Black September Beslan. On this day, a terrorist act took place in the school of Beslan

13 years ago, on September 1, 2004, in Beslan, a group of terrorists seized school No. 1 in the Pravoberezhny district of the city. Today BigPiccha recalls the events of those days.

(Total 29 photos)

The line dedicated to the Knowledge Day was moved from the traditional 10 a.m. to 9 a.m. due to the heat. In total, according to RIA, there were 895 students and 59 teachers and technical staff of the school on the line. The number of parents who came to take their children to school is unknown. There were many kids on the line: out of nine Beslan kindergartens, four did not work due to protracted repairs, and parents brought their children with them.

A group of armed militants drove up to the school building in a tarpaulin GAZ-66 and VAZ-2107. Randomly firing into the air, the terrorists drove more than 1,100 people into the school building - children, their relatives and school staff. In the confusion, between 50 and 150 high school students managed to escape.

Most of the hostages were herded into the main gym, the rest into the gym, showers and dining room. Ammunition, heavy weapons and explosives were unloaded from the GAZ-66. The terrorists were heavily armed: 22 Kalashnikov assault rifles, including those with grenade launchers, two RPK-74 light machine guns, two PKM machine guns, one Kalashnikov tank machine gun, two RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launchers and RPG-18 Mukha grenade launchers. Approaches to the gym and the gym itself were mined.

“If any of us is killed, we will shoot 50 people; if any of us is wounded, we will kill 20 people. If five of us are killed, we will blow everything up. If they turn off the light, communication for a minute, we will shoot 10 people,” the terrorists immediately announced in a note sent at 11:35 through a woman released from school. In addition, they demanded for negotiations the President of North Ossetia Alexander Dzasokhov, the head of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov and pediatrician Leonid Roshal.

Between 4:00 pm and 4:30 pm, there was an explosion in the school building and shots were fired.

Around 19:00, the militants got in touch by mobile phone. They refused the offer to hand over food and water to the hostages, arguing that they might contain psychotropic substances.

At 4 p.m., former President of Ingushetia Ruslan Aushev entered the captured school. Negotiations with Ruslan Aushev on the transfer of water and food did not lead to anything, but 24 women with babies were released from the school.

Meanwhile, the heat, the lack of water and the stench worsened the condition of the children: many of them lost consciousness. The hostages were forced to eat the petals of the flowers they brought and drink their own urine, because by that time all water sources had been blocked by the terrorists.

On September 3 at 13:04, two powerful explosions occurred in succession at short intervals in the gymnasium. A few minutes later, the hostages began to jump out of the windows and run out through the front door into the school yard. The terrorists opened fire on them with machine guns and grenade launchers, killing 29 people.

Five minutes after the first explosions, an anti-terrorist operation began, in which two operational-combat groups of the TsSN FSB took part. Mi-8 combat helicopters appeared over the school.

At 13:31, the terrorists blew up explosive devices previously installed in the captured school, the roof collapsed. The panic began. The militants randomly fired at people.

At 13:50, Russian special forces entered the school building. Another part of the Russian special forces fought with terrorists who had taken refuge in a residential area next to the school. The house where the terrorists were located was shot at by tanks.

At 15:50, special forces broke into the building of the school's gymnasium and began demining it. The military operation in Beslan was completed by the evening of 3 September.

As a result of the terrorist attack in Beslan, 334 people died, most of them hostages, including 186 children from 1 to 17 years old. By the morning of September 4, hospitals in Beslan and Vladikavkaz had received more than 700 wounded, more than half of whom were children. In 66 families, from 2 to 6 people died, and 17 children were left completely orphans. For comparison: during the four years of the Great Patriotic War, Beslan lost 357 men on various fronts.

During the storming of the building, 10 employees of the TsSN FSB were killed.

Field commander Shamil Basayev took over the organization of the terrorist act. According to RIA, out of 27 (according to other sources - 32) terrorists, only one remained alive - Nurpasha Kulaev.

Now he is serving a life sentence in the Polar Owl colony, located in the village of Kharp, Priuralsky district, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

September 1, 2004 in the North Ossetian city of Beslan, nothing foreshadowed trouble. Children accompanied by their parents went to school. Several hundred people gathered at the solemn line at secondary school No. 1. Suddenly, armed people burst into the line and began to drive the audience into the school building. Thus began the Beslan trouble.

capture

The first report of an armed attack on the school was received at about half past ten in the morning Moscow time on September 1. There was no exact data on the number of bandits, as well as on the number of people captured by them. It was only known that the bandits drove up to the school in cars. During a shootout between the bandits and the policemen who were guarding the school, the latter were killed. An hour later, the Minister for Emergency Situations of the Republic, Boris Dzgoev, confirmed the fact of the seizure of the school. In all other schools in North Ossetia, solemn lines were canceled.

