A bombing in Moscow

Yesterday, while drying my hair and preparing for the dog groomer to come, my phone rang. It was my friend CC. Have you heard the news? Two bombs went off in 2 different metro stations, Lubyanka and Park Kultury. Lubyanka is in the heart of Moscow, and runs below the old KGB building (now known as the FSB building.) Park Kultury is a bit farther out...4 stops to the southwest, on the same line, the oldest line in Moscow, the Red Line. Lubyanka is near where we go to church, but not terribly close to us. Neither is Park Kultury. But they are metro stations I've been in, many times. It was early in the morning, the first one occured just before 8am (Harry was in the car, going to work) and the other one followed about 40 minutes later. Rush hour, to be sure. People coming and going, minding their own business, going to work, to school, maybe home. All innocent....except for the two female bombers, with explosives strapped to their bodies. Waiting for the right moment....the train pulls into the station, the doors open, people disembarking and embarking. I can't imagine it. The horror is shown in pictures but I can't believe that you can even grasp what it must be like. I can't. The pictures seem like TV shows....I've seen lots of dead bodies on Law & Order. Then imagine the chaos that follows. Imagine being taken to a Moscow hospital. They probably receive adequate treatment, if they are lucky, if they have the language skills, if they know the right people. I always said that I would fly out of here for a hangnail, and I still say it. As my friend Lydia said, perhaps heaven would be preferable to a Moscow hospital!

So how did I spend my day? (The dog groomer never showed....I had my driver call her in the afternoon to make sure she was ok. He rescheduled her.) OD'ing on CNN and BBC World and Russia Today News. They had nothing new to say from about 10am on, but listen I did. I watched the pictures, the horror on peoples faces. I heard that they suspect 2 females from the Caucases, I try to imagine what would cause a woman to travel from so far away from home, strap explosives to her body and kill innocent people. What were her last thoughts? Did she look at the people she was trying to kill. Was the indoctrination complete? Obviously. She was killing infidels in a Holy War. She had nothing left to live for. Perhaps her children and husband had been murdered or disappeared. Perhaps she had been raped and imprisoned. As you can see, it was a dark day.

Today, I met above mentioned Lydia for lunch. I decided to walk to the restaurant, about 30 minutes away, on a busy street. Usually the walk is filled with people talking quietly, on cell phones, maybe schoolgirls laughing. Today, not so much. Quiet was the rule of the day. President Medvedev had declared a day of mourning. Flags that hung on buildings were draped with black ribbons. And the quiet was just eery. The day was beautiful. The sun was shining, the trees are putting out tiny buds, the birds were chirping. But people were quiet.

What will the next few days and weeks bring? That remains to be seen. PM Putin vows to find those responsible. Life will return to normal. The Russians are resilient people. Even yesterday, by the late afternoon, the metro stations that had been the site of the attacks were open. Hopefully the violence won't visit this adopted city of mine again.