Attacks bring back memories in Moscow

The September 13, 1999, explosion in Moscow killed 120 people

By CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- All that's left of No. 6 Kashirskoye Street in Moscow is a small Russian Orthodox monument -- and the memory of 120 people killed in an explosion two years ago that was believed to be the work of terrorists.

A bomb went off early in the morning of September 13, 1999, as people slept, flattening their eight-story building in an instant.

Throughout that September, four apartment buildings were hit throughout Russia, killing 288 and injuring hundreds more.

Semyon Konyukhov says his heart aches to see the memorial, yet he visits it every day to wipe the rain from the picture of his daughter Olya, her husband and their little girl.

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"Why should my children, who just want to live, be lying there, and the terrorists are out there with weapons in their hands? Why? We have to wipe out these terrorists," he says.

But the men who planned those bombings are still at large.

"If they think they're real men why don't they come out and fight like men?" asks one resident, Oleg. "Why do they target old people, women and children? They're not human."

Two years ago, after the blast, the residents organized citizen patrols, guarding their houses day and night, fearful of another attack. But as the months and years went by, the patrols stopped. People simply learned to live with fear.

On Kashirskoye Street, life slowly mended. And then came the terrorist attacks in the United States.

"I was immediately scared and all the memories came flooding back about what happened here," says Ira. "Now, when I'm in the Metro or downtown, I'm nervous. Every bag I see I think it could be something suspicious."

"The first thing I thought was how easy it was they flew those planes," says Pasha. "The Americans are supposed to have the best defense and yet it happened. And I thought -- maybe it could happen here in Moscow or somewhere else in Russia."

Fear is back. Sergei, a doctor, says he never felt it before.

His daughter Nastya was born 10 months after the apartment bombing. Now he wonders what her future -- and his family's -- will be.