After School Siege, Russians' Grief Turns to Anger

Raya Tsolmayova lost four children and two nieces in the siege. "We never had a quiet home like now," she says. (Peter Baker -- The Washington Post)

A local committee set up by teachers to assist the victims has compiled a list of 1,220 hostages that it has posted on a Web site, www.beslan.ru. As of a week ago, according to the committee, 329 people had been identified and buried, while another 76 were still listed as missing, for a total of 405.

Fatima Ramonova, a math teacher who serves on the committee, estimated that the actual death toll would be "not less than 500." Yelena Kasumova, the deputy school director who heads the committee, said in a separate interview that "unfortunately it seems to me the figure will reach 500." Another source who has closely followed the issue and did not want to be named for fear of reprisal suggested it could be 600.

Aleksandr Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, declined an interview request, and his spokesman refused to answer questions or make available any other official to comment.

The government has little credibility with residents after lying during the siege about the number of hostages held in the school, a deception it later admitted on state television. Officials also claimed at first that 10 Arabs and an African were among the hostage-takers, but never produced any bodies to prove it. The only bodies identified publicly have been Chechen, Ingush and Ossetian. Former hostages have said they saw no Arabs.

Many residents are convinced that Chechen or Ingush workers hid weapons inside the school during a summertime renovation. A newspaper account from August reported that a crew working on the school was led by a man whose name sounded Chechen or Ingush. But teachers and neighbors insist that they painted and fixed up the building themselves and that no other workers were brought in.

The renovation theory has provoked recriminations against the school director, Lydia Tsaliyeva. Graffiti on the walls around her office, using the diminutive of her first name, says, "Lida -- Sellout. Couldn't you see when they brought the weapons?" And, "Your place is in hell, Lida. God will punish you."

Yet Tsaliyeva, her sister and three of their grandchildren were held hostage, and the director was injured so badly that she remains hospitalized, according to colleagues. "They can't find the real guilty ones and for some reason they blame it on her," said Kasumova, her deputy. Another deputy, Olga Sherbinina, said the man mentioned in the newspaper was actually the school custodian's Dagestani brother, who was helping with repairs last summer. But no one has explained this to a vengeful public.

Little humanitarian assistance has found its way here. Donations in Russia are often stolen, and many fear the same will happen here.

Like other media outlets, Moscow's Silver Rain radio station set up its own fund rather than give to a charitable organization. "There are too many frauds and violations and money doesn't reach the kids," said Olga Popkova, the station's chief editor. "When people brought us money, they expected us to avoid the fraud where money ends up in the bank accounts of dishonest people." So far, she said, the station has delivered $300,000 of $1.2 million collected, mainly buying equipment for hospitals where hundreds of former hostages remain.

All the money in the world, however, could not replace the laughter in the homes of the Totiyev families. Deeply religious Baptists in a largely Orthodox town, they said they took solace in the hundreds of letters they had received from fellow believers around the world, most of which they could not even read. And they said they took solace from their faith in God. But their children are gone and their homes are silent.

Taimuraz Totiyev and Raya Tsolmayova had five children. Four died in the school. Totiyev's brother, Konstantin, had six children -- two were too old to go to school and one too young. Two of the three who went to school that day died. One of those two, Dzera, 14, has not been found.

"We never had a quiet home like now," said Tsolmayova, 44, as her sole surviving child, Madina, slipped upstairs without a word, a day before her 13th birthday. "We had 11 children together, so sometimes we'd have two birthdays in a month."

She and her husband talked about each of their lost children -- Larisa, 14, the oldest who loved writing secrets in her notebook; Lyuba, 11, who survived the blast only to die in the hospital; Albina, 10, the one they called "the aristocrat"; and Boris, 8, the doted-upon son who would steal the neighbor's flowers to give his mother. "Only the memories are left," said Totiyev, 42, a baker.

The passage of time has not helped. Many nights, Tsolmayova said she dreamed she was in the school as the terrorists were killing children.

The bodies of Larisa, Albina and Boris were identified by DNA only a week ago and buried a week ago Sunday.

"It's just getting harder," said Totiyev. "A man has a big family, has all these plans. Then in one moment, everything disappears -- the family, the plans, everything in one moment collapses. It's so hard."