Beslan 2004/2024

On September 1, 2004, this mother sent 8-year-old Zalina and 10-year-old Fatima to school alone while she stayed home with little Georgy, who was teething. Zalina never returned. Fatima suffered severe head injuries and barely survived. History teacher Nadezhda Guriyeva, another subject of the film, was at the school that day. After the first explosion in the gym, she found her 8-year-old daughter alive, her 14-year-old son barely breathing, and her 11-year-old daughter dead. Galina Babenkova discovered her grandson Timur’s burned backpack among the ruins and refused to leave. He was never found.

Twenty years after the attack, Margarita Simonyan returns to the school where she reported live under fire. She returns to Beslan, which now hosts the ‘City of Angels’ – a cemetery for the victims. To the city where everyone knows each other’s pain and where nothing is forgotten.

Watch “Beslan 2004/2024” on RTD website and on RT’s live feed. The time of the broadcast is available on RT’s schedule page.