On July 5, 2003, during an open-air event for thousands at the Tushino airfield, two female suicide bombers committed a terrorist attack. The explosion of homemade bombs killed 16 people and injured 57 more. Life.ru recalls this tragedy.
Chronology of the terrorist attack in Tushino
The Krylya rock festival on Tushino Field opened its doors at ten in the morning. The concert opened with a performance by the band Zveri.
The hosts were musicians Sergey Galanin from “Earrings” and Alexander Sklyar from “Va-Bank”. Among the planned headliners were “Mashina Vremeni”, Garik Sukachev, Zdob si Zdub, 5nizza and other star performers. People continued to come to the event until midday. To get into the territory, it was necessary to pass three checkpoints: ticket, alcohol and metal detector. There was a line in front of each one.
At about 2:30 p.m., two terrorists appeared in the crowd in front of the metal detector: 20-year-old Zulikhan Elikhadzhieva and 26-year-old Zinaida Alieva. The concert was already being watched by 40 thousand spectators, the group “King and the Jester” was performing. The suicide bombers realized that with their suicide belts, which were stuffed with screws and balls, they would not pass through the metal detector. Zulikhan was the first to blow herself up. Beautiful, spectacular, in a light skirt, but in a headscarf and jacket, despite the heat. This is how eyewitnesses described her. She was nervous, talking to someone on the phone. A policeman noticed her, took her by the elbow and tried to take her aside. At that moment, an explosion thundered. As experts later admitted, the suicide belt, in fact, malfunctioned, detonating a maximum of 30 out of 500 grams of plastic explosive. The terrorist died from blood loss, the policeman received non-life-threatening injuries.
At about 14:50, security forces blocked cell phone service over Tushino Field to avoid panic and signals for other bombs. A couple of minutes later, a second homemade bomb exploded on Zinaida Aliyeva. There is no evidence of what this girl looked like or how she behaved. No one who was around her survived. The dead and wounded were then counted for the next week.
But those at the concert didn’t know anything yet…
After the terrorist attack, the authorities gave an order to continue the concert at any cost.But the artists had to be informed about the tragedy that had occurred. The stars then showed themselves from their best side. They changed their repertoire and continued performing, trying not to show it. Heartbreaking Garik Sukachevpiercing speech Diana Arbeninaand even Makarevich's “Time Machine”* performed the song “While the Candle Burns” twice as an encore. However, the audience clearly already felt something.
Eyewitnesses recall how the deathly pale man played Alexey PapernyAs it turned out later, at the time of the terrorist attack, his acquaintances were at the turnstiles and were torn apart.
The media began covering the terrorist attack at lunchtime. Literally half an hour or an hour later, hundreds of parents came and stood along the cordon of the Tushino airfield in the hope of spotting their children in the forty-thousand crowd.
At 19:00, most of the people headed for the exit. Some were taken in columns to the metro. Others were taken by buses. At 20:45, the concert ended, the last to perform was the group “Spleen”. At 21:30, the police lifted the cordon, at 23:30, the remains of the dead were taken to the morgues. Almost all of them will be buried in closed coffins.
That week, another terrorist attack was committed in Moscow: on the night of July 10, on 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, the bag of suicide bomber Zarema Muzhakhoyeva exploded during demining. The sapper, FSB officer Georgy Trofimov, was killed.
What the participants of the tragedy say
At 19:00, most people headed for the exit. Some were taken in columns to the metro. Others were taken by buses.Eyewitnesses described how the wounded stepped aside and fell exhausted onto the curb, while nearby unsuspecting people laughed and rested.
How was the terrorist attack investigated?
Only in the evening the remains of the dead were taken to the morgues. Almost all of them will be buried in closed coffinsRussian investigators quickly identified the suicide bombers. Born in a Chechen village, Zulikhan Elikhadzhieva flew to Moscow from Georgia on July 4, the day before the Wings festival. According to her relatives, she had previously lived a normal life, but then she was kidnapped by a militant nicknamed Afgan, who was her half-brother on her father's side. There is also other information that the girl fell in love with him and went with him to the mountains. According to some reports, Elikhadzhieva agreed to die instead of her older half-sister, who was four months pregnant.
About Zinaida Alieva Less is known. Withdrawn and unremarkable, an ideological Wahhabi and the wife of a Chechen militant, the couple lived in one of the terrorists' mountain bases. When her husband died, she volunteered to be a suicide bomber.
A third suicide bomber with the same homemade bomb, 23-year-old Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, helped investigators clarify the circumstances of the terrorist attack on Krylia. On July 9, 2003, she was supposed to set off an explosion in the Mon Cafe on 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, where Moscow politicians and businessmen often dined. But there was a misfire. She was detained.
After interrogating Muzhakhoyeva, it turned out that all three suicide bombers were supervised by the thugs of Shamil Basayev, the number one terrorist at that time in the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). Our special services liquidated him a year later.
