Viktoria Ktsoyeva holds the photo of her hand with a cross at a Moscow hospital on Thursday. Photo: AP Posted on 09/19/2004 10:01:00 AM PDT by Destro
Girl clutching cross in photo tells about talisman
September 17, 2004 - 5:33PM
Viktoria Ktsoyeva holds the photo of her hand with a cross at a Moscow hospital on Thursday. Photo: AP
It was an iconic image of hope amid the death and chaos that ended the three-day Beslan school siege - a girl's bloodied hand clutching a golden cross.
The girl pictured in The Associated Press photo that ran on newspaper front pages around the world is now recovering in a Moscow hospital, a piece of shrapnel still embedded in the centre of her brain.
Viktoria Ktsoyeva, 14, says she prayed every day while gripping the cross during the hostage-taking ordeal, not letting go even as she plunged into unconsciousness after being injured in the violent climax.
"I prayed that I would stay alive and that everything would be good again," she said in her room at Children's City Clinical Hospital No 9, sitting on her bed, barrettes holding back her long, black hair.
When the masked gunmen arrived September 1 at her school, Viktoria said she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "I never thought in my life I could be caught up in a terrorist attack."
After they were herded inside with the other more than 1,200 hostages, she and her nine-year-old brother, Artur, found each other.
He had been in the bathroom outside the school and probably could have run away when the siege started, but Viktoria's mother, Tatyana, said he decided to stay with his sister.
Fearing the chain holding the cross around her neck might break, Viktoria took it off and wrapped it around her left hand when the siege started.
A gift from her Orthodox parents too long ago to remember, replacing an earlier cross from her baptism that was somehow lost, Viktoria said she wasn't very religious. But nevertheless she always wore the cross - even when she was asleep.
During the siege, the tiny cross became her talisman of hope. "All three days I held it in my hand and prayed," Viktoria said.
Tatyana was praying too, keeping vigil with other parents near the school. Other relatives went to church services daily and lighted votive candles.
"Every day we had hope that our children would come home," Tatyana said. "We knew if it went on longer, we'd only be able to carry our dead children out of there."
Viktoria and her brother were first inside the main gym that was packed with explosives, and she said she was certain she would die if they went off.
But they later moved to an adjacent room, and when she heard the first explosion September 3 when the standoff spiralled to its violent end, the bomb planted near her didn't go off.
She said the school's physical education teacher quickly disconnected the wires to the device and threw it out the window.
As gunfire erupted, adults in the room told everyone to scream "Don't shoot!" to the forces outside. "Maybe they didn't understand or didn't know who was shooting, but they still all were firing - both our (troops) and also the terrorists," Viktoria said.
Viktoria ran. She remembers the horror of escaping through the gym again, where bodies littered the floor - some without arms or legs - faces of friends, parents and teachers she once knew.
At one point, Viktoria was hit in the head without realising what happened. As she lay injured, Artur was there pleading with her: "Don't die. Don't die. Open your eyes. Don't die," even holding his sister's eyes open with his hands.
Soldiers later passed her out a window to safety, the cross steady in her hand. Her picture was taken soon after at a nearby triage tent, a bandage around her head and her blouse stained with blood.
Viktoria said she was fading in and out of consciousness. She clung to hope, and to her cross.
"I felt that if I had that cross in my hand and if it was still there, then everything would be fine," she said.
The only sign of her injury are three small stitches on the right side of her forehead. But X-rays show a centimetre-sized piece of shrapnel that travelled into her skull and stopped practically in the center of her brain.
Dr Maxim Vladimirov, her neurosurgeon, said the shrapnel could have hit a major artery or affected Viktoria's ability to control her movement if it had gone just 1 millimetre further in any direction. "She's very lucky," Vladimirov said.
For now, doctors are planning to leave the shrapnel inside her skull and will only operate if any future complications develop.
After days of being confined to bed on doctor's orders, Victoria took her first cautious steps again on Wednesday. She's expected to be hospitalised for about a month, and then to travel with her family to a sanatorium for further recuperation.
The cross is now back in her family's apartment in Beslan, still stained with blood.
She didn't have time to remember it when she was taken September 5 to Moscow for treatment, but her father, Sergei, and brother will bring it when they arrive later. She now wears a brown cross given her by a priest who visited the hospital. A couple small icons rest on her windowsill in front of a small menagerie of stuffed animals.
Viktoria said she once wanted to be an economist when she grew up, but after surviving the siege, she's decided she wants to become a paediatrician.
And there's another change she's also making for the future: Viktoria plans to be in church every Sunday, her cross back over her heart where it belongs.
AP
ping
Presbyterians don't believe in Luck.
Neither, I would guess, does young Viktoria.
"And there's another change she's also making for the future: Viktoria plans to be in church every Sunday, her cross back over her heart where it belongs."
Beautiful story. Although, given that it's not laden with secularistic cynicism, it's hard for me to believe that it's from Associated Press (but, I guess, Miracles do happen -- grin).
Thinking along the same lines.....
God bless you, OP.
Prayers for all the children.
"quick-thinking, heroic physical-ed teacher in this story survive?"
I read an article about him within about 1 or 2 days after the debacle came to fruition.
He was quite a hero but he did not survive. His last act was to use his body as a shield for the children , he threw his own body over it and it exploded.
THAT would take some brass-aggies, in any situation.
Alive or dead, this person deserves some kind of recognition for that heroic act.
Damn. Sad.
This teacher is one example why G-d created Man and has not given up on us (Thank him for His endless patience). And this whole story, as many others shows, how satan is active and getting ever more so. All good people of the Earth should stand together against this unspeakable evil. I don't mean it with pathos, it is an urgent need. Otherwise this hellish substance, I just cannot think of them as humans, will engulf us all, regardless of political persuasions.
I am more grateful than you can know for your post.
Sadly many are quick instead to rush to judgement, throw blame, and create conspiracies with limited understanding.
God Bless Sharon and Israel for being the only ones I am aware of who reached out to Putin and Russia with significant and meaningful support and ideas for help.
Gal 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
They mocked God, now they are reaping from the seeds which they sowed.
If so, what does that say about us, Madrid, the people in Bali, etc? Same thing?
**Viktoria Ktsoyeva, 14, says she prayed every day while gripping the cross during the hostage-taking ordeal, not letting go even as she plunged into unconsciousness after being injured in the violent climax.**
God bless Viktoria for her faith!
No, I'm talking about Russia, the Russia responsible for hundreds of millions of murders.
No one else.
You however, are on record as saying that Chechnya is the portal to Hades, and as such, Chechnya and her people should be razed from this Earth. Then you claim to be a Christian.
I guess you don't think the source of the terrorism should be persued at all.
Did Chechens set the bombs in Madrid?
No.
Did Chechens set the bombs in Bali?
No.
It was her faith that saved her not the symbol of the cross.
"This teacher is one example why G-d created Man and has not given up on us (Thank him for His endless patience)"
I have no doubt that this man was welcomed into heaven with "Welcome home faithful servant."
There is a lot of evil in the world but every act of evil is the opportunity for good to work.
This child will remain religous for the rest of her life. There will never be any doubts for her.
This chokes me up. That poor girl, but lucky she knew God.
The symbol of the cross to the Orthodox is a visual aid for prayer and a statement of faith.
It is a pitty that certain elements have already arrived to throw blame and spout evil...for every good act evil tries to worm its way in...some men can not be reached for they have given their hearts to hatred, envy and service of the dark one. The worst are the ones who do not even realize it, so wrapped are they in self-righteousness.
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