"Colorful costumes, special effects and plenty of music is what is reputed to make Nord Ost stand out from all other Russian theater performances," – Reuters wrote about the musical after its premiere show. It was the most expensive and the most ambitious Russian production at that moment. It cost about $4 million.
The show embodied a lot of Broadway principles for the first time on the Russian stage: the show was running daily, massive decorations weighted more than 6 tones and were fixed to the stage that made the musical stationary and Dubrovka center a one-play theater. A real-size plane, a tram, a train and even an icebreaker ship's front part appeared in the show. The first time used on the Russian stage principle of swingers – actors playing few roles during one show (mostly a chorus line) – made possible to have 180 characters in the play.

The whole idea of this show was new to the Russian stage. There was no such term as "musical" in Soviet and then Russian theater world before. There were only three western musicals that were showed during their world-tours in the Soviet Union (in the Perestroika period): 'Sophisticated Ladies' (a Broadway musical by Duke Ellington), 'Cats' (west-end musical by Andrew Lloyd-Weber) and 'Starmania' (a French-Canadian musical by Michel Berger). The first musical for Russian stage was played in Moscow in the second half of 1990s. It was called 'Metro' and it was just an adaptation of a popular Polish musical. But there was no musical based on a story from Russian literature, with typical Russian characters and Russian culture absorbed into libretto, songs, costumes and props – special 'Russian flavor' as Reuters wrote.

The plot of the musical is a story about love, friendship and betrayal in life of Soviet pilot (Sanya) who attempts to discover the story of Arctic expedition and the destiny of its leader, the captain of the ship "St. Maria", disappeared in 1913. The plot twists and turns through Russian revolution, the beginning of Soviet epoch and Second World War. "The musical reminds viewers of the country's past. There's lots of warmth and kindness in this play", said Georgy Vasilyev about the show.

The whole project was risky. Russian traditional repertory theater sphere with dozens of plays running in each theater at the same time had no such phenomenon as a one-play theater. A decision to make an enormously expensive for the beginning of 2000s daily-running show based on unknown for Russian public western traditions was very risky.

The premiere was highly expected. After musical's public run-throughs there were already a lot of fans of this play. The producer of Nord-Ost, Alexander Tsekalo, russian actor and showman, even told before the premiere show: 'To everyone who is going to see the musical, I recommend – take a tiny pillow with you to the theater and put it between your feet – your jaw will definitely drop because of surprise and it will be quite painful to hit the floor with it'.

After few weeks of daily shows with completely sold out tickets there was no doubt that it is a success. February 1, 2002 after a show number 100 Russian newspaper 'Kommersant' said rarely a good play that in traditional Russian repertory theaters celebrates its hundredth performance and only after a lot of years of running and Nord-Ost is the first one that made it less than in 4 months with a great profit. And April , 2002 the Nord-Ost gang flew to the North Pole to set the flag with musical's and book's motto: 'To fight and seek, to find and not to give up'.

The production had been running for a year and was compared during this period with the most successful western musicals such as 'Les Miserables', 'The Phantom of the Opera' and 'Cats'. It's actually a huge success for a Russian Musical. But exactly one year after the premiere the drama started to merge out from stage. And this time it's not about dancing and singing at all.

October, 2002. Thousands of kilometers away from Dubrovka, from the scene of the musical, from art and acting, there was ongoing conflict – the Second Chechen War. Militant Separatist Movement decided to make a huge sabotage in the heart of their enemy's homeland. Dozens of terrorists arrived in Moscow and started preparations for their suicidal mission. 100 grenades, 4 powerful explosive plastids and numerous guns were brought to Moscow. The head of the mission was Movsar Barayev. On the 23rd of October, 3 vans with terrorists parked in front of Dubrovka theater. The only guards were 4 people with batons and tasers. They had no chances and were killed in a moment.

Next 57 hours will be a pure hell for them. Almost three days without any food, water, WC, hygiene items, support and connection with their relatives and friends. The toilet for hostages was made right in the orchestra pit of the theater, near the audience. The sitting chairs became their beds. The whole auditorium full of the smell of feces and vomiting and fear became their home.

