BESLAN, September 3 (RIA Novosti, Grigory Dubovitsky, Albina Olisayeva) - A monument to those who perished during the three-day school hostage siege in the North Ossetian town of Beslan in September 2004 was unveiled at the town's memorial cemetery on Saturday.
It took 20 minutes to read a list of 331 victims.
Then a white sheet was pulled off the statue called Mourning Tree, and 331 doves were released into the air to symbolize the souls of the dead.
More than 12,000 people came to the cemetery, which had been prepared for the ceremony: red granite stones had been put on all graves. The rare granite had been handed over to North Ossetia by the government of Kazakhstan free of charge.
The doves had been brought from Moscow, said Murat Yezeyev, the press secretary of the mayor's office of Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia's capital.