How did the militants get to Beslan? There is no exact information on this yet. According to one of the hostages, the terrorists themselves did not know in which city they ended up. According to the stories of those who were at the school, the militants said that the traffic cops were corrupt and that they paid the policemen little money, otherwise the attack would have been in a larger city (presumably Vladikavkaz). But according to other sources, before carrying out the operation, the terrorists chose between several educational institutions in North Ossetia. The choice fell on school number 1 because it is there that the children of the Ossetian elite study. In particular, among the hostages were the children of the chairman of the parliament of North Ossetia, the prosecutor of the republic and some other high-ranking officials.

It was established that the militants arrived from the village of Khurikau, Mozdok district of North Ossetia, which is located 30 kilometers from the administrative border with Ingushetia. For the first time, the appearance of militants was recorded at about eight in the morning on September 1, an hour before the attack on the school - between Malgobek and Khurikau, Mozdok district of North Ossetia. There, the bandits stopped the car of district police officer Soltan Gurazhev and, having taken away his weapons and documents, threw the policeman into the back of a truck. The militants were interested in the service certificate of the district police officer, which would help them in the event of a check by the traffic police. The bandits reached Hurikau along country roads. In Khurikau itself, the terrorists removed the Ossetian license plates from one of the cars they found on the road and rearranged them on their car. They went to Beslan by a bypass road - past abandoned farms, where there are no serious police posts.

FSB representatives later stated that the militants arrived in Beslan in two vehicles: a GAZ-66 truck and a Gazel. The militants had the following weapons: a Kalashnikov heavy machine gun, assault rifles with grenade launchers, pistols, a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, Mukha grenade launchers, hand grenades, explosives and ammunition. All this is quite possible to bring in two cars.

According to one version, the militants got all their weapons from the truck, which then left. According to another, the main part of the arsenal was hidden in the basement of the school beforehand, when the militants under the guise of workers were doing repairs there this summer. The amount of explosives, according to experts, would be enough to mine almost every room in the school. Now the investigation is trying to find out how the warehouse with weapons ended up in the underground of the gym. According to the hostages, the terrorists forced high school students to tear boards off the floor and give them ammunition.

The militants were well armed. For three days the terrorists fired on the neighborhood of the school. Later, when the assault began, they resisted very long and stubbornly. Why law enforcement agencies did not know about this and why a convoy of militants was let through all the checkpoints into the city - this can only be judged by rumors. In addition, on the eve of the festive line, the policemen checked the school building and found nothing.

After confirming the information about the capture of the school, the anti-terrorist special unit of the FSB, group "A" ("Alpha"), was raised on alarm. Both the members of the detachment stationed in Khankala and the Moscow branch of Alfa flew to Beslan.

Siege

The bandits drove most of the hostages to the gym. In the gym, everyone was put on the floor. Some terrorists immediately took off their masks, some did not take off their masks for three days. The women had belts of shahids, the buttons from which they held in their hands.

We were driven to school in the gym. The door to the hall was locked. The masked men smashed the windows, jumped into them and from the other side broke the doors to the hall. Then, already in the hall, they ordered us to sit on the floor and quickly began to mine the hall. They put two large explosives in basketball baskets, then dragged wires through the entire hall, to which they tied smaller explosives. Within ten minutes, the entire gym was mined.

Former hostage Rita Gadzhinova

The men were immediately forced to work: breaking doors, bringing desks from nearby offices and making barricades. Other men were forced to hang bombs in the gym. The bombs were in plastic soda bottles filled with explosives, nails and screws. Some of the bombs were hung over the heads of the hostages, some were placed along the walls. All the bombs were connected to each other, and the control panel was on the floor. At the remote control, replacing each other, one of the militants was on duty.

The hostages were forbidden to go to the toilet on the second day - there was water in the tap, and some of them drank it. But most even on the first day did not manage to drink a sip of water. The children drank their own urine. In the gym, the floors were opened so as not to take anyone anywhere - you had to go to the toilet directly into this hole.

Women with small children were put in the school cafeteria. After erecting the barricades, the terrorists decided to get rid of all the men they suspected might offer resistance. As a result, on September 1 and 2, the terrorists took 20 people to one of the rooms on the second floor of the school, they shot them, and threw the bodies out the window.

All three days while we were sitting there, we were sitting almost on top of each other. There were about 1100 of us there. From time to time, militants came in and, for the sake of laughter, ordered everyone to stand, then lie down. And so it went on for almost a whole day. In the center they set up a large explosive device, approximately 50x50 cm, with a push-button remote control. He was constantly pressed with his foot by one of the terrorists. When they got tired, they put a stack of books on the button.

Former hostage Marina Kozyreva

Several children managed to get out of the occupied building. They reported that there were about 20 bandits, all dressed in black, with masks on their faces. Many of them were wearing shahid belts, they were armed with grenade launchers and small arms.

The area around the school was cordoned off, and OMON forces, SOBR, units of internal troops, police, army units and several ambulances converged on the area of ​​the incident. During the first hours after the capture, the terrorists refused to enter into negotiations and put forward any demands. Around noon, the terrorists who seized the school handed over a note in which they threatened to blow up the building in the event of an assault, and later, with one of the released hostages, handed over to law enforcement agencies a note with a single word: "Wait." In addition, the bandits demanded that the president of the republic, Alexander Dzasokhov, the head of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov, and the children's doctor, Leonid Roshal, come to them.

