School No. 1 is a project about memory and loss, told through the lives of those who survived Beslan, and those they left behind.
On the morning of September 1, 2004, 11-year-old Zarina Albegaeva mistook the sound of gunfire for fireworks.
It was the first day of school, a day of celebration across Russia. Girls wore immaculate white pinafores, boys their best shirts buttoned to the collar. The morning held the promise of new beginnings.
Instead, it became a nightmare.
Armed terrorists seized Zarina, her sister and around 1,200 others, taking them hostage inside School No. 1 in Beslan, a small town in Russia’s North Ossetia.
Two days later, 334 people were dead.
Parents. Teachers. Children.
More than half were children.
Among them was Zarina’s sister.
Now 21, Zarina struggles to speak about what happened.
“I don’t want to remember,” she says.
Since that September, Beslan has become a place defined by loss.
Ten years later, in 2014, I returned to the town to meet those who survived.
Together, we made our way back to the school, to the place where so many lives were changed forever,
and where the echoes of that morning still linger.
This is their story.
Commissioned by Time Magazine.
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
