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[VO] For 25 consecutive years,
more than 200 terror attacks
on Russian soil have killed thousands.
[VO] Survivors must now live with the memory of one fraction of a second
that drastically changed their lives,
leaving them with one question,
does time really heal?
AFTER TEROR
[Anna Ablamskaya, Student]
[Anna] On that day I went to University, I had exams.
[Anna] As usual I went home by metro with music in my headphones.
[Anna] In a flash it went dark.
ON APRIL, 3 2017
TERRORIST ATTACK ST. PETERSBURG’S METRO STATION
16 DEAD, 51 INJURED
[Anna] I thought my phone had blown up.
[Anna] I realized I couldn't stand because my leg was badly injured.
[Anna] In the first seconds I couldn't think, I called Mum,
[Anna] I said there was a metro blast and I'd lost my legs - that was hardest for her.
[VO] Doctor Yulia Valueva was on the scene through pure chance.
[Yulia Valueva, Doctor]
[Yulia] I rushed to that carriage and saw people trying to get out.
[Yulia] Those who could walk started pulling others out.
[Yulia] We didn't have to break the windows, they were shattered.
[Yulia] The blast damaged the doors.
[Yulia] It was mainly through the door panels that...
[Yulia] The most terrifying spot was there.
[Yulia] I've only just realised, back then we just acted on autopilot.
[Yulia] Like robots, really.
[Yulia] We kept receiving people…
[Yulia] The car was at the platform, the doors were about here,
and we tried to pull them out right about here.
[Yulia] There was a dead guy lying just here,
and 4 more bodies over there.
[Yulia] That was 5 people who'd been killed.
[VO] This is exactly where Doctor Valueva found Anna.
[Anna] I kept asking her, have I lost my legs?
[Anna] No, they're just broken. She tried her best to cheer me up.
[Anna] Ok? Are you conscious? Don't pass out!
[Anna] What's your name?
[Voice] Shush, honey. Just a little.
[Anna] I'll just secure your foot, that's it, it's ok.
[Anna] She had three breaks in her leg.
[Anna] An intact knee, no toes and her foot faced the wrong way.
[Anna] We collected her leg parts - all but her toes. and now, the girl can walk,
her leg was saved.
[Anna] But she has quite a series of operations ahead.
[Anna] It's like a kind of test,
some friendships grew stronger, others drifted apart.
[Anna] I have no anger towards them,
I just don't want to think about it.
[Yulia] I've treated all people equally since I was young.
[Yulia] They call themselves Muslims, but they aren't Muslims.
[Yulia] They don't fit in any human groups.
[Yulia] They're not human.
[Yulia] They're nobodies and nothing in this life.
[Yulia] They're zombies programmed to destroy other people.
[Yulia] I just can't understand them, and asking's no use.
[Yulia] They have one goal...
to bring as much pain as they can to others.
[Anna] I spent two months in hospital,
then I went back for more surgery.
[Anna] But, I need to have more operations because it's still painful to walk.
[Anna] My leg doesn't fully function and needs to be fixed.
[Anna] Gradually.
[Anna] The doctors fought for my leg and I owe it all to Yulia,
because she put the leg together
before I was evacuated from the metro.
[Yulia] What else could I have done?
[Yulia] I don't know.
[Yulia] You see, I'm from a long line of medics.
[Yulia] Granddad was a medical professor, a noted oncologist.
[Yulia] My mother was a nurse.
[Yulia] She travelled around Russia, as an army medic.
[Yulia] So...
[Yulia] I never felt despair.
[Anna] I never thought I'd stop going to university.
[Anna] Whatever happens, I'll go back and keep studying to be a doctor.
[Anna] I want to do something that matters, after what happened.
[Anna] Not just to exist,
to work in an office or anything, I want to help people.
DECEMBER 29, 2013 TERRORIST ATTACK
VOLGOGRAD RAILWAY STATION 18 DEAD, 45 INJURED
[Mikhail Shubin, Entrepreneur]
[Mikhail] Why kill people?
[Mikhail] Why ruin lives for God's sake?
[Mikhail] Not just my life, dammit,
they turned my relatives' lives upside down,
my close family suffered, too.
