Amid the first slight snow in Moscow's winter, a little Russian girl sealed a gentle kiss on his father's name inscribed in a black slate for all victims of a world-shocking terrorist attack, tears rolling down her face.
Ira Plamonova, 13, was among several hundred people to commemorate Thursday the victims of the Moscow theater hostage-taking incident staged by Chechen rebels a year ago.
"I missed my father so much, and I hate those who killed him and many other innocent people," said Plamonova, who came along with her mother and grandma.
Muscovites held a solemn ceremony Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the hostage-taking tragedy that left 130 innocent people dead in the Dubrovka Theater in southern Moscow. A granite obelisk with three bronze cranes on the top was unveiled under somber skies in front of the theater.
Some 40 Chechen gunmen, attempting to press the Russian government to end the war in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, seized the theater last Oct. 23 during the second act of the musical "Nord-Ost" and took over 900 people hostage.
The hostage siege lasted three days before Russian special services stormed the theater and shot all the Chechen guerrillas dead.
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday while inaugurating a Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan that the bloody event "is a painful wound that will not heal in our hearts for a long time," Itar-Tass reported.
An old couple couldn't help weeping throughout the hour-long ceremony. Their only son, a 40-year-old soldier, died in the theater when he was on a holiday.
"We can only depend on friends and relatives now, and we hope the government could offer some help to people like us to overcome the difficulties," the old lady appealed.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, followed by a group of local officials to the ceremony, addressed the public that "terrorism will neither defeat the people nor will it psych us out."
"Given the painful lesson, we must adopt more powerful measures to fight against terrorism," the mayor said.
Dozens of policemen and interior ministry soldiers were cautiously patrolling the theater area and several shuttle buses were parked around to evacuate people in case of emergency.
A senior police officer, who declined to be named, told Xinhua that "it's our obligation to protect people from terrorist attacks and we will never let the same tragedy happen again."
(Xinhua News Agency October 24, 2003)
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