at least 600 dead - but that's not what the officials say.

they say it's 322.

Gazeta.ru journalists have talked to doctors in two of the hospitals where the wounded are. These doctors (no names, which is understandable) are saying that they are not allowed out of the hospital, that their cell phones have been taken away in order to keep them from spilling some info to the relatives and to the journalists. The relatives are not being let inside the hospitals - only to identify the dead. Just like after the theater siege, when I was talking to a woman by the hospital who didn't know her husband's fate more than 24 hours after the failed rescue operation. Only it was terribly cold then, and now it's warm.

Putin flew to Beslan this morning. So fucking what? As one of our Spanish friends calls him, Hijo de puta, hijo de putin.