Posted on 10/01/2004 11:33:12 AM PDT by struwwelpeter
Edited on 10/01/2004 11:43:54 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Follow up to To Beslan to her son's grave
Last week Natal'ya Gutnova returned from Beslan, where her ten year-old son Zaur had been shot to death. The Karaganda resident and her mother spent two grief-filled days in the Osetian city.
Cemetary
After the trip Natal'ya is different: she's grown leaner, and the dark circles under her eyes are more prominent.
"We fly there okay," the woman quietly says. "The airport is right by Beslan. Friends I used to work with at the factory met mother and me. From the airport to the graveyard is only five or six minutes, so we went there right away. A newly fenced cemetary stands separate from the old one. There's freshly tilled earth at the graves, and small markers. Written there in pencil are the last name, first and patronymic, when they were born, and when they died. In the whole cemetary there are but a few of wooden crosses. One stood at my son's grave. There were many big graves - seven or eight in each. If a whole family died, they were buried them all in same hole, parents and children. Each one has its own mound. They'll put up gravestones later. The cemetary is horrible... horrible... It's frightening to look at. They're still burying them, and it's not known how many more there are to bury... When we were there they were burying a little girl who was shown on the TV show "Wait for me". They're still finding kids. Some were in the morgue, they're impossibile to recognize. Everyone's burned to cinders. A lot of them are unidentified. On the 20th they found the bodies of a boy and a girl in a field... I still can't believe that Zaur is no more," Natal'ya lowers her head and covers her face.
Their Beslan friends told the Karagandans that there were many more guerillas than the 32 declared by Russian special services. Awful rumors abound in the city, and many residents are convinced that the terrorists changed into civilian clothes during the evacuation and joined the human chain that was carrying children to the ambulances, and that later they took off with a truck-load of wounded and dead in an unknown direction. Supposedly, this is why so many bodies of missing have been showing up in fields far from the school.
The school
"We were in the school," continues Natal'ya. "We laid some flowers and a wreath that schoolchildren from Karaganda school 97 had given us. There were wreaths and flowers everywhere, and toys, a lot of water was standing. They say that the children were so thirsty that the drank their urine, and the smell is still there. Clothes were scattered about: here an adult's, there a child's. It's horrible to look at. In every classroom, in every classroom they killed someone... On the second floor they shot some men in a classroom on the very first day. I saw blood on the wall. It had already turned brownish-orange... I went to Zaur's classroom. The walls had huge holes from the shelling. Notebooks were all over. Someone wrote on the walls: 'we will avenge you'. Everyone has a different story about how Zaur died, I don't known what really happened. This time they told me that, before the gymnasium was blown up, he wanted to go to the toilet. So they took him to the garderobe. At that same moment everything blew up and he was hit. There was shrapnel in him, but later they shot him."
Silence in the streets
"Now people just don't care, they don't care. They only checked our papers just before landing, and the only highway patrol car was standing at the Beslan city limits. Very few police, no one to stop. The houses next to the school have no upper floors. Tanks and mortars blasted them... A dead city. Dead. I remember it used to be so noisy there, but now just silence. Everyone is in black, like ghosts. I didn't hear any children's voices in the streets. They sent the kids to different schools, nearby are schools #6, 5, and 3. We drove by one of them and I saw an armed guard with dogs standing by the entrance. But a lot of kids are afraid to go to school. A neighbor's little girl suffered terribily, she has a huge burn and one eardrum is broken, so she can't hear. Her little brother is crying all the time, doesn't want to go to school, won't even leave the house. He's afraid, and turns off the television when the news is starting. Another neighbor's boy is in critical condition with a broken arm, broken leg, and shrapnel wounds to his head. A friend of my mother was shot on September 2nd, and two of her nieces died - one burned to death, and the other was crushed under concrete."
By her son's bed
Natal'ya went to her ex-husband's house in order to get a copy of the death certificate. She didn't have any luck getting the document, however.
"I sat by my son's bed. I talked to him," she says. "Zolovka gave me his photograph. My husband wasn't home, only his mother Zolovka... On September 1st my son was supposed to go to school with his father, but the man for some reason didn't feel like it, and my mother-in-law had to be at work. (During the hostage seizure) she sat by herself for three days she sat in the cultural center, not far from the school. Where my ex-husband was, I have no idea... If I didn't need those documents I would never have gone to his house. I just wanted a copy of the death certificate. At first my mother-in-law sort of agreed, but later she found out that we had to get it notarized and so she got nervous for some reason, and said: 'I won't give you it'.
Natal'ya Gutnova has no claims on the monetary compensation which the Russian government is giving out (for relatives who lost children). She doesn't have the temperament for dealing with government officials and special servies.
"Whatever for?" Natal'ya asks apathetically. "If something useful would come out of it, if they could return him. None of my friends is going to bother with going to court."
