Sobs punctuated a tear-filled silence at 1:05 p.m local time, the exact moment two years ago when a firefight broke out in the gymnasium between hostage takers and federal troops.
It was the culmination of a three-day memorial marking the September 1-3, 2004 seige when pro-Chechnya rebels to hostage more than 1,000 children and parents on the first day of the school year.
Two days later, 332 hostages, more than half of them children, died in a chaotic storming of the school.
The end of the moment of silence was marked by schoolchildren releasing 332 white balloons in the yard beside the ruined school, one for each victim of the bloody hostage crisis.
There was tight security around the memorial ceremony as the anniversary reopened old emotional wounds over the crisis.
The weekend's final commemoration was a concert planned to take place in the nearby regional capital of Vladikavkaz, where prominent Russian artists were to perform works written for the occasion.
Local frustration
Some locals have discussed a proposal to build a Russian Orthodox chapel on the site of the charred and ruined gymnasium where the hostages were held.
But Beslan Mothers' Committee representative Susana Dudayeva said she strongly opposed the idea.
"Let them build a chapel in the yard or somewhere else, but I don't want them to destroy the gymnasium to do it," Ms Dudayeva told news agency AFP. "It's hard for us to come here, but we need to be able to do it."
At the memorial weekend there’s been widespread talk about an independent report on the crisis released last week by Russian State Duma Deputy Yury Savelyev.
Mr Savelyev charges in his report that the violent climax of the crisis was brought on by a grenade that struck the school from outside, rather than by an explosion inside set off inside by the hostage takers, as the official version maintains.
Mr Savelyev is a dissenting member of the official parliamentary commission assigned to investigate the events.
"It's what we always knew finally a specialist has shown it scientifically," Elbrus Tedtov, whose son died in the shootout, told AFP.
"Beslan has been talking about it for a long time. Finally someone wrote it down," he said.
Speaking at a ceremony in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral, Russian President Vladimir Putin mourned what he called the "monstruous terrorist crime in Beslan".
"The murder of utterly innocent women and children shocked not only our nation, but the entire world," Mr Putin said.
"This tragedy, the inconsolable grief of parents who have lost the most valuable thing -- their children -- will always be our common pain."
Police break up protest
Russian police had to break up a human rights campaigners' rally has called on President Vladimir Putin to tell the whole truth about the deaths that occurred during the Beslan crisis.
The second anniversary was also used as a day of solidarity against terrorism.
Special police dispersed a rally of mourning staged by about 80 human rights activists who gathered in Moscow near the headquarters of the FSB security service.
Many human rights activists and some victims' relatives believe a botched rescue operation contributed to the deaths and the authorities have deliberately covered up mistakes made by senior officials overseeing the operation.
"Putin and (FSB chief Nikolai) Patrushev must share responsibility for the death of people," read a poster held by Lev Ponomarev, head of campaigners For Human Rights.
“Storming of the school is the authorities' disgrace," read another. "The Caucasus war spread the cancer of Nazism across Russia," read the one held by a woman standing nearby.
The protesters, carrying lit candles and flowers, attempted to approach a stone erected in memory of Soviet-era political prisoners, but police clamped down on them, dragging around two dozens into buses waiting nearby. Many posters were torn down.