Beslan

A couple weeks ago we made a day trip to visit a church in Beslan, North Ossetia. This is home of the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis. We briefly stopped by the school where it happened and looked around and took pictures.

the school yard:
To get the full story, follow the link above, or research on your own. But the basics are these: On September 1, 2004, the traditional first day of school, a group of 30 or so terrorists, largely Chechens and Ingush, attacked an elementary school in Beslan and took about 1200 students, teachers and parents hostage. They were held in the gym for nearly 3 days and denied food and water. Many were shot, and the children suffered from heat exhaustion and dehydration. After 52 hours, Russian troops stormed the school with heavy weapons. By the time the rescue effort was complete, about half of the hostages had died.

the gym where it happened:
people leave water for the children who were denied it:

In total, there were an estimated 350 casualties (half children), including all but one of the hostage-takers. About 90% of survivors were injured.
pictures of the dead line the walls, with messages scrawled around them:Orthodox cross in the middle of the gym. You can see out the window other parts of the school. The whole thing is pretty well destroyed.
notice all the bullet holes behind the hoop:at one point there was a fire. Many of the dead and injured were badly burned.
In his televised speech a few days later, President Putin paraphrased Joseph Stalin, saying, "We showed ourselves to be weak. And the weak get beaten."

We passed a Muslim mosque down the road, abandoned, trashed, and rusted out:
Once you get away from ruins, though, Beslan is a tiny, quiet town:
There was a chicken coop sitting right by the sidewalk:
A statue memorial has been built near the cemetery. The ruined school is supposed to be torn down soon. It seems to me like a good memorial - seeing the bullet holes and broken glass and charred beams makes everything feel very real. But the weather damage makes it impossible to leave the building standing indefinitely. They are going to build some sort of memorial in its place. Meanwhile, a new school was built nearby with donations. Also, we passed a playground area sponsored by a local bank. The children of Beslan are deeply scarred.