For the 600 hostages snacking on biscuits, there is no sleep, and the orchestra pit is a privacy-free latrine, report Ian Traynor and Nick Paton-Walsh.
Three days into the real-life drama unfolding within the drab concrete-and-glass theatre a couple of miles from the Kremlin, a mood of dismal desperation is taking hold. The foyer of the 1970s theatre is littered with shattered glass. The ceiling of the auditorium is peppered with bullet holes. A pile of explosives has been primed in the middle of the theatre. The stage has been mined.
The lights went up on the popular musical Nord Ost on Wednesday evening in the 1,000-seat theatre. They have not been turned off since. For the 600 hostages snacking on biscuits and chocolate, there is no sleep, no beds, no hot food, no hot drinks, no toilet paper, no washing facilities, a meagre supply of medicines - and, apparently, a deepening bond between the hostage-takers and their victims.
Sanitary conditions are worsening. The orchestra pit has become a privacy-free latrine for the hundreds guarded by some 40 heavily-armed Chechen men and women.
Outside, under a steel-grey sky and in damp cold that chills to the bone, hundreds of Russian troops have sealed the area off while a procession of Russian liberals, members of parliament, creative and media types make a pilgrimage to the theatre and negotiate their entry in an attempt to defuse the crisis or at least improve conditions inside.
In the theatre, the bright lights are never dimmed and the room is relatively warm, said Dr Leonid Roshal, a Russian surgeon who has been inside talking to the terrorists three times in the past 24 hours.
"Everyone is in the one hall and the terrorists impose discipline," he said. "The hostages are not allowed to move around freely. If they do, the terrorists fire warning shots in the air or on the ceiling." The hostages huddle in the theatre seats that have become makeshift beds.
Valya, a middle-aged woman, heard from her hostage daughter Olga (24) at five in the morning yesterday for the first time since the crisis erupted.
"She's doesn't have a mobile. They must have given it to her to let her phone. I could only talk to her for a minute. They're surviving, but she sounded very frightened," said the mother.
Despite Russian security service claims that the hostages had been separated by gender and nationality and put in separate rooms in what is not just a theatre, but a sprawling Soviet-era arts centre, witnesses believed that all the hostages were concentrated in the main auditorium.
They snack on chocolate and biscuits, water and fruit juice, but although the terrorists have allowed some medicines to cross the siege lines, up to now they have been firm in their refusal to allow any real food in.
"We've got all the food supplies ready, but they won't allow anything in," said Dr Roshal.
"The food is typical theatre snacks, mineral water and chocolate," said Masha Shorstova, an actress who escaped as the Chechens seized the building.
Last night the Chechens appeared to relent in their refusal to allow in fresh or hot food. Returning abruptly from a media awards ceremony in the US, the Russian prizewinning journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, was allowed into the theatre.
Ms Politkovskaya is a searing critic of Russia's war in Chechnya and has reported more comprehensively from Chechnya than anyone else in Russia or abroad.
She emerged from the theatre after three hours to report that the kidnappers had agreed that she could deliver some hot food and drinking water. But the terrorists were said to have balked at a request to have a van deliver a load of food. A statement which the Chechens allowed the hostages to release to the Russian media yesterday highlighted the worsening conditions and growing tension.
"Both the hostages and the terrorists are nervous and tense," said the statement. "The first move towards storming and the building will be blown up. The situation is very tense.
"All the hostages are in one room. They are not being fed. Natural needs have to be performed in the orchestra pit. A powerful bomb has been laid in the centre of the auditorium. The stage and the corridors have been mined. There are 15 fighters, strapped with explosives, constantly guarding the hall."
The first and only television pictures from inside the theatre were screened yesterday by the NTV channel at the terrorists' request. The camera crew was led to a store room, where Movzar Barayev, Chechen warlord and apparent leader of the hostage-takers, squatted unmasked on a cardboard box, next to another masked gunman.
The TV then showed three women dressed in black, with thick veils drawn across their faces, and only their eyes exposed. One handled a pistol. Her colleague showed the cameras a thick brown package strapped to her waist, covered in brown packing tape. Two wires stemmed from the package, and met at a small switch box, which she fingered nervously. Russian security experts said this device resembles a homemade explosive.
- The Guardian