For 30 minutes last Friday night, Alyona Kazinskaya’s cheerful social media feed turned into a timeline of terror.
Ms Kazinskaya and a friend had bought last-minute tickets to a rock gig at Crocus City Hall, where gunmen rampaged through the building, killing more than 140 people.
Bursts of loud gunfire could be heard in her first 10-second audio message posted on Telegram at 8.01pm.
“I love you all. I’m in Crocus City Hall – Picnic. They’re shooting here, at the concert. I’m in the hall. Call the police.”
She told Reuters she tried to escape but people were already crowding the exit.
“At that moment they [the gunmen] entered the hall. Then I threw my friend to the floor and I said ‘let’s crawl’.”
At 8.08pm she wrote three messages with trembling fingers in quick succession.
“Please ring the police!!!!!”
“Crocus City Hall.”
“Shooting.”
By now, the pair of them had escaped the hall but were still trapped inside the building.
At 8.17pm, a one-word audio message: “Fire!”
The gunmen had used gasoline to set the huge concert hall ablaze.
The two friends took refuge in a toilet, trying six times to leave but thwarted by thick smoke.
By 8.23pm, she left a four-second audio message she thought would be her last.
“I love you. Goodbye.”
Yet the pair would escape after finding a man hiding in another toilet who knew a way out of the building.
At 8:31pm she left a new audio message: “I’m alive. I’m getting first aid. I got out. Thank you.”