At about one in the afternoon on September 1, shooting began in the area of ​​the captured school. Three explosions were heard in the area of ​​Kalinin Street - under the cover of an armored personnel carrier, the military tried to carry out the bodies of the dead and wounded, but the militants opened fire on them from machine guns and grenade launchers.

On September 1, upon arrival in Moscow from Sochi, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the airport with the participation of the heads of law enforcement agencies. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev arrived in North Ossetia. Later, Dr. Leonid Roshal arrived in Beslan, whose participation in the negotiations was demanded by the terrorists.

Drinking was not allowed. And they didn't give me food. They got really angry. When they let us go to the toilet, some children ran into the broken office, which is not far from the toilet. There were flowers in pots. So, they tore these flowers and stuffed them into their mouths. Some hid the flowers in their shorts and shared with their comrades. But hunger was not as tormenting as thirst. Some children could not stand it, urinating on their palms and drinking.

Former hostage Diana Gadzhinova

Shortly thereafter, the terrorists put forward their first demands: to release the militants who took part in the attack on Nazran on the night of June 22. The militants refused an offer to exchange schoolchildren for two high-ranking Ossetian officials. On the other hand, one more thing was added to the initial demand - to withdraw the federal troops from Chechnya. The terrorists threatened to shoot 50 children for each killed militant, and 20 for each wounded. The terrorists refused to negotiate with Mufti Ruslan Valgasov and Beslan Prosecutor Alan Batagov. The proposal of the authorities of the republic to provide them with a corridor to Ingushetia and Chechnya, as well as to replace children with adults, was not accepted by the bandits. During negotiations with Aushev, the militants put forward their last demand - to grant independence to Chechnya.

After negotiations with Aushev, the terrorists released a group of hostages - 26 women and children. Most of those released were immediately sent to the hospital. According to Roshal, there was no threat to the lives of the children taken hostage in North Ossetia at that time - according to the pediatrician, the hostages could survive without food and water for eight to nine days.

On September 1, the first serious incident occurred at the school. Two female suicide bombers entered the dining room, after which they went to the gym. A bomb went off on one of the suicide bombers. Since the woman was far from the hostages, and the bomb was compact, no one, except for the terrorist herself, died.

All this time, officials did not give any exact data - neither about the number of militants, nor about the number of hostages. The figures were very different, but the point of view of the authorities was as follows: there are about 300 hostages in the school, held by 20-25 bandits.

Storm

At about three o'clock in the morning on Friday, September 3, doctor Leonid Roshal spoke to the relatives of the hostages in the hall of the Beslan House of Culture, who said that he was in contact with the terrorists. It was he who first voiced the real scale of the incident: in the captured school there are not 300 hostages, as it was said at the beginning, but more than a thousand. The President of North Ossetia, Alexander Dzasokhov, promised that there would be no assault under any circumstances, and that the militants would sooner or later get tired, demand buses, and they would be transported to any required place. At the headquarters of the operation at that moment they did not think about a military action, hoping to continue negotiations for some time.

Naturally, various options for the assault of the special forces units were developed, but only theoretically, since in such situations any anti-terrorist groups act this way.

By noon on September 3, the militants allowed the corpses of the previously killed hostages to be taken from under the windows of the building. At about one o'clock in the afternoon, a ZiL truck with four employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations drove up to the school. They were supposed to pick up the corpses from the schoolyard. All three days the bandits shot hostages, primarily men, and the corpses began to decompose.

The militants guaranteed the safety of the rescuers. At least, that's what the representatives of the special services who sent the truck said. What exactly happened at the moment when the Ministry of Emergency Situations drove by car into the school yard is still unknown. Suddenly, there were two explosions, followed by bursts of machine-gun fire. At first no one understood what was happening.

According to one version, at that moment, for some reason, a makeshift bomb exploded in the crowd of hostages, and the militants lost their nerve - they started shooting at people. As a result of the resulting panic, the hostages tried to break out and crushed the guards. According to another, when the EMERCOM officers arrived and the shell exploded, the militants decided that an assault had begun and opened fire. In the sports hall itself, the guards were confused after the explosion, everything was covered with dust and smoke, and people began to jump out of the windows.

What they say that it was an explosion from outside is not true, because I myself saw how the explosives, which were glued on adhesive tape, exploded. Before it exploded, I was sitting right under it, but before that I stepped aside, and then, after it exploded, I looked at the people, and everyone who was then sitting next to me, they died.

Former hostage Marat Khamaev

According to one of the hostages, it all started with the fact that the bomb either went off spontaneously, or the adhesive tape on which it dangled from the basketball basket simply peeled off. Immediately after the first explosion, a second one occurred - the terrorists installed one of the explosive devices in such a way that the fuse button had to be held with the foot. During the previous two days, the terrorists turned in their shifts every hour, and no one let go of his foot until his reliever stepped on the button. According to survivors, when the first explosion occurred, the terrorist on duty released the button.

