School No. 1
When shots fired, 11-year-old Zarina Albegaeva mistook them for fireworks.
Then she remembers running.
It was September 1, 2004, the start of school, a cause for celebration throughout all of Russia.
Students were dressed in their best: girls in spotless white pinafores and boys in dress shirts buttoned to the collar.
A group of terrorists took Zarina, her sister and 1,200 people hostage in School No.1 in Beslan, a small town in the Russian republic of North Ossetia.
Two days later, 334 people were dead. Among them were parents, teachers, and more than half, children.
Now 21, Zarina still has trouble talking about what happened.
"I don't want to remember," she says.
Zarina’s sister was among the people killed at School No.1, an event that has come to define Beslan.
A decade later, I returned to the tiny town to meet former hostages. Together we journeyed to the school.
This is their story.
2014
“Mister Ali, can I please have some water?
What kind of Mister am I to you? answered a masked man.
I am a terrorist, I came here to kill you”
-Zarina Albegaeva, 11
Day 1. Morning. The Gym.
Terrorists seize School No.1, taking more than 1,200 captives
into the gym. The attackers mine the school. with improvised explosives.
20 male hostages are executed by militants.
“I didn't know what a terrorist was.
I asked my Mom, “Is a terrorist a good person?”
-Diana Agaeva, 7
The hallway of School No.1. An uncountable number of bullet holes and shrapnel-marks scar the walls of the school.
Day 2. Afternoon. The Gym.
Terrorists deny all food and water to the hostages.
Negotiations fail as terrorists demand Russian withdrawal from Chechnya.
26 hostages, mothers with newborns, are released.
“They told us to put up our hands like bunnies, then they filmed us.
I got scared because I couldn’t hold my Mom’s hand anymore.”
-Zarina Khadratsova, 11
Footage shot by a terrorist shows a masked hostage-taker standing on dead man's switch during the crisis.
Lena, Zarina, and Rozita, walked to school together. They would later be forced to drink their own urine.
Alan Gapoyev was in the gym, when his mom was killed after a second explosion.
Alyenka Tskaeva, and her brother survived the siege. Their mother's body was found in the burned shell of the gym, clinging to her eldest daughter.
Day 3. Afternoon. The Gym.
Two explosive in the gym detonate, blowing out the windows
and burnings the hostages alive. The gym roof collapses,
crushing those inside. Gunfire erupts between terrorists and Russian forces.
“I heard a big boom. I screamed ‘Mama, get up…get up’
She didn’t move. There was blood on her dress.
I don’t remember anything else.”
-Alan Gapoev, 7
Memorial at School No.1
Yuri Aylerov, 50, and his wife, Rafa, 48, were both hostages.
On the first day of the siege, Yuri was taken to Classroom 15,
where terrorists killed a group of men.
He survived.
Their daughter, Svetlana, 10, was killed on the third day of the siege.
“If I knew you wouldn’t escape, I would have hugged you tightly those last few days.
But I didn’t even do that. I didn’t do anything.
I am sorry.”
-Khristina Dzogaeva, 12