[Mikhail] Luckily, we survived,
but there were many who didn't.
[VO] Mikhail Shubin sustained several serious and life-threatening injuries.
[Mikhail] When I entered the station Dmitry stood to my left.
[Mikhail] He said, just walk, why go back and forth through the detector?
[Mikhail] I'd already walked in and out a few times.
[Mikhail] That moment I saw the girl suicide bomber over his shoulder.
[Mikhail] She screamed 'Allah Akbar!', I recall clearly.
[Mikhail] Hands raised, she said 'Allah Akbar', and bang.
[Mikhail] That guy's burning face was the last thing I saw.
[Mikhail] He saved my life,
without him, I wouldn't be here.
[Mikhail] I can still picture it...
[Mikhail] He was basically blown in half.
[VO] Immediately after the explosion,
Mikhail Shubin was presumed dead
and taken to the morgue.
[Mikhail] They moved me from the morgue after a mortuary staff member
came in and noticed my leg twitch.
[Mikhail] Only later
I could hear,
when they were taking off my chain...
this one...
[Mikhail] I had a cross on the chain - this one.
[Mikhail] I had a cross on my chain. This one, but it's not mine.
[Irina] It's my cross. We believe it saved him.
[Irina Shubina, Mikhail’s Wife]
[Irina] My brother rang and said be strong, he's alive, but has no eyes.
[Irina] I said, he's alive? Eyes, legs... I don't care as long as he lives.
[Mikhail] Eyes aren't everything.
[Mikhail] So I'm blind I won't kill myself over it.
[Mikhail] I can walk, I enjoy life.
[Mikhail] Maybe technology will give me back my eyes.
[Mikhail] If not, so what?
[Mikhail] You have to live.
[Mikhail] Here's where we work.
[Mikhail] We supply groceries to schools and nurseries.
[Mikhail] We won a contract to supply food
but there's room for improvement.
[Mikhail] I still have about 20 metal fragments in me.
[Mikhail] Four in my head
and a big chunk of plastic from the metal detector in my stomach,
they weren't able to get to it.
[Mikhail] Well...
[Mikhail] Little pieces,
small bits of metal in both legs.
[Mikhail] One pokes through here, it's a pain in the butt, to be honest.
[Mikhail] I'd think about having it removed,
I already have so many scars on my face!
[Mikhail] You can feel it here.
[Irina] When the waltz started, he squeezed my hand hard!
I begged him to let go,
saying, first kids, then a wedding.
[Irina] The day after our baby turned one.
[Child] Hi! [Mikhail] Hello, little one.
[Mikhail] Top marks today?
[Mikhail] Good boy!
[Child] What? [Mikhail] Never mind.
[Mikhail] There's so much software for the blind these days.
[Mikhail] It would take days to talk about it all.
[Mikhail] Hello!
[Mikhail] Are we able to collect it today?
[Mikhail] Well, the car's in Volgodonsk right now.
[Mikhail] It's about half an hour's drive.
[Mikhail] Yes, about 30 minutes...
[Irina] Yes, we love each other so much.
[Irina] No kissing. No kissing!
[Mikhail] To Zukhra... to the hospital, Vladimir.
[Mikhail] The dog helps me a lot,
with his help I easily go to the shops.
[Mikhail] He knows 3 stores round here...
[Mikhail] He knows the park...
[Mikhail] If I say, 'Find a bench,' he'll take me to one,
and wait for a treat - 'Gimme a treat!'
[Mikhail] Maks... Maks!
[Mikhail] Sit!
[Mikhail] No!
[Mikhail] Go on.
[Mikhail] He won't take it until I tell him.
[Irina] It's hard to get used to it.
[Irina] Starting over... He had it the hardest. But it's ok.
[Mikhail] I scoured the web about growing human eyes from stem cells.
[Mikhail] Tons of articles there!
[Mikhail] They can grow organs, but haven't figured out how to make them work.
[Mikhail] It's desire and ambition that matter.
[Mikhail] The rest is possible.
[Mikhail] Of course, I still dream...
to see the world around me in colour one day.
[Mikhail] I've got big hopes.
