Russia Reacts With Grief, Anger

While firefighters continued to pull bodies from the rubble and put out the lingering flames Saturday after a terrorist attack at Moscow's Crocus City concert hall, people came to the site to leave flowers and teddy bears in honor of the victims. Questions about how such an attack, which killed more than 100 people and injured more than 150, could happen were mixed with expressions of grief and concerns about the future. "We were in such a good mood," said Olya Muravyova, who was in line to buy beer with her husband just before Picnic's concert was to begin Friday night. When they first heard shots, she said, per the New York Times, "I thought maybe the band was making a dramatic entrance." Russian reaction included:

• Mourning: "I couldn't stop crying," said a woman who described being "so depressed" by the rapidly rising death toll when she woke up Saturday, per the AP. Alexander Baklemyshev, 51, had long wanted to see Picnic and traveled alone about 1,000 miles for the concert. His son, Maksim, told a Russian news outlet that the last he heard from his father was a video of the concert hall sent just before the attack. "There was no last conversation," Maksim said. "All that was left is the video, and nothing more." Anastasiya Volkova's parents were both killed. She didn't hear the phone ring when her mother, called her about the time the attack started. When Volkova called back, there was no answer.
• Anger at terrorists: "I woke up this morning and decided I definitely have to come here," a man said near the concert hall on Saturday. "There is no word for such scum."

• Questions for government: Some Russians wondered about the Russian security forces' inability to prevent the attack. "Why is it that they say that there were warnings from foreign security services, but our services were completely indifferent?" asked a woman in Moscow. "How can this happen in 2024?" Another woman pointed out that the government seems to concentrate on watching dissidents. "There are cameras everywhere that can trace opposition people going to a rally, and they are also stopped in the metro," she said. "Does it mean that cameras are targeted on people who carry a book ... but you can carry a bomb or a Kalashnikov, and that will be OK?"
• The future: "I don't want to go anywhere with a lot of people anymore," one woman said. Several people told the AP they won't visit shopping centers and the like for a while. A man in central Moscow said the attack evokes past apartment bombings. "I am afraid that we may return to the times of the Chechen wars," he said. "I would really want for that to not happen and for this act of terror to remain a rare event."

(More Russia Crocus shooting stories.)