Apparently, the bulk of the people died as a result of the first explosions. The building of the gym was practically destroyed. Parents started throwing their children through broken windows. There were corpses all around. Then the children themselves rushed into the gaps, and adults sometimes pushed the children away in order to be the first to jump out into the street. Some terrorists, having seized the children and covered themselves with them, began to shoot at the backs of the fleeing people. They shot indiscriminately: at children, at adults and at the cordon.

After the explosions, the first children began to run out from the school grounds, from the side of the courtyard overlooking the windows of the gymnasium. Fighters from various units and local armed militiamen, who had been on duty around the school from the first day, rushed to the building right away.

The rapid development of events around the school was a complete surprise for everyone - the leaders of the operational headquarters, members of the group of "negotiators" that were part of it, who maintained contact with the terrorists, as well as special forces soldiers. As a result, complete chaos reigned in the school area for the first half hour. The operational headquarters was so confused that it could not even organize the delivery of the wounded to hospitals - they were transported by local residents in their cars.

When the explosion was heard, children and adults rushed to the windows. And the militants opened indiscriminate fire on them from machine guns. Even after the bulk of the people ran out of the gym, they went to the basement of the school and continued to shoot people lying on the floor of the gym.

Former hostage Alla Gadziyeva

The fire was fired both from the school and at the school - the army and policemen mixed with the militias fired. In response, the militants poured fire on the attackers from the roof and windows of the second floor. All this time, hundreds of bloodied children and adults continued to run out of the school onto the street. Under the continuous crackle of machine guns and grenade explosions, rescuers, firefighters and just local residents ran towards them towards the schoolyard, making their way through the cordon to take the distraught children out of the windows, take out the wounded and take away those who themselves did not understand where to run. There were no stretchers, no doctors, no ambulances.

The hostages ran in all directions, all in their underwear, bloodied and crying. From everyone there was a strong smell of excrement - all three days the bandits did not allow anyone to go to the toilet, forcing them to go "under themselves". Many had blood stuck in their hair - the remains of those killed as a result of the first explosions.

Thus, the operation from the very beginning got out of control and began to develop spontaneously. Who opened fire on the school first, no one will probably ever know. A few seconds after the explosions in the gym, a machine gun rumbled, then machine guns, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles joined in. A battle began, with fire coming from all sides of the school.

It is believed that the militiamen and soldiers of the internal troops from the cordon were the first to shoot at the militants. The operational headquarters first ordered a ceasefire, and then stopped issuing orders altogether for a while. At this time, part of the militants, apparently, according to a pre-planned plan, went on a breakthrough. The special forces of the 58th Army came to the aid of the police. His fighters tried to block the militants who were breaking out of the school with weapons in their hands. They were the first to reach the wall of the gym and began to pull people out.

By the time the school was forced to attack, the fighters of the Alpha and Vympel groups had not yet distributed among themselves the "sectors" of responsibility along the perimeter of the school, the firing points of the terrorists, had not calculated the routes of approach to the building, the methods of movement inside, and so on. All this was under discussion in case of an assault, since at that moment the assault was not yet included in the immediate plans of the operational headquarters. Therefore, it was necessary to act without an agreed scheme. The soldiers of the special forces lost their main trump card - surprise - and were forced to act like ordinary infantrymen.

Only 30 minutes after the first explosion, Alpha made the first truly serious attack on the building and was able to get inside the school. In order to get into the gym, the attackers made a breach by blowing up the wall. There were many dead, wounded and simply frightened people in the hall. The fighters were no longer there. The sappers of the 58th Army were the first to enter, as there were mines all around, and a whole explosive network was hung from the ceiling. The sappers passed through the hall, removing some of the explosives, but when they entered the school building, they came under fire from the neighboring wing.

Some time after the breakthrough of the hostages, the fighters of "Alfa" and "Vympel", storming the school, began to look for places where the terrorists were shooting from. The commandos tried to suppress the firing points of the bandits and cover the fleeing hostages with their fire. At the same time, they themselves carried the wounded in their arms, thereby exposing themselves to the bullets of the militants.

So, when one of the fighters was carrying two girls, a sniper's bullet hit him in the neck. The actions of Alfa and Vympel were also complicated by the fact that the militants had time to get used to and choose the most convenient points for shelling. According to the FSB officers, by the time the battle began, the terrorists received fire support from a neighboring building. According to investigators, the snipers sat there even before the explosion was heard in the gym.

Unofficially, Alpha employees confirmed on Saturday that the events in Beslan can already be considered the most difficult in the history of the unit. During the storming of the school building and the rescue of the hostages, three Alpha fighters and seven Vympel fighters were killed. Wounds, according to various sources, received from 26 to 31 commandos. In the entire history of the existence of the Alpha and Vympel groups, these were the largest losses.

Due to the fact that the local militia stood on all approaches to the school, the assault turned into a city battle. SWAT soldiers had to run to the school between local militias who rushed to the gym to carry the children. Since the assault began unexpectedly for everyone, many of the special forces were without bulletproof vests. As a result of all these reasons, the special forces suffered such significant losses.

The release of the hostages lasted for more than ten hours, and it was possible to destroy all the militants only by half past eleven at night. The main reason for this was that the bandits were hiding behind the hostages who survived the explosion and collapse of the ceiling in the gym.

