Nord-Ost

In October 2002, a band of mostly Chechen gunmen seized the Dubrovka Theater in central Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord-Ost” and threatened to blow it up.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

In October 2002, a band of mostly Chechen gunmen seized the Dubrovka Theater in central Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord-Ost” and threatened to blow it up.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

In October 2002, a band of mostly Chechen gunmen seized the Dubrovka Theater in central Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord-Ost” and threatened to blow it up.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

In October 2002, a band of mostly Chechen gunmen seized the Dubrovka Theater in central Moscow during a performance of the musical “Nord-Ost” and threatened to blow it up.

The Return Daniel Treisman 2011

The takeover, which insolently thrust the war in Chechnya into the heart of Moscow—the theater was less than three miles from the Kremlin—is now known as the siege of Nord-Ost, or the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

Before the Nord-Ost siege, Chechen rebels had famously orchestrated at least two large-scale hostage takings that had ended with the deaths of dozens of civilians.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

There were many armed people in the play Nord-Ost, which honors the triumphs of the Soviet army in World War II.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

On the third day of the hostage crisis at Nord-Ost, several hours before commandos raided the theater, I briefly spoke with an anguished young woman who said she was the daughter of a man being held inside.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

On the third day of the hostage crisis at Nord-Ost, several hours before commandos raided the theater, I briefly spoke with an anguished young woman who said she was the daughter of a man being held inside.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

Inside it, a group of Chechen men and women armed with explosives and guns were keeping hostage more than 750 actors, theater employees, and members of the audience who had come to watch Nord-Ost, a musical about war, courage, betrayal, and love during the early decades of the Soviet Union, based on a popular coming-of-age novel written more than half a century earlier by the Soviet writer Veniamin Kaverin.

Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010