A school that is forever silent. Remembering victims of Beslan hostage crisis: five years later

There is one school in Russian that does not open on September 1. No students, not even nicely dressed first-graders, show up at School No. 1 in Beslan, a city in the republic of North Ossetia. On this day, people come to the school to pay tribute to the 335 victims of the terrorist outrage carried out on September 1-3, 2004.

The memorial ceremony began at 8:30 Moscow time on September 1 when funeral music was played in the school courtyard. Individual residents and entire delegations with flowers and wreaths came to the school grounds.

North Ossetian leader Taimuraz Mamsurov, parliament speaker Larisa Khabitsova, and members of the republic’s government and parliament laid flowers in the gym where the tragedy occurred. Bishop Feofan of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz performed a memorial service for the hostages killed in the gym. At 9:15 Moscow time, the exact time the terrorist attack began, the school bell rang, and a poem in memory of the victims was recited.

As in previous years, a three-meter (10-foot) Orthodox Christian cross and red carnations were placed in the center of the gym.

Photos of the dead are displayed on the gym walls. Visitors walk around the inside of the gym, looking at the photos.

There are many photos of children on the walls - over half of those killed by the terrorists, 186 in all, were children.

Candles were lit at the end of the memorial ceremony at 8.00 p.m.

A classroom in Beslan’s School No. 1 where the hostages were seized by terrorists on September 1, 2004.

The gym in Beslan’s School No. 1.

The memorial ceremonies were held in the courtyard and the gym at School No. 1 in Beslan, honoring the 335 victims of the September 1-3, 2004 terrorist attack.

The memorial cemetery in Beslan, North Ossetia, where the terrorists’ victims are buried.