Shortly after the start of the operation, it became clear that part of the militants had left the cordon and were fighting with the military in the city. Already at the very beginning of the assault, the terrorists were divided into several groups. Some of them took several dozen hostages with them, descending into the basement. The second group provided a distraction. The militants were able to escape from the school in a southerly direction. They managed to break out of the school building and take up defense in one of the nearby houses.

Fierce fighting took place both in the school building itself and in a nearby five-story residential building. Tanks fired several volleys at this house. Basically, the FSB special forces fired on the terrorists, while the militias checked the yards and looked for suspicious people on the streets.

The house in which the militants fortified was located 50 meters from the school, next to the bazaar. Since it was in the cordon zone, all its residents were evacuated on September 1, and the house was immediately blocked by the federals. The militants took up a serious defense, and they could not be knocked out of there until at least 5 pm.

Internal troops and local riot police began combing the streets near the station, about half a kilometer from the school. Until late in the evening there was shooting in the city. The soldiers of the special forces knocked out the last militants from the basement, who were hiding behind the hostages. Skirmishes with escaped militants were also carried out in other parts of the city. Only at night Beslan was cleared.

On the afternoon of September 5, the authorities of North Ossetia published updated data on the number of victims of the terrorist attack in Beslan. 335 people were named as killed. Lev Dzugaev, the head of the Information and Analytical Department under the President of North Ossetia, told reporters that the total number of deaths at the school, as of 14:30 Moscow time, was 323 people, including 156 children. In total, according to Dzugaev, 700 victims needed medical help.

Eight years ago - on September 1, 2004 - a terrorist act was committed in. The hostage-taking at school No. 1 was on a par with such events as the shootings at the Butovo training ground and the recent explosion of twin skyscrapers in New York in 2001. How do people in Ossetia remember this tragedy today, how does Beslan live now? The Pravmir correspondent visited the Beslan school together with Archpriest Alexander Saltykov and a delegation from Russia.

On September 1, 2004 Beslan School No. 1 was seized by terrorists, 1128 children and adults were taken hostage. On September 3, the assault began, during which the hostages were released. The attack killed 333 people, including 186 children. More than 800 people were injured, more than 1000 people asked for help. on the day when the assault began, but for Russia and the rest of the world, the day of memory of the terrorist attack is precisely September 1.

Memory and monuments

The tragedy is over, life goes on. Parents and relatives of the victims still have not come to a consensus on how to preserve the memory of the victims? Someone wants to demolish the gym of school No. 1, in which the hostages were held, from the face of the earth, someone wants to keep it forever. Someone wants to build an Orthodox church, someone does not want it to be built.

One of the parents placed a bow cross in the gym, where most of the hostages died, but the other broke it. The cross was put up again - and again it was broken. Now the cross is installed for the third time.

Beslan Memorial Cemetery "City of Angels"

The victims of the tragedy were buried in the city cemetery of Beslan. Part of the cemetery with the graves of the victims is so large that it can hardly be seen.

The cemetery was called the "City of Angels". The graves are made of red granite, there are double, triple and quadruple - families were buried in such. There were families in which five or six people died in those tragic days.

A monument to the victims of Beslan "The Tree of Sorrow" is erected at the cemetery, representing four mothers holding hands, over which, like birds, the souls of dead children fly into the sky. Fragments of the bodies of children are buried under this monument - everything that was not identified was buried here.

In front of the entrance to the cemetery there is another monument - to the fallen soldiers of the FSB special forces.

There was a drinking fountain near the school, a lot of children died here. When the assault began, the children ran to him: they wanted to drink ... They also want to make him a monument.

The children were not allowed to drink for three days, and they were dying of thirst. Near the cemetery there is a traditional Armenian clay cross, next to it is a clay image of a fountain with the inscription “We beg you, give me water”. Flowers, water and toys are brought to the cemetery, to the monuments, to the graves.

Near the fence at the gate are rows of porcelain angels - they are left by the relatives of the dead children.

And when the time comes for graduation, graduates whose classmates died in a terrorist attack bring ribbons to the graves of their friends.

- The cemetery makes a huge impression - a huge area lined with graves ...

It seems to me that today they are trying to hush up the tragedy of Beslan. But this cannot be done. There are forces that probably assume that the preservation of the memory of the Beslan tragedy will prevent them from carrying out their plans.

We must preserve the memory at all costs. This is a debt to the dead and a condition for the survival of our people in the future. Firstly, because it is Christian, because the Church teaches that with God everyone is alive. And when we all rise again - both we and the dead - then if we forget them today, how will we then look them in the eye?

The Beslan execution is our Buchenwald, this is the Beslan Katyn, the Beslan Butovo. There are exactly the same places as Beslan in Russia near every large city where there was a firing range, where the communists committed their atrocities. These sites are still classified.

And if the names of Katyn and Butovo are known to us, then why are hundreds of other places created during the Stalinist repressions against the Russian people not known? The blood of the dead cries out to God.

