Nord-Ost: 15 years later

“If at least one person in the hall remains alive, it will be me,” Alena Mikhailova, one of the hostages in the hall of the Moscow Bearing Palace of Culture, repeated to herself. She really survived. Her husband is not. Alena, like other survivors of that day, had to start all over again.

Deal with guilt

On October 23, 2002, at the beginning of the second act of the musical Nord-Ost, terrorists entered the hall. Spectators and all those who were then in the building were taken hostage. On the morning of October 26, 130 people were killed during an assault using an unknown gas. History has no subjunctive mood, and yet those who spent 57 hours in that hall and survived constantly ask the question: could things have been different?

When many people die, the survivors do not always experience the joy of their salvation: their feelings are complex and contradictory. “Many feel guilty and ashamed that they were alive, that they didn’t help others, that they were confused and afraid that they behaved incorrectly,” says Anna Portnova, head of the department of clinical psychiatry for children and adolescents at the Serbsky Institute. During the terrorist attack on Dubrovka, she, along with her colleagues, helped the victims and their relatives.

Often survivors try to remember what preceded the situation, as if they want to find a point from where events could have gone differently: they note mystical signs, patterns, words of loved ones. Someone at the last moment bought a ticket from hand, someone happened to be nearby and decided to have a pleasant evening, someone, on the contrary, did not go himself, sending a relative to the performance.

“Any emergency situation suddenly disrupts the usual course of life of a person who is involved in it,” says Natalia Tolubaeva, deputy head of the emergency response department of the Center for Emergency Psychological Assistance of the Russian Emergencies Ministry. – Events associated with the loss of a loved one and with the experience of danger to life and health, a terrorist act, especially with the capture and retention of hostages, have a powerful negative impact on the psyche.

The first reaction is a state of acute stress, experiencing a complex of strong emotional reactions, such as fear, despair, anxiety, anger. At this point, it is very difficult to cope with feelings and control your behavior. Such a state cannot last long – it takes a lot of resources, exhausts a person psychologically and physically.

People who have lost loved ones go through several stages in their experience of grief. The first is denial, when a person cannot believe in the death of a loved one. After Nord-Ost, relatives could not identify relatives in the morgue. Even at the funeral, they did not believe that they were saying goodbye to their loved ones. Specialists are working to help people cope with severe stress during an emergency. If a person does not feel relief after a conversation with a psychologist, a psychiatrist joins in, who has more resources, including psychotherapeutic and medication.

The second stage of grief is anger: “Why did this happen to me and my loved ones?” It is replaced by the “deal” stage (“God, make it so that he survives!”, “If I survive this, I will do it …”), or the stage of depression immediately develops, the last hopes disappear and there is nothing but hopelessness and powerlessness.

An important final stage is the realization of what happened, which can begin in a few hours, or maybe in a few days or weeks. “After that, a person solves for himself another important psychological task – this is acceptance,” explains Natalya Tolubaeva. He is adapting to new conditions. On average, the stage takes several months, and in the case of the death of a loved one – about a year. This is the process of “reworking” what happened: a person does not erase the traumatic event from memory, but learns to live, accepting the tragedy that happened to him.

“Fight and Seek…”

Sometimes the guilt becomes unbearable. “Then it often turns into anger and rage and spills out,” explains Anna Portnova. – If there was an unambiguous enemy, it would be easier for people to experience the loss. After natural disasters, the strength of the emotional reaction is not as high as after anthropogenic, that is, caused by people, especially those accompanied by violence. Some give up, often get sick. Someone goes into religion, sometimes into a sect. Someone is in conflict with everyone (as, for example, the so-called combatants – Afghans, “Chechens”). Others find meaning in children, charity, or seeking the truth for everyone.

“People understand that they will not change what happened in any way,” continues Anna Portnova, “but it is important for them to achieve justice: for the guilty to recognize themselves as such, and for the offended to receive compensation.”

This is exactly what the relatives of those who died at Dubrovka did when they created the Nord-Ost public organization. Sergei Karpov became its chairman, and his wife Tatyana became its co-chairman, who lost in October 2002 the eldest of their three sons, musician and translator Alexander O’Karpov: he translated the libretto of the musical “Chicago” from English, he and his wife were interested in watching a domestic musical performance … A year ago, Tatyana Karpova died – “burned out”, as her friends say.

Of the two daughters of Dmitry Milovidov, the terrorists released only one. The second died during the assault. He, an engineer by profession, finds it easier to operate not with emotions, but with numbers.

