Report by Andrey Kolesnikov about what happened at the memorial with flowers near Crocus City Hall on the afternoon of March 30

March 30 was the ninth day of deaths at Crocus City Hall. There was a funeral service near the flower memorial; ambassadors from almost all the diplomatic missions accredited in Moscow arrived. No, this has never happened before, says Kommersant special correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov.

There didn’t seem to be that many people at the memorial near Crocus, which can no longer be called spontaneous. There was no such flow as a week ago. But people were coming – from the metro, from parking lots, which are now in bad shape at Crocus: almost all of them are closed, and even the underground one that was opened a week ago in the Vegas shopping center.

These people walking towards the memorial are easy to recognize. Yes, flowers in hands, but by God, there’s something else you can’t go wrong about. These are not mournful faces (someone smiles, discussing something along the way with relatives or comrades), and not black scarves on the heads of women (there are almost none of them either), but still something that catches the eye. It’s as if they are all pulled by one magnet, and their feet carry them towards it. Here are all those for whom it would be much harder not to come than to go today and return by lunchtime, and still have the whole Saturday ahead. Entire life.

The flower shaft, one and a half meters high, stretched for about eighty meters. The flowers, of course, have been here for more than a week, and they will probably be removed soon.

And you want to absorb this color and smell, all the painful sensations of this place, because it seems that in no case should you forget any of this.

And you see two women, young and old, mother and daughter, and you immediately understand that they are from there. Yes, that’s all true.

– Where we were? – Vera asks again, mom. “We were there, right in the lobby, at the very beginning. Where they started shooting from. Nobody understood anything there!

“Yes, we were at the entrance,” says daughter Daria, “when they arrived.” At the entrance itself there was only a frame and a table. There was no one there, no one checked anything. We checked further, where tickets were already shown. For a minute or two, maybe, we stood in a small line to get through this frame, although there was no point in it, because we didn’t see anyone near it.

“I put my bag on the table, and Dasha said to me: “Mom, why did you put it there, who will check it?” — Vera said.

“And then this shooting started behind us,” Dasha continued. “At first everyone thought it was fireworks, then we decided it was the ceiling collapsing.” There the floor is so marble, the ceilings are high, there is such an echo… And it immediately seems that the roof is on you…

-Where did you hide? – I asked them.

– There is a glass corridor, and then the wall begins, and there is one place where the wall forms such a corner… On one side there is glass and on the other, and between them there were three metal detector frames… And so I somehow pushed my mother to this corner, and several more people ended up there with us… Then I remember that I was shouting: “On the floor!” – and everyone lies down, and they passed by and didn’t notice us. There is no shelter as such, they just didn’t look in our direction! They just passed by.

“We didn’t come into their field of vision,” confirms Vera. “They were hurrying inside.”

“Yes, and they reacted to movement,” nods Daria. “You only had to turn your head to get a bullet.” We just lay there motionless.

“It seems to me that they were excited by those who were lying down and whom they noticed, and they shot them like living targets,” says my mother. “The woman who was also selling tickets was immediately shot…

They were just lucky. They were so lucky it’s hard to imagine. They simply didn’t look in their direction.

“You know, it immediately seemed to me,” said Daria, “that they were a little crazy.” I saw them close. They walk like this… They don’t talk to each other. The faces are simply frozen. There must be at least some emotions. And when they walked past us, I saw – none at all.

-Have you seen them close? “I asked her again. “Are these the same people who were later shown on TV?” When they were caught in the Bryansk region.

– Well, I saw one very close. Yes, whose ear was later cut off,” Daria nodded. “That’s definitely him.”

They ran out of the building immediately.

-Have you been to the doctor? — I asked. “To be honest, you don’t look healthy.” “You seem to be having a hard time standing,” I told my daughter.

“I saw a psychotherapist,” she nodded.

– Did you help?

“Not yet,” she shrugged. “But we need to try to work on it some more.”

She knew what words were needed. Work it out.

“You see,” said my mother, “we didn’t come earlier or later!” If they had arrived earlier and gone to the hall, it is clear how it would have ended. And if only a little later, too! Someone is saving us.

