The rippled waters of the Moscow River flowed under the Borodino Bridge as crowds of spectators lined up along its banks to take pictures of the blackened facade of the former Russian Parliament building. In the distance, crows circled the devastated building and the golden hands of the Parliament building clock were stopped at 10:05.
The street was filled with traffic and passers-by hurried to their destinations. To all appearances, the Russian capital had slipped back into its usual mood of frantic indolence. But a month after the events of October 3-4 when a pitched battle took place in the streets to decide the fate of Russia, there is an uneasiness in the air, borne of fear for the future and unanswered questions. On November 4, the headline in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, for example, read "A month after the Moscow tragedy, we don't know the number of dead or their names. Without this truth, it is, of course, possible to live but it's hard to feel like a human being."
Other questions concern Yeltsin. Amid unconfirmed rumors that the number of dead might have been as high as 1,500, many Russians are wondering whether it was right for him to risk civil war by dissolving Parliament, and, although few persons sympathize with the defenders of the "white house," many believe that they were deliberately provoked. On October 4, Yeltsin said, "we did not prepare for war" but he raised the salaries of all members of the armed forces 1.8 times effective September 1, and, in August, promised a "hot autumn." On the morning of Sunday, October 3, a Russian writer left his home on Nezhdannoi Street and felt that there was something missing. He finally realized that in the center of the city which was usually well patrolled there were no police. It occurred to him that someone was organizing a provocation....
