By Oleg Kusov

Almost two years ago, after the tragedy in Moscow in the theater center on Dubrovka, a siege occurred in the primary school of the North Ossetian town of Beslan.

The armed group attacked the school on September 1, prior to the pageant commemorating the beginning of the school year. Among the hostages were 1,128 schoolchildren, their parents, and teachers.

The hostage takers demanded that North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov, Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov, and Russian presidential adviser Aslambek Aslakhanov all come to the besieged school. When government representatives refused to negotiate at the school, the terrorists were offered to speak with unofficial persons of influence in Russia and the North Caucasus.

One of the first to respond to the tragedy in Beslan was Anna Politkovskaya, who left for Beslan on September 1. She became ill mid-flight, after drinking a cup of tea. The plane landed in Rostov, where Politkovskaya was hospitalized with symptoms of poisoning.

Afterward, she speculated that someone, prior to her departure for Beslan, may have listened in on telephone conversations with colleagues about her intention to somehow draw Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov into the process of freeing the hostages.

"Imagine how mighty and strong a person she must have been, if they were afraid of her and her influence in this situation," says Anneta Gadiyeva, a former hostage who lost a daughter in the terrorist attack. "That means that everything could have gone differently than it was planned. She simply wasn't let into Beslan."

Believing Her Own Eyes

After receiving medical care, Politkovskaya arrived in Beslan after all, a city in which an assault by the special forces on the besieged school occurred on September 3 under circumstances that are still unclear.

As a result of the assault, 333 people were killed immediately or subsequently died of injuries, including 186 children, and over 800 people were wounded.

"I can't say that she wrote much about Beslan. She wrote a few articles. But immediately, even when we didn't entirely understand what had happened, she analyzed all of it. She drew conclusions that the special forces are guilty," Ella Kesayeva, the former leader of the Voice of Beslan committee, remembers.

"I myself saw what happened. I saw how they bombarded the school," she continues. "I, as a private Russian citizen, accustomed to believing what I hear, [couldn't believe] even my own eyes. Only later did I realize, when generals with whom we met, representatives of special-forces structures, and investigators told me, 'You didn't see anything, nothing like that happened.' Because her articles -- they helped us to understand what actually happened. Her articles about Beslan helped us to understand the truth."

'One Of Us'

In the post-Soviet era, North Ossetia began to be referred to as Moscow's military headquarters in the North Caucasus. In this republic, official government propaganda runs deep, and as a result, anti-Chechen sentiment is widespread.

During the Chechen war, many residents of North Ossetia disagreed with Politkovskaya in her critique of the Kremlin's policies in the North Caucasus. But after the tragedy at the primary school, these people's opinion started to change.

"During her presence here -- she was here two or three days -- attitudes toward her changed," Beslan journalist Murat Kaboyev explains. "She met with mothers, visited families of the victims of the Beslan terrorist attack. Those who spoke with her completely changed their attitudes toward her. I'm absolutely sure of this."

Elbrus Tedtovu, a resident of Beslan and commander of the Caucasian Terskov troop of the North Ossetia region, says that "Her analytical mind allowed her to examine the information she received from such an extraordinary perspective, and to come to such unexpected conclusions, that I was sometimes astounded. I felt that I couldn't do as she could. It was as if she were from here herself, she understood, recognized everything, and so on and so forth. I am a Caucasian. I live in the Caucasus. In discussions with her -- we met and spoke twice -- I didn't feel alienation or incomprehension, which is what usually happens when people visit from the center. But she grasped it right away. At the same time, her sensitivity allowed her to penetrate such seemingly sacred, for us, natives of the North Caucasus, corners of our consciousness that we were simply amazed by her."

Kesayeva of Voice of Beslan, having lost during the assault on the school two nephews and a brother-in-law, met with Politkovskaya six months before her death. "She had the feeling that she owed us something, that she wasn't fulfilling her obligation to us; she felt guilty before us," she recalls. "She said, 'We have so much to talk about, Ella.' Or that people 'could have been saved, that they simply didn't want to save them, that you shouldn't believe anyone, that you have to investigate everything yourselves, that you have to gather all the evidence and personal testimonies.'"

Voice of Beslan has appealed to the European Court Of Human Rights in Strasbourg, accusing Russian security and legislative organs of conducting a biased investigation of the terrorist attack on the elementary school. When the group filed its complaint last year, Kesayeva had very much hoped that Anna Politkovskaya would testify to the court.