All of Russia has been in deep mourning since last Friday.
The group Picnic was going to play that day at the Crocus room, on the outskirts of Moscow, when a terrorist commando burst into the place, executing everyone who was in front of it.
At least 137 people lost their lives.
This Sunday, the band's leader, Edmund Schkliarski, visibly moved, addressed the families of the victims and all those who attended their concert: "I give you my condolences, but there are no words that can revive or console people." , he repeated twice.
His manager's assistant, Yekaterina Kushner, was one of the victims killed by the terrorists.
The attack began on Friday about ten minutes before the scheduled time of the concert, 8:00 p.m., two minutes less in mainland Spain.
Kushner, unlike the rest of the group, was already on stage.
Her colleagues lost contact with her after the attack.
“Katia is my friend, a very close person to me.
I have worked with her for many years with both the Melnitsa group and Picnic.
We are not willing to believe the worst, Katia is a very strong and fighting person,” the band's director, Yuri Chernyshevski, had written this Saturday on his social networks.
However, this Sunday her worst omens were confirmed, when her husband identified her body.
The rest of the band was saved because they were in the dressing room, far from the massacre perpetrated by terrorists who cut the throats of some of the wounded and executed others with their firearms.
Authorities are slowly identifying the victims.
It took more than a day for the emergency services to extinguish the fire caused by the attackers with some gasoline canisters, and the complex was devastated.
More than 700 members of the rescue teams continue to remove debris and the findings are horrifying: 28 bodies of people trying to flee were found in some bathrooms;
and on emergency stairs, another 14 people lost their lives.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lit a candle this Sunday in memory of the victims of the Crocus complex massacre. Mikhail Metzel (via REUTERS)
Yekaterina Volosílova is another of the fatalities.
She was proclaimed Miss Tver in 2001 - one of the regions adjacent to the province of Moscow - and died in the attack at just 42 years old.
Married with two children, her entourage told the newspaper
Starhit
that she “loved Picnic very much and tried not to miss a concert.”
The tragedy also hit a well-known non-profit organization that helps search for missing people.
The NGO Liza Alert issued a statement reporting the death of two of its volunteers: Oleg Pavlovski and Tatiana Abdulova.
“The pain also reaches us, we have lost two friends and comrades,” said Liza Alert's condolences.
Another of the fatalities is a senior official of the Russian central bank.
Tatiana Pijnovskaya went to the concert with a childhood friend.
Her husband could not accompany her due to scheduling problems.
According to Russian media, the victim was in the bathroom when the attack began and she was able to talk to her husband on the phone.
He advised her to flee, but the two women died of suffocation from the smoke.
The tragedy has reached many regions of Russia.
As a 39-year-old ice hockey player from Yaroslavl—about 250 kilometers northwest of Moscow—Alexei Rudnitsk;
and a family from Tula province, about 150 kilometers south of Moscow.
A woman from that region was murdered and her 11-year-old daughter is hospitalized in Moscow in serious condition with a gunshot wound.
No mourning protocol
There is no protocol for declaring a day of mourning in Russia.
This decision is the power of the president, although tradition establishes that those killed in a tragedy with more than 60 deaths or people with special public resonance who lose their lives are honored in this way.
However, with Vladimir Putin this recognition is a matter of sympathies: with the Russian leader who democratized the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, there was no day of mourning for his death in 2022. However, the man who handed over power did enjoy this honor. to Putin, former president Boris Yeltsin, in 2007 despite being pointed out as one of the main culprits of the calamitous nineties.
The last time Russia was in mourning was in 2018. On March 25 of that year, 64 people died when a shopping center in Kemerovo, a Siberian city located 3,500 kilometers from Moscow, burned.
The Russians continued to approach the outside of the Crocus complex this Sunday to honor the victims and support the survivors.
A mountain of flowers, toys and candles commemorates the dead and injured just dozens of meters from the lobby, crowned by a completely charred roof.
Moscow morgues continue to be packed with people.
“We try to console people, but it is difficult,” priest Mikhail told the
Fontanka
newspaper on Sunday.
“I don't remember what time I arrived.
People are coming in droves, many people have died.
“It is a terrible pain,” he said.
In all the streets of Russia, national flags fly at half-mast along with black crepe and Moscow authorities have also displayed posters of support for the victims in the capital.
Electronic billboards have replaced their ads with images of a candle on a black background with the slogan “We cry, 03/22/2024.”
Cinemas, theaters and sports centers have closed, not only for safety, but also to mourn.
This Sunday, television stations suspended the broadcast of the movies and entertainment programs they had scheduled, as well as advertisements.
The Russian museums did open, but they observed a minute of silence at noon in honor of the victims, who appear on a list that increases with each passing hour.
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