– 912 hostages, not counting those who themselves entered from the street;

– the average age of the dead (including 10 children) – 36 and a half years;

– 69 orphans;

— coffins went to 35 cities;

– in 42 cities – the surviving hostages.

In the list of the smallest details, facts, dates, case numbers, there is a huge pain and resentment that has not yet been released. All this time, he and other activists go to court hearings, persistently conduct their own investigation. They help – some with treatment (the consequences of stress and gas poisoning during the assault affect), others with the placement of children in camps, sanatoriums and schools. Victims of other terrorist attacks turn to them for advice.

“The topic of Nord-Ost is taboo, and we, united, make it difficult to hide the truth and the guilty,” says Sergey Karpov. The site nord-ost.org is working, where information is laid out for all 15 years. In 2011, a book of memory of all those who died was published. The leaders of the Nord-Ost organization delivered a report to the OSCE, won a case in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, now 95 more applications have been filed there and a “third wave” is being prepared.

“… Find and do not give up”

If for some salvation is in the struggle, then for others it is in the family, children, parents. “In the Caucasus, when grief happens, all relatives come to the house. Together it is easier for them to endure suffering,” says Anna Portnova. — The support of loved ones often brings people back to life. In my practice, there were cases when the birth of another child or adoption from an orphanage helped.

64-year-old Zoya Chernetsova has seen a lot in her life: she went through Afghanistan as an operating room nurse in a military hospital. On that day, her son, 20-year-old Danila, a fifth-year student of the Civil Engineering University, worked in the theater. “He was a gifted boy, musical,” Zoya recalls. “When this happened, at first I was very angry, and then I was seized by emptiness, I didn’t want to live.” She could neither eat nor sleep, she lay motionless and dried up. Friends helped: they visited her, supported her. After some time, I was introduced to “a good man.” And now they have been together for almost 15 years.

I had to leave work: as soon as a child was brought to her office of computed tomography, a lump approached her throat. And soon the niece and her little children needed help. “We are now talking with you, and they are running around on the top floor of my dacha,” Zoya shares. – They need to be lifted. They and the beloved man are the continuation of my life. Now she also helps sisters – one is 82, the other is 69. And together with Sergey Karpov and Dmitry Milovidov, she goes to court and works in their common organization.

The husband of Alena Mikhailova, Maxim, at the age of 35, was known in Kaliningrad: a talented journalist, musician, actor, head of a radio station. On a business trip to Moscow, he took his wife and her 9-year-old son from his first marriage with him. They walked around the Kremlin, and at the box office they were offered tickets for evening performances.

When Alena heard about the musical based on “Two Captains”, there were no other options. “This is my favorite book, on which I built my character, attitude to life, to people. “Fight and seek, find and not give up” is my life principle, says Alena. – I was delighted with the production and regretted the entire first department that they did not take their son with them. And in the second, she thanked God that he stayed at the hotel.

How she ended up in the hospital, she does not remember. With memory in general, after the stress, problems began, so I have to write down dates and numbers all the time. Her father took her and her son to Kaliningrad from a Moscow hospital, Alena was told that they were still looking for her husband among the injured hostages and her friends would bring him later. The fact that he died after the assault, I found out already on the plane – from the local newspaper.

Only two years after the attack, she was able to stay in a confined space, again began to go to the cinema and theaters, not being afraid of the lights off and closed doors. But even now he tries to choose places closer to the exit. On the third anniversary of the terrorist attack, she entered the hall on Dubrovka: “I thought if I did this and went out on my own feet, I would definitely remember something. And life will definitely change.”

Alena is sure that the children “brought” her out of the hall. After all, they were waiting for her: one, a one-year-old, in Kaliningrad, and the other in a hotel room in Moscow. “None of us then knew what would happen next. But I imagined that care for the two orphaned children would be added to the grief of our parents and Maxim. It held me strong. To die then would be so unfair!”

A few years ago, Alena watched Nord-Ost on tape: it was important for her to “finish” that performance, because good triumphs over evil there. I watched with my sons. And she recalled how the actors of the troupe were sitting next to her in the auditorium seized by terrorists and told that in the second act a real plane “landed” on the stage. Alena hopes that the musical, talentedly created and staged, will one day return to the audience.

Alena’s personal life has also changed: next to her is a man from the past. They have known each other since school, for her he is “a time-tested person”, and she can trust him. “I understand that life can end at any second, and there is no need to waste time on hassle and resentment. I have loved life before. And now I live to the maximum, every day, and I enjoy everything – from meetings, conversations, work, family joys and just moments.