[Mikhail] I really don't understand those who commit suicide and do drugs.
[Mikhail] You're sick... So?
[Mikhail] Live and enjoy life. You only get one.
[Mikhail] There's nothing on the other side.
[Mikhail] I've been there.
[Mikhail] There's nothing!
[Mikhail] That's it!
[VO] The central market of Vladikavkaz
is one of the most visited places in North Ossetia’s capital.
[VO] Here the old adage about shells never hitting the same crater twice
was proved quite wrong.
[VO] Terrorists have attacked civilians near or on the market four times over the last 20 years.
[VO] But the bloodiest attack of all
was in 1999.
ON MARCH 19, 1999 TERRORIST ATTACK
VLADIKAVKAZ, NORTH OSSETIA-ALANIA 62 DEAD, 168 INJURED
[Valentina Zaseeva, Librarian]
[Valentina] I often tell myself, that I could have avoided all of this.
[Valentina] Another 2 or 3 steps into the pavilion would have saved me.
[Valentina] All would have been fine!
[VO] At the time Valentina Zaseeva was just 18 years old.
[Valentina] In the morning I'd told Mum I wouldn't visit that day.
[Valentina] I had a dream that...
[Valentina] I was being chased
by a big, old, drooling dog.
[Valentina] And it chased me, chased me...
and then in the market it bit off my leg.
[Valentina] I’m home.
[Valentina] We’re late!
[Valentina] It may not be obvious that I'm missing a leg.
[Valentina] But some days it hurts so much, it makes my brain melt.
[Valentina] Sometimes I think, God, I've had so much pain in my life.
[Valentina] Isn't it enough?
[Valentina] I had 12 operations: some blood vessels moved up when my leg was blown off.
[Valentina] But when they operated, they couldn't find the blood vessels.
[Valentina] I was clinically dead…
[Valentina] I used to think that after 1945,
there's no way anyone could lose an arm or a leg.
[Valentina] We're not at war, especially here in Russia.
[Valentina] There was in Chechnya...
but I didn't think we were part of it, here in Ossetia.
[VO] The first ten years were the most difficult for Valentina.
[VO] She didn’t believe anybody would need her
or that she could successfully restart her life from scratch.
[Valentina] I just told him, 'If you send the matchmakers, I'll marry you'.
[Valentina] After a while, on a Sunday, his matchmakers appeared.
[Valentina] That's how it happened.
[Valentina] I started working because I didn't want anyone to say
that my missing leg made me unfit for work.
[Valentina] I got down to work enthusiastically.
[Ruslan Bulkaev, Valentina’s Husband]
[Ruslan] She was a club director. I watched her from a distance.
[Ruslan] She seemed such a strong, vivid and radiant personality.
[Ruslan] She's hard-working...
and cheerful.
[Ruslan] Few people would bounce back after such a setback...
but she did!
[Valentina] My grandma always put a cross on the dough, like this.
[Trainer] One... two...
one... two…
[Trainer] One, two, one, two…
[Valentina] I thought that medically I'd be unable to have kids.
[Valentina] But when they told me I was having a son,
I was beside myself with joy.
[Valentina] That was the moment I realised I’d be protected in this life.
[Valentina] It’ll be a part of me, no matter how I will ever be –
lame, blind, impaired, good, bad –
[Valentina] I'll always be his mother
and he'll eventually be the one who supports me.
[Valentina] My husband was dead against him dancing.
[Valentina] He wanted to give his son strength through sports, and I didn’t.
[Valentina] I feel that he's more artistic,
and I want to support him in that.
[Valentina] When I see this velvet, these costumes, the smell of it all intoxicates me.
[Valentina] In fact,
velvet is particularly dear to me.
[Valentina] Four years on the stage, dancing…
[Valentina] Playing an accordion, singing, the choir, it was all…
[Valentina] That's why we have curtains like this.
[Ruslan] She’s a creative woman, an artist.
[Ruslan] She studied and graduated from music school
and then from the Lyceum.
[Ruslan] If she'd been into sports before that, she'd probably have been...
a Paralympic champion in any discipline.
