Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis - Initial Siege

Initial Siege

The hostages were seized on October 23 at the House of Culture (DK) of State Ball-Bearing Plant Number 1 in the Dubrovka area of Moscow about four kilometres south-east of the Moscow Kremlin. During Act II of a sold-out performance of Nord-Ost a little after 9:00 PM, some 40-50 heavily armed and masked men and women drove in a bus to the theater and entered the main hall firing assault rifles in the air.

The black-and camouflage-clad Chechens took approximately 850-900 people hostage, including members of the audience and performers, among them an MVD general. The reaction of spectators inside the theater to the news that the theater was under terrorist attack was not uniform: some people remained calm, some reacted hysterically, while others fainted. Some performers who had been resting backstage escaped through an open window and called police; in all, some 90 people managed to flee the building or hide.

The militant leader told the hostages that the attackers (who identified themselves as a suicide squad from "the 29th Division") had no grudge against foreign nationals (about 75 in number from 14 countries, including Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States) and promised to release anyone who showed a foreign passport. The Russian negotiators, however, refused to accept this offer and instead insisted that everybody be released, without any distinction between foreigners and Russians.