The 24th of October. 19:00. Al-Jazeera TV channel shows Movsar Baraev's message. On the video terrorists demanded immediate retreat of Russian forces from Chechnya. They also proclaimed themselves Jihadists, showed their will to die and told about powerful explosive devices in the building. Audience is on the edge. At night, woman tried to attack one of the terrorists with a glass bottle. She was shot.

25th of October. Heads of Russian Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service had an urgent meeting with the President in Kremlin. At 15:00 all federal TV channels transmitted the result: the retreat from Chechnya will not happen, but terrorists might save their lives in case all hostages were immediately set free. The terrorists try to keep up a dialogue, ask for independent negotiators. Among them – foreign embassy officials, famous persons, for example – Joseph Kobzon. Attackers let in some journalists, operators and correspondents to film the situation inside the building. Baraev's demands were satisfied and he even released a small number of people, but since Russian forces still were controlling Chechnya, hundreds of people were still trapped in the building.

26th of October, about 02:00. Spetsnaz secretly entered the ground floor of the theater. Through walls they managed to install some cameras and most importantly – tanks with special paralyzing gas. The gas simply put almost everyone in the building asleep. 05:30, the operation started. Three controlled explosions opened the main entrance.

In complete darkness, Alpha and SOBR squads infiltrated the building. The whole operation took them 15 minutes. At 06:30, when all nooks and crannies of the building were proven safe, FSB stated that the building is under control and the terrorists are neutralized. Movsar Baraev was officially proclaimed dead.

7:00, the end of the threat. Rescue and medic squads entered the building. What they saw were blood, vomit, feces, dead and unconscious people everywhere. The rescue operation and transportation of victims to hospitals took several more hours.

It's hard to say what was the exact number of victims. Numbers vary from 130 to 212 of all 900 spectators. Most of them were killed by the gas, according to BBC. Unexpectedly, it caused exacerbation of chronicle respiratory diseases. In chaos, most people didn't receive vital medical help and died after the rescue. 15 years after the incident, the "Nord-Ost" is still considered the most unsuccessful operation. What caused the fiasco – is a popular theme among conspiracy theories believers. Some officials say that the usage of gas was necessary – if the terrorists blasted their plastids, the building would collapse and bury all 900 people under tons of concrete. Some, otherwise, say that the gas was experimental and FSB simply wanted to test it in real battle conditions. Who is right and who is not remains unknown even after numerous experiments with the gas samples. World-famous scientists studied it's consistency and still couldn't answer, if it was the cause of people's death.

But the show wasn't popular anymore. It had run only for three months. The final performance was held May, 10, 2003. The producers didn't want to give up and made a tour version of the production. It was showed in Nizhniy Novgorod and Tumen in 2004. But it also wasn't such successful as it was planned before. And there were reasons for this.

Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and a negotiator during the attack of terrorism and a person who succeeded to bring some water and juice to hostages on October, 25 told a few weeks after the terroristic act: "That's all. Fear will never leave us. Life after "Nord-Ost" is a round-the-clock collective uncertainty: will it happen or not? Moscow begins to live with the expectation of new acts of terror, and many people think of it as of something unavoidable".

And it happened: terroristic act during rock-festival "The Wings", Beslan (a terroristic attack in Northern Osetian school in 2004 when more than 300 people died), explosions in the Moscow Metro. The Second Chechen War continued until 2009. And Nord-Ost was slowly forgotten because of the other horrifying events. Just a small research at Google Trends service shows that Nord-Ost was remembered only at the end of October in 2003 (a year after the act of terrorism), in 2007 (5 years after) and in 2012 (10 years after). Probably this rate will rise in October of 2017 – 15 years after a tragedy. But the memories are connected only with a terror, not with a piece of art. It is not surprising because the death of 130-200 innocent people is something that should be remembered at the first time.

Nord-Ost is not just a musical today. It's not fun anymore, and you will never casually mention it in a fancy chat about Russian theater, it's now a political argument, an accident, a piece of cake for those who want to blame the government about something, not a work of art.

By Maria Shchepyotkina and Timofey Gubin