The crowd of students and parents, shocked and dehydrated, huddled in the gymnasium as the terrorists draped wires around the room, connecting a series of bombs. This horrible image was only one of many to come out of Beslan, Russia this month. Beginning on Sept. 1, the three-day siege of a school in the Republic of North Ossetia claimed the lives of at least 400. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the siege.
Georgetown students from the region felt a sense of solidarity with the Beslan schoolchildren’s plight. The president of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, Cristina Plamadeala, grew up in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova.
“My mom would braid my hair and she would go with me to school. I remember being little and having big flowers and just being happy to be back in school,” she said. “I imagined myself having to go through what the kids in Beslan went through. I cried for a day when it happened. I couldn’t read the news.”
The OCF devoted last week to tabling in Red Square and in the Leavey Center to promote awareness of and raise money for the survivors and families of victims. They collected over $1,500.
“It’s very hard just to deal with this event, emotionally, psychologically, even spiritually,” Georgina Jones (SFS ‘07), an OCF member, said. “I hope that the funds we raised will make it easier somewhat, so that people don’t have to worry about basic, common-day things,” Jones said.
OCF Vice President Ilya Kharin (CAS ‘05) found the timing of the act especially unfortunate. “Sept. 1 is the first day of the new year in the Orthodox Church, as well as the [beginning of the] new year for schools … so it’s all the worst for it happening then.”
Kharin also spent much of his week tabling. He was born in Gaganrog, a small city on the Azov Sea in western Russia, and he immigrated with his family to the United States eight years ago.
“It’s quite close to the Caucasus, where all of these events are taking place,” Kharin said. He recalled the influx of ethnic Russians fleeing from Chechnya to his town after the civil war began in the ‘90s.
“A number of refugees came and some of my classmates were from Chechnya. I was still a kid, but it was a presence,” Kharin said. “Our city also had a helicopter regiment stationed in it that sometimes was sent to Chechnya. So we were always very much aware of what was going on there, and it really felt next door.”
Even before the school siege, Russia was having an awful two weeks, enduring a bombing outside the Moscow metro and two nearly simultaneous plane crashes.
“I guess it’s beyond words,” Kharin said. “You hear about metro explosions in Moscow and these were not the first planes to crash … We sort of live with the fact that these things happen in Russia, but the school was nothing like that, the school was absolutely different.” While tabling, Kharin often called Beslan, “Russia’s September 11th.”
The group passed out flyers explaining the situation in Beslan.
“We weren’t there to promote our group,” Kharin said. “Our biggest thing was, ‘Do you know about these people?’” The Russian Club, another group tabling for Beslan relief, collected money and made a condolence banner for students and faculty to sign.
“I was pleased to see an effort by the Georgetown community to collect money to send to Beslan,” Russian language professor Valentina Brougher said in an email. “One of the few things we can do is to let the families there know that, even though we are far away, we do not want them to feel alone in their tragedy.”
The money will be sent to the Beslan survivors through the International Orthodox Christian Charities, which is a safer route than sending money directly through the Russian government, Kharin said.
Kharin was obviously affected by the response the group received on campus.
“I was happy to see people give, even to something that they perhaps don’t feel personally touches them,” he said. “It does impress itself on people’s minds. I guess it speaks to the openheartedness of America-a lot of people who aren’t Orthodox, who aren’t Slavic, who aren’t anyone related and yet, still, they stop and give.”