— Is this your first time here? – I asked.

– No! — Daria smiled. “I went here every year to the Picnic!” I’m an amateur!

I meant – at the memorial. But now he didn’t specify.

– And you? – I asked her mother.

– So she introduced me too! – Mom also smiled.

— So this is not your first time at Picnic?

– No no! – Mom exclaimed. – Not at all for the first time!

“She came home from work that day,” the daughter continued, “and said: “I have a headache.” I say: “Well, then we won’t go.” No, he says, I’ll go anyway!

– And will you go again? — I asked uncertainly.

– Why not? – asked the daughter.

Nearby, at the flower memorial, some preparations were taking place. I saw that the volunteers stood in a strange semicircle, then scattered and stood up again. They built fences, a passage for someone. Yes, I myself came here through metal detectors, and I think that’s how it should have been. Only they weren’t here all these days.

Then I found out that Patriarch Kirill had been waiting here since the morning, there is a protocol according to which he is guarded, so, apparently, a framework appeared. But the patriarch did not arrive in the end, but Thomas, Archbishop of Odintsovo and Krasnogorsk, did. On the morning of Parent’s Saturday, he held a memorial service for the victims of the terrorist attack.

I didn’t know that ambassadors were now expected at two o’clock in the afternoon. The organization was handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was a good organization. More than 100 ambassadors arrived. From EU countries, the USA – and everywhere.

The heads of diplomatic missions, the Foreign Ministry told me, were sent notes with an invitation to come. There were no refusals, but not everyone confirmed their participation. At the same time, in the end, one of those who did not confirm arrived (that is, there were problems with getting to the territory: the ambassadors were dropped off almost at the memorial itself).

The end result was unprecedented. This has simply never happened before.

Now in front, right next to the memorial, stood students from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs College, and it was explained to them:

– Your main task is to count 20 seconds after the start of the minute of silence and release the white balls!

I could see the confusion on the students’ faces: it seemed that they had been given an unexpectedly difficult task. They didn’t expect it. Now they had to count correctly.

And what else was good here? Ambassadors are not used to being late. That is, it was scheduled for 2 p.m., and they began approaching the memorial around 1:30 p.m. Everyone has flowers in their hands. But someone with a wreath too. A delegation from one of the Asian countries brought a very large wreath, and two diplomatic mission employees carried it slowly to the memorial. But then they were given a signal: it was early. They understood everything correctly and, with the same slow and sad step, took the wreath back, closer to their ambassador, and froze near him, bowing their heads.

The ambassadors, as well as the students, as well as the members of the Council of Young Diplomats of the Russian Foreign Ministry, also participating in the ceremony, were given white balloons. Not everyone got it at once, and I heard the ambassadors in different languages, more often in Russian with different accents, begging:

– Both for me and for me! Girl, what about me?!..

No, no, this has definitely never happened before.

They started exactly at 14:00, not a second later, and announced a minute of silence. They counted down 20 seconds (it was easier than, apparently, expected, the metronome was working), and the ambassadors began to release the balls. Some of the ambassadors had tears in their eyes. And not just one.

And one girl from college, when she was one of the first to leave the crowd, laying down flowers, her hands were shaking so much that I was afraid for her. She definitely needed help.

I knew that college graduate Tatyana Repina, who worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the department of linguistic support, died in the terrorist attack, but not as a translator, but as a secretary-typist. I typed texts and dreamed, probably, of translating at some highest level. She was 22 years old.

Someone’s drone was circling above the memorial at an altitude of ten meters. Probably TV people. I wanted to think so.

The ambassadors dispersed quickly. The level of organization was high.

I saw that the thirst of the cameramen and photographers standing on the other side of the memorial was not satisfied. Somehow everything happened quickly.

Well, all their wishes were satisfied by the ambassador of one of the African countries. He was late and stood at the memorial for a couple of minutes, completely alone. He certainly did not go unnoticed. Everyone took it off.

The funeral music stopped playing after another ten minutes.

And then I suddenly realized that people were just starting to go to the memorial. I saw it. There were almost as many of them as there were the day after the terrorist attack. And they walked and walked.

It was just not evening yet.