And most importantly, I am sure that a temple should be built near the Beslan school so that every day there will be a prayer for the repose of the souls of the people who died there. Almost 10 years have passed since the tragedy, there is still no temple, only the foundation has been laid there with great difficulty. We need public support, we need money, we need the help of the media, but, most importantly, we need people's prayer.

Over the years, people began to relate better to God and the Church

In the first days and even years after the tragedy, people treated the representatives of the Church ambiguously, many lost their faith in God, saying that they had many questions for God - how could He allow such a tragedy? They thought he was to blame.

The priests explained that Christ was not to blame, that He suffered along with the children, that the cross is a symbol of suffering, and Christ was a hostage along with them. But what is obvious to a Christian is far from so obvious to grief-stricken parents. Now, years later, many people's attitudes towards the Church and faith are changing.

"Here are the wounds of your Christ"

During tragedies, all the forces of a person are strained. The school in Beslan showed both the best and the worst qualities of people. Someone was disgraced for centuries, and someone became famous forever. Here the children shared the last, divided the candy into four parts. And there were people who took candy from children.

Miracles occurred and feats of confession of the Christian faith were performed. The children of the current Head of North Ossetia, Taimuraz Mamsurov, were among the hostages in Beslan. When the terrorists offered to release them, he said: "Either all or none." It is impossible to imagine what was going on in the father's heart. It is said that his son found a ring in his possession, on which was written in Slavic letters "Most Holy Mother of God, save us!" He did not understand what it was, thought that it was written in Arabic letters and said to the militant: "This is yours." He looked and said: "No, it's yours, let it be with you." The boy took this ring and then left the burning school with it.

The temple has not been built yet. The foundation has been laid, but construction is proceeding with great difficulty.

A baptismal hall is being built - many want to be baptized here. Children before the tragedy asked their parents to baptize them. Some were baptized, some were not. One of the women who lost her children wept and said that her child had been trying to persuade her for two years: “Mother, baptize me, mother, baptize me.” Did not make it.

People were killed only because they did not want to take off their pectoral cross. There is a case when a terrorist approached a woman and said: "Take off the cross." She was a believer and said, "No." He shot her in the arms, then in the legs, and said, "Here are the wounds of your Christ." Both the woman and the daughter survived, although they were badly injured.

In a rehabilitation center.

In a rehabilitation center.

In a rehabilitation center.

In a rehabilitation center.

In a rehabilitation center.

In a rehabilitation center.

This is a terrorist act committed in the city of Beslan on September 1, 2004. For almost three days, suicide bombers held more than a thousand people hostage, not allowing them to drink and do their natural necessities.

Events leading up to Beslan

Before the takeover of the school, Beslan was not considered a potentially dangerous terrorist site. In 2004, about ten terrorist attacks were committed, including an explosion in the Moscow metro (February 6), an explosion of a tribune at a stadium in Grozny (May 9), a seizure of an arms depot in Nazran (June 21), aircraft explosions (August 24) and other. Responsibility was taken by a group led by Shamil Basayev. He also prepared the terrorist act in Beslan.

Why was the school chosen?

The choice of an object for carrying out a terrorist act was carefully thought out. The terrorists took into account the mistakes made during the capture of the House of Culture, where the musical "Nord-Ost" was shown in 2002.

School No. 1 was the oldest in Beslan, and also favorably differed from other schools in the city in terms of the number of students. Since the main building was built in the nineteenth century, the school had many outbuildings, which gave the terrorists an advantage. The school yard was divided in the center by a gymnasium building. This was also beneficial to the militants, because they could control the territory from all sides. Thus, when they captured the school, they managed to keep many people from escaping.

Beslan was only thirty kilometers from the terrorist base, so they had no problems with the speed of arrival on the spot. In addition, Beslan was a profitable target of attack also because it was considered the least protected city in Ossetia (compared to Vladikavkaz, for example).

There were facts that the militants ignored. So, a few steps from the school was the Department of Internal Affairs, and the shape of the buildings did not give a complete overview. Nearby houses made it impossible to track movements outside the schoolyard.

Already in August, the composition of the criminals who carried out the seizure of the school was finally formed. Beslan was the primary target, but the militants also had a plan "B". In case of failure, the other part of the detachment was supposed to capture the school in the village of Nesterovskaya (Ingushetia).

According to the official version of the investigation, Beslan was attacked by thirty-four terrorists on September 1, including several female suicide bombers. The basis of the group were Chechens and Ingush, but there were also representatives of Russian nationality, in particular, Vladimir Khodov, who was distinguished by particular cruelty.

First day

Beslan greeted September 1 with unprecedented heat, so the traditional school line was moved to nine o'clock in the morning. More than a thousand people came to the schoolyard, most of them women and children. Since several kindergartens had not yet opened after the renovation, there were many preschool children.

The terrorists appeared in the midst of the holiday. They drove up in two cars (one of which had been stolen the day before from a district police officer). Immediately, the militants opened fire into the air, forcing people to enter the building. Return fire, which was opened by one of the residents, killed one militant and wounded one in the arm. According to unofficial data, about a hundred schoolchildren fled in the first minutes of the capture.

