Shortly before eight o’clock, the auditorium at Crocus City Hall was filling up in anticipation of a Friday night rock concert by the veteran band Picnic.
“Some people in brown clothing, I don’t know who they were – terrorists, military, whoever – broke into the auditorium and started shooting at people with assault rifles,” recounted photographer Dave Primov, who witnessed the attack unfold from an upstairs balcony.
The gunmen had emerged across the concourse outside the theater, indiscriminately firing at unsuspecting attendees, resulting in casualties among the crowd.
Despite the sale of 6,200 tickets for the concert, security measures outside the entrance quickly faltered. One of four guards revealed that his colleagues sought refuge behind an advertising board: “Those attackers passed 10m [30ft] away from us – they started shooting randomly at people on the ground floor.”
The exact number of attackers remained unknown. However, video footage captured from an upper floor depicted four individuals walking separately across the beige, marble-tiled floor, maintaining a few meters of distance between each other.
The lead attacker takes aim point-blank at people huddled against the windows, marking them as the initial victims of Russia’s deadliest attack on civilians in years.
Many of those killed and injured hailed from Krasnogorsk, Khimki, and neighboring towns on the north-western outskirts of Moscow.
A second assailant soon joins in, while a third calmly trails behind, carrying a backpack. The fourth individual hands him his weapon, and they proceed through the unguarded metal detectors towards the auditorium.
One woman, accompanied by her 11-year-old daughter, was purchasing ice cream at a café near the entrance when they heard commotion and someone shouted for everyone to take cover.
“We hurried to protect the children, laying down and using tables and chairs to create barricades. Several wounded individuals sought refuge with us,” she recounted to BBC Russian.
Sofiko Kvirikashvili initially mistook the gunfire for “some kind of endless burst of firecrackers – I turned around in the hall once, then again. The third time, I realized everyone in the hall had started running away in all directions.”
Photographer Dave Primov described scenes of panic and a crush. Some theatergoers attempted to take cover between the seats, but with multiple gunmen firing in the stalls, it provided little refuge.
Those who could, made their way towards the stage, while others sought higher exits, only to discover some doors were locked. Witnesses reported the presence of elderly individuals and children, all caught in the chaos of the attack.
One woman, who had been seated in one of the higher circles, ran down toward the stage, where she witnessed a man in the stalls firing shots: “We hurried behind the curtain, and a Crocus employee in uniform instructed us to flee. We dashed out into the car park without our winter clothes.”
Inside the theater, the scheduled concert was mere minutes away from beginning, and some initially speculated that the sounds of chaos were part of the performance.