Masha Shorstovsa owes her freedom, and possibly her life, to a scene change in a musical. The understudy to the lead role in Nord-Ost, who was not required on stage at the time that 40 Chechen gunmen burst on to the stage on Wednesday night, escaped out of a window after first locking herself in a dressing room.
Yesterday during a street protest outside the barricades, she described her escape.
"When the first shots rang out I was walking from the dressing room to the stage. I turned to stone. Then I heard two more shots." At that point, she said, the intercom announced: "Security, quick to the stage, an armed man is there."
Ms Shorstova rushed to her dressing room with one of the other actresses with whom she shared the room.
"We locked the door from inside and I held the key in place tight, as we waited for the third girl, Irina Savelyeva. When she came we closed the door and waited there for a full hour."
The annex housing Ms Shorstova's dressing room was cut off from the main building by a bolted steel door. "We heard armed men running around. Our dressing room is a metre away from the steel door and we heard somebody begin to shoot at it."
The three women decided they would be safer outside than inside. "I switched off the light and went out through the open window. Ten seconds later after we got out somebody forced the door in and came into the dressing room. When I was down I saw the light go on in the room, but, thank God we were safe."
- (Guardian Service)