooded with laughter, and the majority just smiles sweetly. Banner with portraits of the dead for 10 years. They are not at all like each other, but at the same time remind me of several generations of the same family.

All people arriving at the theater are almost immediately approached by the banner: at first they do not stand for long in three rows of lit candles in brilliant Ikeev lanterns. The lights are placed right on the steps of the theater, according to the number of those killed during the assault. I notice an elderly woman who carefully takes a portrait of a young girl from a plastic bag and modestly puts him between lanterns. When the event ends, she wipes the portrait with her hand and removes it back into the bag.

I make up the history of the tragedy in my head on scraps of stories.

I just ask them: what should I know about Nord-Ost? And they answer.

Here are the relatives of Yakubenko Elena Aleksandrovna. Her twin sister, her son, daughter (on her chest, she has a shabby icon “There is no terror”) and her grandson, whom she never saw. Now Elena Alexandrovna, whose photography is printed on the right side of the banner, six grandchildren and granddaughters, and she did not see any of them, although she really dreamed of becoming a grandmother.

On October 19, 2002, Elena Alexandrovna turned 46 years old, and she was presented with a ticket for a musical.

- She called from there. She called the guys and said: "Take care of the children, they will not stop there." She said: "They will go to schools and gardens." And then Beslan happened, ”the sister of the deceased tells me inconsistently.

The children of Elena Alexandrovna were on duty at the theater from the first minutes of the capture. They went with posters for three days: "Stop the war in Chechnya!" - Elena Alexandrovna asked for such posters to write such posters on the phone, she thought she would help. Then another three days they sat in a neighboring vocational school, where the authorities organized a point for the relatives of the hostages. They signed the pieces of paper, about recognition by the victims, unsuccessfully searched for their mother around the hospitals. Elder Father Elena Alexandrovna died of a stroke.

It turns out that the Nord-Ost has carried away the life of not 130 people.

Among the people gathered for a memorable event, I notice a pike man with glasses. He walks between people who broke into small groups, and quietly communicates with some of the arrivals. His face twitches, his eyes are ashen.

His name is Budnitsky Sergey Ivanovich, he was a hostage to Nord-Ost-he sat with two nieces in the front row. They all survived.

When I say that I am from the "new", the man with chagrin recalls how once by chance the "nose to the nose" collided with Anna Politkovskaya in Potapovsky Lane, and from surprise did not say thanks to her for trying to save them.

Then Sergey Ivanovich tells how he convinced the terrorist Baraev to release his nieces:

-In fact, I served in the army in the regiment of Johar Dudaev, in Tartu. Naturally, I knew their psychology, I knew the names of many guys, whom they knew. And I tried to talk with Movsar - to focus on the fact that I served in the Dudaev regiment so that he would let my girls go.

“Movsar said: people of this age are no longer considered children. And did not let go. It’s good that we are all small, that I, that the girls - during the assault, were simply thrown onto the shoulders and carried us out of there. ”

From the speakers on the concrete platform in front of the theater, songs on Pseudo-Latin are reported. The leading event comes to the microphone at the last step in front of the entrance to the center. Men's warm cap, jeans, leather jacket, mustache and also ashen eyes. First of all, he asks journalists about humanity - today there are almost more of them here than people who came to honor the memory of the dead.

The names and age of the victims of the attack are heard from the column. I hear the names of ten children. During a moment of silence, it becomes scary. At a time when one hundred and thirty white balls are launched into the sky, I look into the ground.

The host of the event is Milovidov Dmitry Eduardovich, he is a member of the Coordinating Council of the Nord-Ost public organization. During the assault, he died a 14-year-old daughter-Milovidova Nina.

I ask him after the panichid at the memorial plaque with the names of those who died about why some people come to a memorable ceremony - today there are about 150.

- People leave. In the best world. Mother with their children. Fathers with their children. And the fact that officials do not come is not a question. As Makarevich said: "You are journalists, you ask." Ask them: why are they trying to forget this terrorist attack, and to whom it is beneficial. We have little left, but we will still come to this place every year and remind the authorities that we are ready to achieve the truth. Dot.

“We need to answer our question: what is our state - a monster that has eaten our loved ones, or, as the ECHR said, is it all just a bad combination of circumstances?”

I notice a woman in appearance of 45 years, in a gray jacket and a wide scarf. I go to her.

- "New"? For the "new" I will tell. Daughter. Thirteen years old. Frolova Dasha. And I am Tatyana Frolova. When I got acquainted with the criminal case, my daughter on the hand was written "We will not die, but no more war." I don't say that for pathos. My daughter was with the school, she was the only one from the class. Not a fig saved them. Yes, they later reported that the operation was successfully performed. They left the building and said: “Guys, everything is fine, the assault was drawn. You are going to the thirteenth hospital. ” We went. For another one and a half days, I was looking for my daughter. I found her ... I feel bad about them to everyone. The only guy, I remember, is a orderly in the morgue, in the appearance of 19 years ... I was brought to my daughter, and I look at him and ask: “What is the matter with her?” And his tear flows, and he answers me: "You will forgive me, please, I do not know." I remember this episode well. And everything else is continuous blackness. I probably tell me too chaotic. I am always sausage on the 26th.

Many told me that the attack is not finished yet. Because so far people who were breathing in 2002 by “unknown gas” die from the consequences of poisoning, the attack cannot be considered completed. They also told me that the guilty will be punished, because "life will put everything in their places." The victims of the tragedy believe in this.