The online edition of The Moscow Times provided a heartbreaking account of the day's ceremonies.
Inside
the schoolyard, the bereaved, many carrying candles, flowers and
stuffed animals, lined up to enter the burnt-out school gym, where more
than 300 of the some 1,000 hostages died.
Bells tolled at 8:30 a.m., the time the school opened last year, and the haunting strains of Mozart's "Requiem" then filled the air.
[...]
Flowers and lit candles covered the gym floor and windowsills, and portraits of the dead were hung on what remained of the walls. Pictures of the men, most of whom were shot on the first day of the attack, Sept. 1, were tacked to one wall, while the opposite wall was covered with pictures of smiling teenagers. Pictures of young children filled an entire corner of the gym. A clear Plexiglas roof stretched overhead.
Black marble slabs with water trickling down them stood at the sides of the gym door, symbolizing the tears shed by the victims' loved ones.
A wing of the school was plastered with red and white banners. Children from all over the world had signed the red banners, while the white banners carried the names of the Beslan children who had died. The banners were brought to Beslan by the Children as Peacemakers Association, which was founded by U.S. citizen Patricia Montadon, said Zhanna Tebeyeva, the association's Beslan coordinator. (full article)
Bells tolled at 8:30 a.m., the time the school opened last year, and the haunting strains of Mozart's "Requiem" then filled the air.
[...]
Flowers and lit candles covered the gym floor and windowsills, and portraits of the dead were hung on what remained of the walls. Pictures of the men, most of whom were shot on the first day of the attack, Sept. 1, were tacked to one wall, while the opposite wall was covered with pictures of smiling teenagers. Pictures of young children filled an entire corner of the gym. A clear Plexiglas roof stretched overhead.
Black marble slabs with water trickling down them stood at the sides of the gym door, symbolizing the tears shed by the victims' loved ones.
A wing of the school was plastered with red and white banners. Children from all over the world had signed the red banners, while the white banners carried the names of the Beslan children who had died. The banners were brought to Beslan by the Children as Peacemakers Association, which was founded by U.S. citizen Patricia Montadon, said Zhanna Tebeyeva, the association's Beslan coordinator. (full article)
In memory of the victims of the seige of Beslan, a monument called “The Tree of Sorrow” now stands on the grounds of a nearby cemetary in which many of the victims are buried.
