11.09.2021

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: From that day on the world has changed

Today marks 20 years since two planes flying to Los Angeles were seized by terrorists and then aimed at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre (WTC). Within two hours, both skyscrapers collapsed. The site where the WTC stood became known as the Ground Zero.

I can say without exaggeration that this terrible event shocked the world. September 11 is forever marked: "People, from that day on, the world has changed."
The victims of the terrorist attacks were 2,977 people from 92 countries: 246 passengers and aircraft crew members, 2,606 people in the buildings of the World Trade Centre and on the ground (of which there were 341 firefighters, two paramedics of the New York Fire Department, sixty police officers and eight Ambulance employees) and 125 people in the Pentagon.
In 2010, I sent a letter addressed to the Mayor of New York, Mr Bloomberg and the owner of a plot of land located near the former Twin Towers, with a proposal to buy this plot of land for $ 10 million and build a world chess centre there. I am sure that such a great game as chess could bond people and make it possible to avoid conflicts on religious and ethnic grounds in the future.

The National 9/11 Memorial and Museum was opened on the site of the destroyed towers in 2011. The memorial is a parapet with the names of the victims. The names of our compatriots are also among them. There is a waterfall behind the parapet. It symbolizes tears for those who died that day. Flowers are continuously brought to the memorial.

But here's what else, in my opinion, is important: today, on September 11, Orthodox believers mourned the Beheading of John the Baptist. The prophet was 33 years old. They beheaded him, and brought his head on a plate to the hall, where the then ruler of Galilee Herod Antipas feasted with the courtiers. It was him who ordered this execution.
What a telling coincidence! When a big disaster strikes, we, as if out of habit, say: "The world will never be the same again." That’s what they said, I believe, after the murder of John the Baptist, after heavy and destructive wars, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the terrorist attacks in Moscow and other Russian cities, the hostage-taking in Beslan and Nord-Ost and the September 11 tragedy in New York...
Yes, the world is changing before our eyes. And we? How many innocent people must die before we understand and figure out how to live our lives?
I want to say my words of sympathy to the families and friends of those killed in the terrible terrorist attack. But no words could comfort them enough. There is the pain that would not go away. And which will never pass. I grieve with all my heart.