We landed in Moscow, the picture is the view from our hotel window right before we went to sleep for the next 15 hours. (more about Moscow later). We were in Moscow for two days and then we took a four hour flight into Siberia, landing in Novokuznetsk (south-central Russia). From here, it was a 15 minute drive to the orphanage where we met the girls. My friend, A, had already been there once and met them before, but they had never met their future father. They’re adorable girls, 7 and 11 years old.
The orphanage was actually rather nice, granted everything is relative. The plumbing was primitive and they kids wear the same clothes for a week, but I understand that’s not uncommon around those parts. Generally I got the impression that the orphanage staff try very hard to make it a nice place for the children.
The town itself was rather grim. It’s a coal mining town and everything is coated in black soot. The snow, the buildings, cars...everything. It’s just a depressing place. Very poor. You can hardly imagine that people can survive the winter in the shacks that qualified as homes.
After we left the orphanage (sans girls, we can’t take them until after the court date), we drove three hours to the town of Kemerovo. Kemerovo is sort of the capital of the region, and fortunately, it’s a big step up from Novokuznetsk. It’s a modern town, big governmental buildings, hotels, restaurants, etc. Our hotel looked good in the lobby, but my room, well, let’s just call it an adventure and leave it at that. Functional, but not something you really care to remember.
Here was my first real experience with Russian food, and to my surprise, it’s really good! Not to mention cheap. For about five bucks I ate in a nice restaurant and had food that would have cost me 15 to 20 bucks back home! I’m amazed that no matter where we ate, there was an attention to detail that was very impressive. They take great care in the presentation and everything tasted as good as it looked.
In Kemerovo, we spent the next few days dealing with legal stuff. We had the court hearing where my friends were declared the legal parents of the two girls. I wasn’t allowed in the court room, but I’m told there’s a jail cell in the corner of the room. So much for prejudicing the jury.
One interesting thing about the Russian adoption system is the secrecy involved. You get the impression that people are hiding things from you. You ask questions about the kids you’re about to adopt, like health or their past, and if the people in charge think you won’t like the answer, they’ll evade. This gets confirmed when eventually they’ll drop a little morsel of the negative information here and there when they think the time is right. You just have to wait and get in their due time. To top it off, sometimes they’ll drop bombs on you right in the court room, moments before everything’s official. Fortunately, nothing too major this time, but it’s happened to my friend before on her last adoption. Oh yeah, she already has two other girls from previous Russian adoptions, one is now 17 and the other is 13.
After the court hearing, you spend a bunch of time running around town getting documents signed and notarized. The Russians are alllll about documentation. Things got a little humorous around now. You see, A’s church donated about one thousand dollars for her to buy things for the orphanage. She couldn’t just give the orphanage the money, because corruption is rampant, so we had to spend over one thousand dollars in a place where most things are ridiculously cheap.
We bought shoes, clothes, books, toys, and hygiene and medical supplies. Everything in massive quantities as there are over one hundred children in this orphanage. At the end of the day, we had to haul it all up to our rooms. People in the hotel lobby stared at us open-mouth as five adults hauled tons of childrens stuff through. They probably thought that this was rampant American excess, “adopt one child and look at all they bought for it.”
The next day, with all the main legalese finished, A’s husband flew home to take care of the other girls and A and I headed back to the orphanage, along with our huge haul of purchases. Christmas came early this year. A number of children came out to help us bring everything in and their faces reflected total amazement with each armload taken out of the van.
In the orphanage, we were escorted to a room where the girls were to meet us.
One thing to note, is that the children are not allowed to take their clothes with them (needed for the next child), so you have to bring clothes with you. Apparently, these two knew the drill and were eager to get going because they ran in the room and started stripping down reaching for the new clothes. In just a few minutes, they were ready to go. They left clutching only the teddy bears that A had given them during her previous visit. They actually owned NOTHING else.