More than a thousand one hundred people ended up in the school building. Most of the terrorists were placed in the gym, the rest were distributed in the dining room, shower room. Taught by the experience of storming the theater center on Dubrovka, the terrorists did not settle down in one room, and were also provided with gas masks, first-aid kits and a supply of food and drink. Outside, they installed several security cameras. The militants had a huge stockpile of weapons, including several kilograms of explosives, Kalashnikov assault rifles, machine guns, grenades and more.

Fearing the use of gas during the assault, the militants ordered to knock out all the window panes. And also with the help of male hostages, all entrances and exits from the school were barricaded. Explosive devices were planted everywhere. In the gym, where most of the hostages were held, explosives were attached to chairs and basketball hoops. For the slightest offense or disobedience, the terrorists immediately opened fire on people.

At half past ten, a headquarters was formed, headed by the head of the FSB, Andreev. People were evacuated from the nearest houses, railway traffic was stopped, all vehicles were ordered to be removed from the school grounds. There was a police cordon everywhere. President V. Putin ordered not to respond to gunshot provocations from the school.

At the beginning of the twelfth, a hostage (Larisa Mamitova) came out of the building, who was ordered to convey the demands of the terrorists. They wanted to speak with the President of Ingushetia, and also indicated several other persons in the note illegibly. When trying to talk to the militants, there was shooting from the school.

At about four o'clock in the evening, an explosion thundered in the gym, and then shooting was heard. A suicide bomber was blown up guarding the hostages near the door. The terrorists immediately shot the wounded people. Twenty-one people died at that moment.

After that, the militants put forward a demand that Aslakhanov, adviser to the President of Russia, get in touch with them. In the evening, the children's doctor L. Roshal arrived in Beslan, but the terrorists refused to let him go to school, and also did not accept the provisions prepared for the hostages.

On the first day, several hostages managed to slip right out of the school building. One person pretended to be dead and, while throwing the corpses out the window, also jumped out and lay on the ground until dark. Some managed to hide in the boiler room and from there to break free.

Second day

The capture of the school (Beslan) lasted almost three days. The second day was marked by attempts by the operational headquarters to negotiate with the terrorists. They were offered large sums of money and the provision of a safe retreat. However, the militants refused everything.

On that day, attempts were made to contact the President of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, but requests for assistance in releasing the hostages never reached him or were ignored.

The only person who managed to talk to the terrorists face to face was Ruslan Aushev, the ex-president of Ingushetia. He persuaded the militants to give people water, as well as to release women with babies. Thanks to him, twenty-four people were freed that day.

After his departure, the terrorists noticeably hardened. The surviving hostages recalled that the behavior of the militants was very strange. They seemed to be waiting for guidance to act, but it did not come. They were nervous and could shoot without any reason. Also, the terrorists stopped letting people go to the toilet and no longer brought buckets of water.

The third day

The hostages, being without water and food, were so exhausted that they could not adequately carry out the orders of the terrorists. Many fainted due to the incredible stuffiness and were unconscious.

In the gym, the militants decided to move explosive devices. They carried them from the floor to the walls. An agreement was concluded with the terrorists that the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations would evacuate the bodies of the dead lying in the school yard. Under the supervision of militants, four rescuers drove up in a truck to the school building and began to load corpses into it.

At this time, two explosions were heard in the building with an interval of several minutes. Because of them, part of the roof collapsed, the hostages, able to move, got the opportunity to escape. The militants opened fire on the employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, two of whom were killed.

People who were in the gym began to jump out of the windows, but they failed to escape. Fire was opened on them from the south wing of the school. Twenty-nine people were killed in this attack.

It was decided to transfer the surviving hostages to another room. Those who could not move on their own, the terrorists killed on the spot.

The number of wounded exceeded the number of ambulances and stretchers, so local residents carried the victims on their own hands and took them to hospitals by private transport.

At about 3:00 p.m., a huge fire broke out in the gymnasium of the school. Rescuers struggled with him until nine o'clock in the evening. Many people died from burns.

A few minutes after the explosions, the head of the FSB decided to start the assault. A special detachment "Alpha" has already moved out of Vladikavkaz. Beslan at that time was under the protection of another unit - "Vympel", which began the assault.

Storm

The assault on Beslan was inevitable. There were three divisions. They came from different sides of the school. The task was complicated by the fact that the terrorists fired at the fighters, while hiding behind the hostages as a shield. Local residents, who formed their militia detachment, fired indirectly, and could accidentally catch one of the military.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon "Alpha" arrived in Beslan. The special forces were in the school building at the beginning of the fourth. The most fierce fighting took place on the second floor, where the terrorists climbed. They hid in the classrooms, hiding behind the children.

To save the hostages, many officers sacrificed their lives. So, Major Katasonov, saving the children, covered them from the machine-gun fire.

The militants were divided into several groups. The smallest remained in the school building to cover the retreat of the others. The cleansing of the city from terrorists continued until midnight. Then the last militant was killed.

The seizure of the Beslan school was the most daring and brutal act of terrorism in Russia.

