{"id":15671,"date":"2017-07-10T12:55:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T16:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=15671"},"modified":"2017-07-10T12:55:05","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T16:55:05","slug":"muslims-and-christians-together-in-the-former-soviet-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/10\/muslims-and-christians-together-in-the-former-soviet-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Muslims and Christians together in the former Soviet Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Nobel laureate\u00a0Svetlana Alexievich’s\u00a0Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

I was eager to hear her recollections of that terrifying day, February 6, 2004, when there was a terrorist attack on the Zamoskvoretskaya line of the Moscow Metro, between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stops. Thirty-nine people were killed and 122 hospitalized.<\/p>\n

[from the mother of a victim] I was always scoping out suspicious passengers on the Metro. At work, it was the only thing we talked about. What\u2019s happening to us, dear Lord? One day, I was standing on the platform, and there was this young woman near me with a baby stroller. She had black hair, black eyes, I could tell that she wasn\u2019t Russian. I don\u2019t know what her ethnicity was\u2014Chechen, Ossetian? Who was she? I couldn\u2019t help myself and peeked into the stroller: Was there a child in there? Or was it something else? Thinking about riding in the same car as her ruined my mood. \u201cNo,\u201d I thought. \u201cShe can go ahead, I\u2019ll wait for the next train.\u201d A man came up to me, \u201cWhy did you look into her stroller?\u201d I told him the truth. \u201cSo you too, then.\u201d \u2026I see an unhappy girl curled up in a ball. It\u2019s my Ksyusha. Why is she all alone? Without us? No, it\u2019s impossible, it can\u2019t be true. Blood on the pillow\u2026 I cry, \u201cKsyusha! Ksyushenka!\u201d But she can\u2019t hear me. She pulled a hat over her face so that I wouldn\u2019t see her, so that I wouldn\u2019t get scared. My little girl! She\u2019d dreamed of being a pediatrician, but now, she\u2019s lost her hearing. She was the most beautiful girl in her class\u2026 and now her face\u2026 For what? I\u2019m drowning in a viscous fluid, my consciousness is splintering into shards. My legs don\u2019t work, they feel like they\u2019re made of cotton, and I have to be led out of the ward. The doctor screams at me. \u201cGet ahold of yourself, or else we won\u2019t let you see her again!\u201d I get ahold of myself\u2026 and go back into the room\u2026 She didn\u2019t look at me, she looked past me, off somewhere, as though she didn\u2019t recognize me. The look in her eyes was like a suffering animal\u2019s, it was unbearable. It was barely possible to go on living after seeing it. Now she\u2019s hidden that look away somewhere, she\u2019s put on an armored shell, but she\u2019s holding all that inside of her. It\u2019s all been imprinted on her. She\u2019s always in that place where none of us were with her\u2026 There was an entire hospital ward full of girls like her\u2026 They\u2019d all ridden in the same Metro car, and there they all lay\u2026 lots of students, school kids.<\/p>\n

One operation\u2026 another\u2026 Three total! Ksyusha regained her hearing in one ear\u2026 then her fingers started working again\u2026 We lived on the border between life and death; between faith in miracles and utter injustice. It made me realize that even though I am a nurse, I know next to nothing about death. I\u2019ve seen it many times, but only in passing. You put an IV in, listen for a pulse\u2026 Everyone thinks that medics know more about death than other people, but no.<\/p>\n

\u2026Everything is scarier underground. Now, I always carry a flashlight with me in my purse\u2026 \u2026I couldn\u2019t hear any screaming or wailing. It was completely silent. Everyone was lying in a big pile\u2026 It wasn\u2019t scary, no\u2026 Then, slowly, people started moving. At a certain point, it dawned on me that I had to get out of there, everything was covered in chemicals, and it was all on fire. I was looking around for my backpack, it had my papers in it for school, my wallet\u2026 Shock\u2026 I was in shock\u2026 I didn\u2019t feel any pain\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026At the top of the escalators, two women ran up to me and plastered some rag to my forehead. For some reason, I was freezing cold. They got me a chair, I sat down. I saw them asking other passengers for their belts and neckties and using them to tie off people\u2019s wounds.<\/p>\n

Everyone is used to it now. They turn on the TV, hear a little bit about it, then go drink their coffee\u2026<\/p>\n

[from the daughter, who had been attacked in the Metro]\u00a0\u2026The dead lay on the ground with their cellphones endlessly ringing\u2026 No one would brave going over and answering them.<\/p>\n

\u2026Why am I silent? I had been seeing this guy, we were even\u2026 he\u2019d given me a ring\u2026 but after I told him about what happened to me\u2026 maybe it\u2019s completely unrelated, but we ended up breaking up. I learned my lesson, it made me realize that you shouldn\u2019t confess things to people. You get blown up, you survive, and you end up even more vulnerable and fragile than you were before. You\u2019re branded a victim\u2014I didn\u2019t want people to see that brand on me\u2026<\/p>\n

I once had this conversation with a Chechen at the market\u2026 The war had been going on for fifteen years already, they\u2019d come to escape it here. They\u2019re fanning out through all of Russia\u2026 getting into every corner\u2026 even while we\u2019re supposedly at war with them\u2026 Russia is fighting the Chechens\u2026 that so-called \u201cspecial operation.\u201d What kind of war is this? The Chechen I talked to was young: \u201cI\u2019m not out there fighting, lady. My wife is Russian.\u201d I heard this story once\u2014I\u2019ll tell it to you, too\u2026 A Chechen girl fell in love with a Russian pilot. This handsome guy. By mutual agreement, they decided he should take her away from her parents. He brought her to Russia. They got married. Everything was by the book. Their son was born. But she kept crying and crying, she felt so bad for her parents. Finally, they wrote them a letter: \u201cPlease forgive us, we love each other\u2026\u201d And they sent them greetings from her Russian mother. But all those years, her brothers had been looking for her, they wanted to kill her for bringing shame on their family\u2014she\u2019d not only married a Russian, but a Russian who\u2019d bombed them. Killed their people. The return address led them directly to her\u2026 One of her brothers murdered her, then another one showed up to take her body home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More: read\u00a0Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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