VOLGOGRAD, January 03, 13:50 /ITAR-TASS/. Volgograd, a city in Russia’s south, observes the fifth and the last day of mourning for the victims of two suicide bombings, with no New Year mood seen in the city gripped by grief.
City’s residents plan no entertainments or impetuous fun for New Year holidays, and the Father Frost Parade on the Volga River due to have been held on Friday has been postponed indefinitely.
“We are still in a subdued mood, we have not felt the New Year holiday at all,” local resident Svetlana Faliyeva told Tass. “So many innocent people were killed, so many were injured. Evan at the New Year table we said farewell to the outgoing year, welcomed the new one, and raised the third toast without clanging glasses to all victims of the terrorist acts,” she said, referring to the terrorist act on a bus on October 21 and the recent suicide bombings on December 29 and 30 - at the central railway station and on a trolleybus. All other interviewed people echoed her. Many people decorated Christmas trees and had a family holiday only for their children.
“I was to have taken my granddaughter to a puppet theatre back on December 30, but the play was postponed till January 4 because of the terrorist acts and mourning,” Vladimir Buturlin said. “So we will go tomorrow, the granddaughter is looking forward, and the life goes against everything. We must remember those who died but life for the living,” he added.
Local residents keep bringing flowers, toys and candles to the sites of the two terrorist attacks - the central railway station and the site near a busy market where another blast ripped a trolleybus apart the day after the first blast. Prayers are said at local churches, mosques and synagogues for 34 killed and 108 injured in the attacks. Sixty-five injured people are in clinics of Volgograd and Moscow. Eighteen people were airlifted to Moscow, including a nine-year-old girl and a three-month baby girl.
Six more victims of the bomb blasts will be buried at the central cemetery of Volgograd on Friday. Funerals have continued every day since December 31.
An anti-terrorist operation is in place in the Volgograd region, with more than 5,000 policemen, interior troops and police students taking part. Mounted patrols and voluntary squads assist them. People volunteer to patrol city streets. “We want our dear ones, citizens to feel safe so that the city could get back to normal life as soon as possible,” they say.