As Russia mourns the 35 victims of the bombing attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, theater lovers are sparing a special thought for Anna Yablonska, a young Ukrainian poet and playwright killed in the blast.
Yablonska, a native of Odesa, had arrived in the Russian capital to pick up a literary prize when a presumed suicide bomber detonated explosives at the airport’s crowded arrivals terminal, sparking scenes of carnage. She was 29 years old. Yablonska was due to receive a prize by the “Cinema Art” magazine at a ceremony in Moscow just hours after her plane landed at Domodedovo. The editor of “Cinema Art,” Daniil Dondurei, says she had been in high spirits that day. “She called at 4 p.m. after landing. She was worried about not making it for 6:30 p.m.,” Dondurei says. “The head of our selection board spoke to her. She was cheerful. She died 20 minutes later.”
Her colleagues describe Yablonska, whose real name was Anna Mashutina, as an up-and-coming playwright whose plays had won numerous literary awards and were staged in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Dondurei says her latest play, “The Pagans,” had charmed the jury, and she had won the competition hands down.
Theater producer Mikhail Ugarov, who knew Yablonska well and attended the January 24 award ceremony, says organizers became concerned after she failed to turn up at the ceremony and stopped answering her phone. “Panic erupted at the ceremony,” Ugarov says. “They waited for her until the last moment and ended up awarding her the prize in absentia. At that time, she was already dead.”
Yablonska’s husband called her colleagues and friends later that evening to inform them she had been killed in the attack at Domodedovo. On December 21, she wrote in her LiveJournal blog: “It seems to me that I have very little time left.”
