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Shared struggles: Russian representatives visit Virginia Tech after 2004 Beslan school siege
Roanoke TImes (Roanoke, VA)
Posted on December 3, 2008
By Greg Esposito
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| Blacksburg police officers run from Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus on April 16, 2007. Members of the Virginia Tech community shared their experiences of April 16 with Russian visitors last week. | BLACKSBURG -- Sitting at a table at Blacksburg Christian Fellowship on Tuesday, Lindy Cranwell had to pause multiple times to regain her composure and wipe away tears.
The graduate student coordinator for Virginia Tech's department of civil and environmental engineering was telling a group of Russians and Americans about her experience on the day of the April 16, 2007, shootings at the university.
She talked about how she somehow remained calm that day and spoke about the pressure some people have felt to get over their grief quickly. A translator quietly echoed her words in Russian.
Minutes later the translator was busy speaking English as Albina Techiyeva spoke in Russian about the aftermath of another tragedy. A clinical psychologist from Vladikavkaz, the capital of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alana, Russia, she responded to the 2004 hostage crisis and massacre at a school in nearby Beslan. The siege in the small town left more than 300 people dead, including more than 180 children.
The discussion was part of a weeklong visit to Blacksburg of five Russian mental health professionals and volunteers who responded to the crisis. The group returns to Russia today after living with local families and meeting with area mental health professionals, Tech officials and religious leaders among others. They shared their experiences in helping people cope with the Beslan massacre, a process that has taken more than four years and is still ongoing.
The visit's theme was "Community Healing After Mass Tragedy," and the visit was organized by the National Peace Foundation and sponsored through a grant from the United States Library of Congress Open World Program. The program is designed to build cooperation between the U.S. and the countries of Eurasia and the Baltic states.
Techiyeva talked about the various problems people face after tragedies such as Beslan or April 16. The extended grieving can lead to physical problems. Guilt and fear lead people back to the day of the tragedy. Siblings have difficulty finding their place as their parents grieve and idealize the children they lost.
"With children it is especially hard because we are deprived of our future," she said. "It's not just parting with a person you love. We bury our hopes."
While many of the discussions were difficult and dredged up painful memories, Americans gathered at a farewell dinner at the Holiday Inn in Blacksburg on Sunday night said it was a great experience that taught them valuable lessons.
"There were difficult moments of people remembering the tragedies, but there was also a spirit of hopefulness, of going on" after tragedy, said Sandra Jackson, the National Peace Foundation's local coordinator for the visit.
And there were light and fun moments sprinkled throughout "a pretty heavy week," she said.
Larisa Berezova, a volunteer peer counselor from Beslan, mentioned visiting Floyd and stopping at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway on Saturday to see an already beautiful view enhanced by a rainbow. And she talked about how much fun she had with her host family.
Then there was an all-night shopping trip Saturday night that took the group to the New River Valley Mall and then on to Target and Wal-Mart after the mall closed. "I liked everything," Berezova said, smiling as she tried to recall her favorite part about her first trip to the United States. "I learned more about America."
[Reprinted with Permission]
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