A detailed story of the Tel -Aviv flight - Makhachkala. How pogroms were looking for Jews among passengers

On the evening of October 29, anti -Semitic performances in Makhachkala outgrown in the pogrom. A crowd of people with Palestine flags broke into the territory of the international airport to meet a flight from Tel Aviv. On board the airliner were mostly women and children, many, in addition to Russian, had Israeli passports. The crowd pursued a bus with passengers for a long time, demanding that “all Jews” go out, and then threw it with stones. The arrived passengers spent several hours in the building of the captured airport until they were evacuated to the military base on helicopters. Mediazona talked with passengers who flew from Israel, and also studied the videos they provided - and restored the events from the airport unrest covered by the riots.

A bus with passengers from Tel Aviv for a long time looped over the flight field of the Makhachkala airport until he stopped on a dirt road outside. All this time he was haunted by an angry crowd of local residents who were looking for "refugees from Israel."

One of the pursuers even managed to cling to the bus and climb into the salon through unlocked rear doors - either they jammed them, or the driver in a hurry forgot to close them. The man demanded to stop the bus and get out to “all Jews”, they tried to calmly calm him down.

“They shouted to him that we were Russians, that we have many children,” Kristina Zaitseva recalls in a conversation with the Mediazone.

A few minutes later, it was this man who nevertheless forced the driver to slow down. He jumped out of the bus and stood in his way. The bus was instantly surrounded by a crowd of people who managed to break into the runway.

-Uh, all, on the dick, go out now! -shouted from the crowd surrounding the bus.

- Please let us go! - begged back.

Screams grew, children cried in the cabin. “The child fell, wait,” one of the passengers said in the turmoil.

More and more pogromers arrived at the bus. Some turned on the flashlights on the phones so that others could find them in the dark.

- You kill children, you are fucking bitches! -shouted someone from the crowd.

The people who came to the airport on the evening of October 29 held Palestinian flags and posters with inscriptions: “Detubicians - there is no place in Dagestan” and “We are against Jewish refugees”. Now they stood at the bus with frightened passengers and tried to explain something about Palestine.

- Our country is Russia! - They answered them from the bus.

People locked in the cabin showed Russian passports to the pogroms, but the crowd did not retreat from the bus. “We told them:“ There are no Israelis on the flight here. Well, they, fools, go somewhere in such a situation? ” And everyone, it seems to me, knew it very well, ”one of the passengers recalled . - They watched our passports, but still continued to storm the bus. It was a mad crowd that could not be stopped. "

At first the blows were deaf, but then stones flew into the bus. One window could not stand it, in the video provided by passengers provided by the Mediazone, the sound of broken glass is heard. “Someone seems to have hurt,” recalls Christina Zaitseva. “And we [sister] and parents remember this as the worst moment.”

The first half an hour in Russia

Red Wings WZ-4728 landed in Makhachkala at 19:18. This was the only plane from Israel on October 29. According to Said Ramazanov, General Director of the Makhachkala Airport, women and children were on board the liner, out of 50 people there were only five to ten men. The passengers, with whom the correspondent of the Mediazone spoke, call another figure - 40 people, but confirm that mainly women and children really flew this flight. Among them, for example, there was a wheelchair child on the apparatus of artificial ventilation of the lungs.

The Zaitsev family in Russia has many relatives. One of them, a seriously ill grandmother, they planned to visit at the end of October. In Makhachkala, they had to transfer to the plane to Moscow.

Zaitsevs moved to Israel in May 2023, and before that they lived in Russia for many years. After moving and receiving Israeli citizenship, they settled in the north of the country, in the city of Akko near Haifa. Christine is 27 years old, she is a graphic designer, now also masters programming; Anya is three years younger, she studies a doctor and is going to become a plastic surgeon.

The sisters say that many passengers flying the same route had dual citizenship. The Israeli passport was with him with Kristina herself, as well as her mother and father; The younger sister has not yet received him. The Israeli Shmuel flew to Russia with the same flight to Russia to meet in Makhachkala with his bride; He was the only one who did not speak Russian.

At the Ben-Gurion Airport, employees, probably knowing about anti-Semitic performances in Makhachkala, advised passengers to abandon the flight, says Anya Zaitseva. But to the question of how dangerous it is to fly to Dagestan, they answered: “It will not be more dangerous than here”, referring to the situation in Israel because of the war with Hamas.