Aid
Many people were moved by Natal'ya Gutnova's plight. Money for her trip to Beslan came from all over Kazakhstan. Government agencies, private companies, and people all over helped. The children of school #97 took a collection and got 15 thousand tenge (over $1000). A retired lady from Maykuduk sent 500 tenge in memory of her little brother who died in the Great Patriotic War (WW II): the fascists handed the little boy a live grenade, and the child blew himself up.
"You can't even begin to recall how many helped," says Natal'ya. "From the construction company 'Planet Engineering' in Astana - Kanat, Askhat, Oleg, and Dima. And the Alma Aty city newspaper 'Leader' , the newpaper 'Akyn'. And some man who didn't want his name used. The district blood bank. School #82, where my daughter goes to school. The Akimat (city administration) helped me with my tickets. They helped mom at work - at the 'Karaganda-Hydroshaft Institute'... It's hard to name them all. We are grateful to everyone."
Meanwhile
A computer science teacher from school #35 has dedicated a musical composition, entitled 'Tragedy in Beslan', to the victims of the terror act in Northern Osetiya. The sorrowful requiem was done on a computer, and makes quiet an emotional impression. A saxophone's broken soprano resembles wailing, while the sharp tympany of a drum - automatic weapons fire.
"It came out a little strange," says Anatoly Gnezdilov. "I already had a sad melody ready. I wrote it when I wasn't in a very good mood. Later I heard what had happened in Beslan, and like all normal people I was shaken. Later I sat at the computer. Whatever moved me, I don't know, but I place gunfire in the melody's background - this is done with a drum. And it went from there. I tried to portray the tragedy, the people's grief. No one shoots children."
The first to hear the song were Anatoly Filippovich's own students.
| Natal'ya Fomina |
She only knows her name
Soviet tankers learned to drive on the bones of the dead
To Beslan to her son's grave
Who am I?
Whose cow is mooing there?
(ping)
There is no earthly reason for the tragedy in Beslan. Such a plot most certainly seeped from the bowels of Hell.
Amen.
This is a ping worth reading.
So sad, Ruth. Thank you so much for the ping.
Rest in peace, dear child.
Ilona Maksimova Sabeyeva. Born 15 Feb 1989. Last seen on 3 Sep when a soldier carried her from the school. Anyone who knows Ilona's whereabouts please call in Beslan 3-44-94.
Kristina Dzhabayeva Goloyeva, 2 years old. Anyone who knows the whereabouts of Kristina, please call in Beslan 3-61-98, in Vladikavkaz - 42-52-15.
Zlata Sergeyevna Aziyeva, born 1970. Her husbad saw her on video clips as Zlata was carried from the school on a stretcher during the freeing of the hostages. Zlata has a pronounced collarbone on the right side, a result of birth trauma, and an appendectomy scar. Telephones: in Beslan 3-50-94, 5-66-19, in Estonia 8-10-372-55669711 & 8-10-372-3599731. E-mail: Njkool2003@mail.ru & tirot@mail.ru
Alina Aslanovna Tokova. 9 years. Anyone knowing her whereabouts is asked to call in Beslan 3-04-25.
Alana Alanovna Lolayeva. 10 years. All who know Alana's whereabouts are asked to call Vladikavkaz 42-81-47 & 44-02-36.
And on and on... thirty-eight still unaccounted for :-(
Amen!
PING!
Prayer Warriors needed here!
These poor, poor people. How sad. Prayers for them all.
This is so sad. Prayers......
Dear TEX,
We need you to lead us in prayer, once again.
What a horror -true evil. It is heartbreaking and makes me so angry that some lack the will to fight the terrorists.
I come before You this night earnestly lifting this situation up to Thee, O Sovereign God Who rules over all Creation and Eternity, for You, my Lord, are the Great God of Justice, and the shedding of Innocent Blood You hate with a Perfect, Righteous Hatred.
I plead for Your Mercies, Your Comfort, and Your Peace to abide with the Mother and Grandmother of little Zaur, and that You would send Your Holy Spirit of Power to strengthen them, surrounding them with Your Sovereign Grace. Please comfort every family who was touched by this Murder-Spree of Darkness, and, O my God, I plead for vengence, even the Vengence of the Great God of Hosts to fall upon the sons of Belial who performed these depraved deeds! Smite them, my God! Let it be as on that Great Day when a Word of Your Mouth will slay the End-Time Wicked, in Your Holy and Righteous Wrath! Execute Justice, O Mighty King of Kings! May it be to those murderers as it was in Days of Old, when the Mighty God of Israel would go forth to lay the Iniquitous waste, leaving all with the realization that the Ancient of Days, He is GOD!
I Praise You, O Sovereign Master, as You avenge the murder of little Zaur and the children, and I give You Glory for the Eternal Justice the Sons of Hell will receive as the Just Recompense for their devilish, hellish deeds. Thank You, Father Jehovah, for the Decrees You send out from Your Glorious and Majestic Throne, and I pray all things in the Name of my God Most Blessed, amen.
God Bless them all.
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