October 25, 2002	Friday	Sha’aban 18,1423

MOSCOW, Oct 24: When Russian heart specialist Maria Shkolnikova stepped out of a cold, wet Moscow night and shook off her coat in a warm theatre she thought she was in for an evening of light-hearted musical entertainment.

Little did she realise that just hours later she was to take a lead role in a real-life and altogether blacker drama.

Hundreds of theatre-goers were settling back in their seats replete with champagne and caviar to enjoy the second act of “Nord-Ost” (North-East) — the heroic musical tale of a Russian Arctic explorer — when Wednesday’s performance took an unexpected turn and turned an evening-out into a nightmare.

As the show resumed, a gang of armed people, some in masks and some with explosives strapped to them, stormed the packed five-storey theatre in southeastern Moscow and one man fired a round of bullets into the ceiling.

According to a witness who was later released, the man then forced the actors to sit down in the front rows.

“Some women were strapped with explosives and they said they would blow up the whole building in 10 minutes if they (police) started to storm the building,” teenager Denis Afanasyev said.

Afanasyev said the initial assault by the hostage takers was followed by sporadic shooting in a corner of the main hall, on one of the balconies and behind the stage.

The rebels the released about 150 hostages soon after taking over the theatre, including up to 20 children and some Muslims. Some others escaped through windows backstage.

It was just after 9pm (10pm PST) on Wednesday. But for the rest of the several hundred spectators and actors the ordeal was just beginning.

Captives were initially allowed to make brief calls on their mobile telephones, and as batches of shaken hostages were released throughout the night a picture was pieced together of the drama unfolding inside theatre.

Children’s heart doctor Shkolnikova, still among the up to 700 people being held inside the building, began to emerge as the human face of the crisis which is dominating shocked conversations in homes, bars and cafes across Moscow.

Early on Thursday morning a woman who did not give her name called Reuters and gave a reporter two mobile phone numbers, one of which was eventually answered by Shkolnikova.

In a shaky, but calm voice Shkolnikova — a bespectacled woman with short cropped hair — said the rebels had fastened explosives in passageways, on seats and even to hostages themselves.

Other witnesses said they had set charges to the internal supporting columns of the theatre to prepare to carry out their threat to blow up the building if it is stormed by police.—Reuters