Natalia Tomayev, 71: Tajik native loved to travel Israel with sister
Murdered by Hamas terrorists in Sderot on Oct. 7
Natalia Tomayev, 71, from Netivot, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Sderot on October 7.
Natalia and her sister, Nadejda Spravchikov, were both aboard a minibus that morning bringing a group of senior citizens on a day trip to the Dead Sea.
The minibus got a flat tire and stopped to change it in Sderot, pulling up outside a bus station that was also a bomb shelter. The shelter had an automated door that was supposed to electronically unlock when there were rocket sirens in the city, but it malfunctioned that morning, and the group of travelers were stuck outside.
Moments later, a pickup truck of Hamas terrorists drove by and opened fire on the group, killing all 13 passengers. Photos of the slain senior citizens strewn on the ground were among the first to circulate in Israel and around the world of the Hamas atrocities that day.
Natalia was born in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and in addition to Nadejda she had two brothers, Vladimir and Leonid.
She worked in Tajikistan as a police officer, and after she moved to Israel in the 1990s she worked in childcare.
The two sisters lived near each other in Netivot, and Natalia cared with great dedication for their mother, who died in early 2023.
Her niece, Irit — the daughter of Nadejda — told an independent news site that “Mom and her sister were wonderful women, full of life, they were of the age where they traveled and enjoyed life, and that’s exactly what they did that morning.”
Irit told the Mako news site that only in the months after her grandmother died, Natalia “started to live life, she joined my mom on organized tours and they enjoyed themselves a lot together. They really loved the land of Israel.”
She told a women’s magazine that “the Dead Sea was their particular favorite, they enjoyed paddling around in the water.” Irit said the sisters “were planning a trip to Eilat in November and after that a visit to the Upper Galilee. They’d already paid for those trips.”
The Times of Israel Community.