After landing, all passengers safely passed border control. Outside the scope, the State Duma deputy from Dagestan Hizri Abakarov met them. Subsequently, as the sisters of Zaitsevs and other passengers say, the deputy and his assistants restrained the pogroms and conducted negotiations with them.

The airport management for a long time did not understand what to do with those who arrived, especially with those who needed a transplant, and there were a majority. Part of the pogromers already broke into the airport building, others in search of “refugees from Israel” were inhibited by cars and autozaki . After some time, the crowd captured the flight field, people climbed on the side of the plane on the wing, and the security forces, who had previously inactive, fired in the air and beat the people snatched from the crowd.

In this situation, the airport employees decided to deliver passengers from Israel to the docking flights, but the bus was attacked by pogrom and half an hour with a broken window and frightened passengers returned back. “Protesters fled behind our bus, shouted:“ Allah Akbar ”, waved flags,” one of the passengers recalled .

According to Zaitsev sisters, their trip to the flight field and the confrontation with the pogroms in a blocked bus lasted about half an hour. Passengers agreed to be released only after deputy Abakarov came to the place. “He went out, talked about something with them. And they gave the bus to drive back to the airport, but continued to throw it with stones, ”says Anya.

Two turntables for a military base

Zaitsevs hid their Israeli passports in the package of sweets. Other passengers transferred Israeli documents into suitcases or deeper into chest bags, Kristina recalls. This had to be done, because the pogroms rose at least once to the VIP- hall, where everyone was placed after returning to the airport.

The same Hizri Abakarov, who constantly accompanied the passengers, missed the Dagestani airport to the hall. There were only two men. After making sure that the passports have Russian passengers, they photographed them and left, says Anya.

In the hall they repaid the light and recommended not to approach the windows, behind which the crowd continued to rage. There were enough water and food, fed pies, the sisters recall. Several men got a bottle of alcohol somewhere.

About three hours passed. Someone from the encirclement of Abakarov told people to gather and prepare for departure. The evacuation plan was to take out passengers from Makhachkala on two Mi-8 military helicopters.

Independent military researcher Kirill Mikhailov believes that the helicopter belonged to the FSB border service. He refers to the news about the transfer of new Mi-8AMTSH helicopters to the border guards: the illustrations depict helicopters in a similar coloring and configuration.

Everyone was loaded again on buses and said to bend. A few minutes later they were already at the helicopters cordoned off by a large number of armed security forces. “The door of the bus opened. We waited a minute, then they told us: "Run." They began to shoot in the air, apparently to intimidate the crowd, ”recalls Christina.

Around midnight, helicopters with passengers of the WZ-4728 flight landed at a military base near Makhachkala. Among those who were evacuated, there was a mother with a child on a wheelchair. Passengers were met by several military. The phones were forced to turn it off, pack it in paper envelopes and give them back, returned them the next morning.

People were placed in a building, similar to a mixture of a Soviet house of culture, boarding house and dormitories, Zaitseva's sisters explain. “We were given a pillowcase, we were given a sheet, but by the way, the mattresses were not bad,” Christina jokes.

They had dinner with army dryers. “It is noteworthy, the date of manufacture was February 24, 2022,” adds Christina.

We woke everyone early in the morning. For breakfast - a cooled pizza, it was brought by deputy Abakarov. And then a couple of hours of road to mineral water, again by helicopters. “And there was some lightness after landing. I somehow came here for a vacation here as a child. And now I felt joyful, ”Anya recalls.

The arrived were surrounded by local officials. For some time it took to resolve issues related to the purchase of tickets, some passengers were bought by officials themselves. The proposed flights to the Zaitsev family were not very convenient, they had to be in Moscow as soon as possible. As a result, they flew at their own expense.

“I don’t know, maybe it will cover it later, or maybe it will not cover it. God forbid, so as not to cover it, ”Anya Zaitseva discusses the events at the airport. “But it’s just lucky that no one was wounded, no one was injured.” And in principle, I can forget this day as a terrible dream is simple. Well, that is, it can be deleted from life and pretend that it was not. ”

Both girls say that, obviously, this is not their last trip to Russia. Friends and relatives live here, whom they will still visit. But through Makhachkala they will definitely not fly anymore.

“I am not angry with specifically these people who fled after us,” adds Christina. - That is, I was scared, I was insanely scary that I would die there now. I still have things for which it is worth living. And I had no anger at these people. I have anger at this situation itself. ”

Editor: Dmitry Treshchin