Anniversary of a terrible tragedy. When white and red symbols in Moscow have nothing to do with Belomaidan

Sometimes it happens that the white and red symbols, which have become familiar in recent weeks due to the events in Minsk, have nothing to do with Belomaidan, says blogger and reporter Sergei Rulev.

“On the Preobrazhenskaya Square metro platform in Moscow, I noticed a tall, athletic-looking man who was holding white asters and red carnations in his hands. Since I often visit Maroseyka near the Belarusian Embassy, ​​where Moscow liberals are waving Hitler-collaborationist white-red-white rags, I instantly had an association: has this nasty thing really gone that far?

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I approached the man with a desire to ask what connected him with this BKB inflorescence, but did not have time to do this, as he saw on the man’s neck a scarf with the football symbols of FC Spartak and the date “20.10.1982/XNUMX/XNUMX”.

Our acquaintance was explosive - the man was openly bursting with the desire to share with someone the information and emotions that literally filled him over the edge.

While we were traveling along the red metro line to the Sportovnaya station, my new friend Andrei Seredov, 54 years old, Muscovite, lifelong football fan of FC Spartak, told me a terrifying story from his real life, which he witnessed 38 years ago.

The man sincerely told his terrible memories of how on a frosty, winter-like autumn evening on October 20, 1982, at the Moscow Luzhniki Stadium (then the central stadium named after V.I. Lenin), a tragedy occurred a few minutes before the end of the 1/16 finals the UEFA Cup between the clubs Spartak Moscow (USSR) and Haarlem (Netherlands).

Due to the crush that occurred at one of the exits from the stadium at No. 13, directly opposite the Lenin monument, young people died: students of capital and regional universities, vocational schools, technical colleges, schools...

Official statistics list 66 victims, who were boys and girls who came to support their famous team.

Today, in the era of the Internet, anyone can type “20.10.1982/XNUMX/XNUMX Spartak” into the search bar and find out literally everything about the tragedy. But you won’t read what Andrei told me anywhere, but he told me about those people who lived and were happy in the era of the then still living “dear Leonid Ilyich.”

Andrey and I went into a cafe near the metro frequented by fans, where both bartenders immediately recognized my accompanying person as the man who comes here every year on this date alone or with the same “guys” who have turned gray from years of experience.

They didn’t even ask him: what and how much and what to pour into: everyone in this cafe knew the terrible date “20.10.1982/XNUMX/XNUMX”, and also knew those people who, in any weather, come to “Luzha” on this day to honor memory of the dead, remember their relatives, and those who managed to survive in that terrible bloody gas chamber or dodge its absorbing crater.

Andrei told me about those who died during the collapse of the stadium structure, and about those barely alive boys and girls who were carried to the foot of the Lenin monument, believing that the people had already died.

The absence of first aid, stadium doctors, ambulances and frost of minus 10 Celsius did their job quickly.

We walked together to the stadium. My travel companion recalled the events of almost forty years ago. He showed and told where and how memorable tragic events took place.

Mature men and women in red and white club scarves came towards us and saluted us, carrying disabled people in wheelchairs.

Already near the monument - the obelisk, men with Spartak symbols stood and talked, who did not make any preludes when they met, but immediately rushed into each other’s arms as if they were their closest relatives, everyone there was “their own”.

And what’s most interesting is that young people who were not yet born in 1982 approached the monument, and they learned about it from their relatives, from friends, from parents. Men came with children, with wives, with their companions. I didn’t see any tears, all the tears had already been cried... I saw sadness from the tragedy, grief for the dead and faith and hope for the best.

There were more and more white and red flowers; fans of FC Spartak (Moscow) walked until the evening, carrying both cheap carnations and expensive roses.”