[Ruslan] She wasn’t into sports…
[Ruslan] But she’s still interested in arts,
she plays and she teaches kids.
[Ruslan] At dance class she often tells the teachers what’s best.
[Valentina] I really feel as though I'm in a dream, that soon
[Valentina] I'll get up, walk barefoot on the grass, and run to the river for a swim.
[Valentina] It feels as though only a few hours have gone by, not 19 years.
[Valentina] Then I see my kids, I'm a mother!
[Child] Mum, leave me some flour.
[Valentina] Make some more.
[Child] I'm not afraid of anything.
[Child] Only the dark.
Great! Beautifully round and Zaur's doing great too.
[VO] The passage of time hasn’t changed Valentina’s attitude
to the people who carried out the attack.
[Valentina] Honestly, I even feel sorry for them.
[Valentina] I know they were nothing but pawns.
[Valentina] I'd rather see the true culprit not simply behind bars,
but, frankly, with his leg cut off.
[Valentina] May he live like I do.
[Valentina] May he suffer like I do.
[Valentina] That would be fair.
[VO] Dmitry Aksenov had gone to the Wings rock festival in Moscow with is fiancée.
[Dmitry Aksenov, Ambulance Attendant]
[Dmitry] The girl was Inna Galkina, she loved all those public events.
[Dmitry] When they announced the Wings concert
she organised a group of people who all worked in ER,
after a night shift, they went there, together to join the ticket line.
[Dmitry] There was a sudden clap,
then the feeling of being pushed hard in my back.
[Dmitry] Everybody's on the ground, there's yellow-grey smoke.
[Dmitry] When I turned around to see where we stood,
[Dmitry] I saw a shapeless heap of burnt meat.
[Dmitry] It's impossible to forget.
[Dmitry] One fragment lodged in her stomach.
[Dmitry] Due to rotation not one organ was unaffected.
[Dmitry] I mean... she stayed conscious all the way to the hospital.
[Dmitry] When we got there, I asked the doctor, 'How's Inna?'
[Dmitry] He said her condition was grave and he wasn't sure she'd survive the surgery.
5 JULY, 2003 TERROR ATTACK
MOSCOW WINGS ROCK FESTIVAL
16 KILLED, 48 INJURED
[Dmitry] I'm a guy who works in ER,
so miracles and metaphysical stuff, I don't really believe in it.
[Dmitry] But some things we can't touch, can't measure or weigh.
[Dmitry] Each patient you couldn't save
is a cross in your personal cemetery that you'll keep remembering and revisiting.
[Dmitry] Inna worked on the children's crew. I liked her very much.
[Dmitry] I was too shy to approach her but then, somehow, it happened.
[Dmitry] Well I've been with Lyudmila now for almost 7 years.
[Dmitry] Nastya means such joy, she's my reason to live.
[Dmitry] Grandma dreams of Nastya starting figure skating.
[Dmitry] We've been in touch with Inna's family
the whole time, with her mom...
and dad, her older brother Andrey is my daughter's godfather.
[Woman] Great, well done, good girl.
[Dmitry] Every time I visit Inna at the cemetery,
I say, 'Inna, I've grown older,
and you're still 25'.
[Dmitry] Terrorists, insurgents in the Caucasus,
Muslims – I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
[Dmitry] Terrorism doesn't have and can't have a nationality or religion.
[Dmitry] There's no religion of lawlessness. There are people who try to pull it off.
[Musician] Thank you!
[Musician] Guys!
[Musician] Live long and happily!
[Musician] Love conquers all! Bye!
[VO] The concert continued after the attack later to the evening in spite of what had happened.
[VO] The performers are convinced it was the right decision.
[Sergey Galanin, Musician] All who played in the second half knew about it.
[Sergey] They wanted to show the terrorists that this attempt failed miserably,
and we were all there together.
[Sergey] They agreed to say nothing from the stage, not to agitate the people,
[Sergey] God forbid there should be a chain reaction.
[Sergey] Clearly, there were couples, even families with children.
[Sergey] They wanted to prevent panic spreading. That was their main goal.
[Sergey] You shouldn't give up.
[Sergey] We mustn't be manipulated by evil power, that's for sure.