After last night's festivities I came to the office with a spring in my step with thoughts of last night. When I turned to The Moscow Times, however, I got reminded of the another important commemoration, the tragedy of Beslan. I guess that was the reason the traditional fireworks were canceled by the city in last night's festivities.
I remember that those days in early September last year. There was a certain nervousness in the air as the insecurity and fear pervasive in the days following the underground bombing in February 2004 came back to the city in the wake of two mid-air explosions committed by suspected women suicide bombers and an explosion of a bomb at a bus stop in the city outskirts. On 1 September, traditionally the first day of school all throughout the former Soviet Union, teachers held the first class of the year for pupils of Beslan School No 1, most of whom were accompanied by their parents or close relatives and friends. All of a sudden masked armed men seized the school, held more than 1,000 people captive and very quickly set up booby traps to deter any attempts at rescue. After a tense standoff special security forces rushed the gymnasium where all the hostages were being held. A firefight ensued which precipated the deaths of 331 people, 186 of whom were children. Even in a country used to tragedy (such as the Nord-Ost hostage-taking, the Kursk sinking) the death of innocents was almost too much to bear.
From late last week a number of commemorations took place, such as the meeting of Beslan mothers at the Kremlin with President Putin on Friday and a rally organised by the Kremlin-backed Nashy youth movement (only time will tell if they're merely maleable Boy Scout types, a kind of violent Red Guard that Mao Zedong unleashed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the supreme leader's youthful alterego like theHitler-Jugend) on Saturday afternoon at Vasilievsky Spusk (St Basil's Slope) for the victims. My Ossetian friend Alesiya from Vladikavkaz, some 65 km away from Beslan, attended the brief "meeting" in Moscow. Russian business daily Kommersant had this following English report:
I remember that those days in early September last year. There was a certain nervousness in the air as the insecurity and fear pervasive in the days following the underground bombing in February 2004 came back to the city in the wake of two mid-air explosions committed by suspected women suicide bombers and an explosion of a bomb at a bus stop in the city outskirts. On 1 September, traditionally the first day of school all throughout the former Soviet Union, teachers held the first class of the year for pupils of Beslan School No 1, most of whom were accompanied by their parents or close relatives and friends. All of a sudden masked armed men seized the school, held more than 1,000 people captive and very quickly set up booby traps to deter any attempts at rescue. After a tense standoff special security forces rushed the gymnasium where all the hostages were being held. A firefight ensued which precipated the deaths of 331 people, 186 of whom were children. Even in a country used to tragedy (such as the Nord-Ost hostage-taking, the Kursk sinking) the death of innocents was almost too much to bear.
From late last week a number of commemorations took place, such as the meeting of Beslan mothers at the Kremlin with President Putin on Friday and a rally organised by the Kremlin-backed Nashy youth movement (only time will tell if they're merely maleable Boy Scout types, a kind of violent Red Guard that Mao Zedong unleashed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution or the supreme leader's youthful alterego like theHitler-Jugend) on Saturday afternoon at Vasilievsky Spusk (St Basil's Slope) for the victims. My Ossetian friend Alesiya from Vladikavkaz, some 65 km away from Beslan, attended the brief "meeting" in Moscow. Russian business daily Kommersant had this following English report:Unable to Mourn
The mournful meeting of silence was held in Moscow Vasilievsky Spusk Saturday, September 3, 2005, in memory of those slain in Beslan bloodshed a year ago. The meeting staged by Nashy movement was attended by 30,000. Everyone stood still, but for Nashy, naturally.
The beginning was slated for 4:00 p.m. The police arranged a security cordon by 2:30 p.m. with the metal detectors installed from outside of Vasilievsky Spusk. The reporters could enter the square from the Kremlin quay under special lists or incognito, with the crowd from Varvarka. Nashy activists in black T-shirts and jackets reading “No words. The meeting of silence in memory of Beslan victims” were bumped into right after the metal detectors. They were holding boxes with candles. Each incomer received two candles with words “Light of Christ enlighten all.” The people crowded near a black stage where the bell was installed.There were a lot of young people in Vasilievsky Spusk on that day. Some of them came independently and were particularly eyed by Nashy, who were always eager to put down the names and phone numbers, perhaps, in a move to recruit new members.
At 4:30 p.m., one of Nashys walked onto the stage. “We are the one country. The one people. September 3. Beslan. 331 people slain. Of them, 186 were children. It only remains to bewail and live. 331 clangs of the bell in memory of those perished in Beslan. No words. Please keep silence," a Nashy activist said.
The silence was broken in two minutes. Of 331, only the fifty clangs were heard when the voice from the radio sets held by Nashy members commanded to direct people to place candles at the 300th clang of the bell.
It usually takes a quarter of an hour so than the bell could make 331 clangs. Hardly two minutes had passed when pushed by the bosses through radio sets, Nashy activists got down to business, trying to sort out the crowd by sectors, explaining where to put a candle (glass aquariums with sand) once the clangs were over. The women stopped crying.
In Vasilievsky Spusk, only a few followed orders. The better part of the crowd ignored sand aquariums, having preferred to stick candles between cobble-stones of the pavement. When leaving, the people were presenting cigarettes to the police that formed the cordon.
