Still weak, American piano teacher describes theater terror
Monday, October 28, 2002
By ARIANA EUNJUNG CHA
Washington Post News Service
MOSCOW - Natalya Aleshnya was enjoying the music when the rebels stormed in. She was seated in a balcony seat next to her oldest son and happy to be back in her homeland watching the tale of the Arctic explorers in a popular Russian musical "Nord-Ost."
"We do not want your deaths," one of the terrorists announced. "We want only for Russia to allow Chechnya to be independent."
A man seated near her, an official with the Russian intelligence service, immediately hid his identification so as not to provoke the terrorists into targeting him. Thinking of her American passport, Aleshnya also decided that was a good idea.
She didn't have it with her anyway, and she determined to conceal from the terrorists that she was a U.S. citizen. Her son, 38, is Russian and she did not want to be released with the foreigners if he had to remain.
Besides, she added, "I am an old woman."
Aleshnya, 64, a retired piano teacher who lives in Mountain View, Calif., was in town visiting her two sons and two grandchildren when she was taken hostage. She spoke by phone Sunday afternoon from her bed in City Hospital No. 1, minutes before she talked to U.S. consular officials.
The U.S. Embassy is still trying to get information about another American, 49-year-old Sandy Booker, who was with his fiancée, a Kazakh national, and is also seeking to determine whether a third American was in the theater.
Sounding calm but disoriented, Aleshnya said she feels very weak and that she cannot walk and does not know when or if she will be able to again. She is being fed intravenously. Her face is red, as if it is sunburned.
Her doctor, who described her condition as "not very grave," said he does not believe the redness was from heat but may have been a side effect of the gas.
Aleshnya said she's still "confused" about all the time she spent in the theater but one thing she is clear about were the bombs that were scattered throughout the theater, especially two big ones. There was one in the middle of the balcony and another in the orchestra area, which the terrorists said were powerful enough to "blow everything from here to Taganrog," about 625 miles from the capital.
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