Victims: dead and injured

The streets of a city like Beslan were painted in a mournful color. The siege of the school on September 1 brought many casualties, most of which were defenseless children. Three hundred thirty-three people died in an unequal battle with the enemy. Among them were one hundred and eighty-six children aged from one to seventeen years, seventeen school employees, ten FSB officers, two representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, one employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. One hundred and seventeen victims turned out to be relatives and friends of the students who came to congratulate them on the holiday.

The terrorist attack in Beslan left seventeen children orphans, seventy-two children and sixty-nine adults were left disabled.

The process of identifying and establishing the cause of death was very long. City mortuaries could not accommodate all the remains, so most of the bodies were placed right on the street under awnings. Later, refrigerated trucks arrived and the dead were moved there.

Identification was complicated by the fact that most of the victims were without clothes. Due to the terrible heat in the premises, the hostages took off everything, remaining only in their underwear.

As the investigation established, about half of the hostages died from shrapnel wounds. In one hundred and sixteen cases, the cause of death could not be determined, because the bodies were burned very badly in the fire.

On September 4, a two-day mourning was declared in the country. On September 15, Beslan schools opened their doors to students, but about five people came to the class. Parents were afraid to let their children out of the house. The tragedy in Beslan forever changed the life of North Ossetia.

Investigation

Already on September 1, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case because of the terrorist attack in the Beslan school. In 2014, the case was still open, as many questions were still not answered. First of all, this concerns the legitimacy of the actions of certain officials. The organization "Mothers of Beslan" has repeatedly demanded a review of all available evidence. They suspected that the unplanned assault claimed more than half the lives of all the injured hostages of the city (Beslan). The seizure of the school, the dead - on the conscience of law enforcement agencies working in the region. That is what the "Mothers of Beslan" declared.

An examination was carried out, but its results did not justify the hopes of heartbroken mothers. They appealed to the court, but the case was not even opened. Among the accused, they named the former head of the FSB Andreev, as well as the President of North Ossetia Dzasokhov.

All terrorists in Beslan were destroyed. All but one. Nurpasha Kulaev was detained on the third day while trying to escape from the cafeteria. As a result, he was convicted under several articles of the Criminal Code and sentenced to life imprisonment (due to the impossibility of applying the death penalty). He is serving his term in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Also, Beslan policemen, who showed official negligence, got into the dock. Back in mid-August, they were warned about possible provocations. They needed to carefully strengthen the border between Ossetia and Ingushetia, but they did not. The defendants did not wait for the guilty verdict, because they fell under the amnesty.

Theories about the Beslan terrorist attack

The tragedy in Beslan gave rise to many rumors and gave birth to entire conspiracy theories. The very first myth was misinformation about the number of hostages. On the first day of the capture, it was reported that there were only three hundred and forty-five of them. Local residents were immediately indignant at such a blatant lie, and took to the streets with banners, where they wrote the real number of hostages (at least eight hundred). The "Mothers of Beslan" later said that in this way the authorities decided to reduce the size of the disaster.

There is also a lot of controversy due to a fire that broke out in the school's gymnasium. The sappers who worked on the spot argued that the fire could not have been caused by bomb explosions. Most likely, it was provoked by constant shelling of militants from grenade launchers and machine guns.

Extinguishing the fire began only an hour after its occurrence. Since the evacuation of people remaining in the hall continued, the rescue teams could not start extinguishing. The victims of Beslan, burned in the fire, were mostly already dead from shrapnel wounds.

The use of flamethrowers and tanks by Russian military personnel is controversial. The fired shells could also have provoked a fire, but there are no reliable sources or witnesses who saw how the tank was fired. An independent investigation by Novaya Gazeta journalist E. Milashina provides circumstantial evidence that the explosions on September 3 were provoked from outside.

Rumors were circulated that most of the terrorists were under the influence of drugs. However, none of the hostages confirmed this information, and doctor L. Mamitova, who was among those taken prisoner, said that they were sober and self-confident. The only thing they took were painkillers.

According to the testimonies of the hostages, some of the terrorists did not know which object would be attacked. Thus, one suicide bomber refused to participate in infanticide, and before blowing herself up on a mine, she shouted: "I didn't know that it would be a school! I don't want to!"

Journalists vigorously discussed on the pages of all the media about the desire of the Western powers to destabilize the situation in Russia. Thus, a version appeared that Shamil Basayev organized this terrorist attack not because of his religious thoughts, but on the order of Western countries.

Memory of the victims

For many years, the abandoned school No. 1 of the city of Beslan stood. The hostages, the survivors, as well as the relatives of the victims, visited this place only on the anniversary of the tragedy. It was mentioned that the school after the events was repeatedly subjected to looting raids and became a refuge for the homeless.

In 2011, a memorial complex project was developed, according to which the gym will become the central part of the facility. Before the start of construction, the building of the sports hall was partially repaired, where the residents of Beslan installed a wooden cross, and photographs of the dead were hung on the walls. Many brought children's toys, flowers, and water bottles to school every day.

In 2005, the "Tree of Sorrow" monument was opened on the territory of the memorial complex, where all those who died in the terrorist attack were buried.