Back to Kemerovo, a three hour car ride with two little girls on a big adventure. It actually went surprisingly well. In Kemerovo, the adoption facilitator announced that A had to go get the girl’s passports, so I took the girls into the hotel. I’ll never forget this. As I walk into the hotel lobby with two very cute little girls trailing behind me, all these Russians, both men and women, went “awwww.” They act tough, but a lot of it is an act. This hotel is used for a lot of adoptions, so I guess they knew what was going on.
The next day, we head for the airport. We hand over our tickets, and the lady, who of course speaks no English and looks as mean as a bull dog, points at the date on my ticket. To my horror, it said I was supposed to leave the day before, apparently with A’s husband. The travel company that booked us all had made a huge mistake. I almost panicked with visions of being left behind in Siberia with no means of communication.
Thank heavens I was with a group, or I might have been stuck. The lady looked at our panicked faces and motioned for us to wait. She continued processing the other passengers for what seemed like eternity (reality: 10 minutes) while we stood there each with a little girl holding our hand. Finally we were motioned to put our bags up for checking and she slid a new set of tickets over the counter for all of us! They put me on the flight! I was sooo happy and relieved. I had figured they wouldn’t make us stand there if they weren’t going to help us, so I had pulled out a can of macadamia nuts I had brought along. When she gave us the tickets, I said “thank you” in Russian, and gave her the can. This woman, who looked so intimidating, actually cracked a smile, although you could see she tried to stifle it.
The rest of the trip was spent in Moscow. It’s a wonderful city. Lots of beautiful buildings and loaded with history. Near all these amazing things, to my shock, I encountered a McDonalds. Now I didn't eat there, but I was surprised at how busy they were.
I had one day to myself and I used the most of it. I went to Red Square and saw St. Basil’s Cathedral, Lenin’s tomb (supposedly you can see the body, but they weren’t letting people in that day), and the Kremlin. I got to go inside the Kremlin (the seat of the Russian government) and tour the places they let you see. There’s a big museum inside of the Kremlin called the Armoury. It holds all the state treasure. It’s got diplomatic gifts from other countries, clothes that the Tzars wore, jewels, etc. All the Russian history sort of stuff. It was fascinating, but unfortunately, most of the plaques weren’t in English. No problem. There were a number of private English language tours going around (expensive), so if something interested me, I’d just wait a bit and someone would come by and talk about it. I stayed for two separate tours in front of the Faberge Eggs! They were just amazing.
After the Kremlin, I went to the Tretyakov art gallery. The best collection of Russian art in the world. My guide book sucked, it didn’t say what metro stop to use or what streets to follow after that, so I guessed. Oh wait, the metro... The subway stations here are amazing. You'd think you were in an art gallery. Can you believe there are chandaliers over where the trains go in and out? And there's no litter and no graffitti. The "Palaces of the People" indeed.Ok, back to the Tretyakov... When I got off the metro, I wandered a bit, then asked a trio of babushkas how to get there (in Russian. Maybe one in 20 Russians speak English and that’s being generous). They pointed and rattled something off. I was going to just go on the point, but I guess they realized I was clueless and took pity on me. They motioned me to follow. We went down a path with them glancing over their shoulders every so often to check that I was still with them. I felt like a lamb following a shepherd. Eventually, one turned off and the other two, motioning me to follow, went the other way. Down another street, they stopped in front of a building and motioned to it. They had gone out of their way and took me right to the door of the place! They laughed as I thanked them, turned and went back on their way. I encountered alot of that in Russia, people going out of their way to help you.
The rest of the time in Moscow, we wandered all over the place. It was fascinating to watch these kids with so little life experience. They had never seen an escalator! An American two year old can negotiate these things, but these two had no idea had to negotiate the move from solid ground onto something moving. A and I had to each firmly grab a child and hold on tight as they got on/off or else they would fall down. They seemed to think it was great fun and giggled alot about it.
To these two, everything is amazing. They’re fascinated by subways, statues, buildings, and especially those little Russian dolls that are embedded inside each other. It’s a wonderful experience to see things that you might take for granted reflected in their eyes. It’s a big new world for them.
Whooo, it’s late, I’m tired. I better wrap this up. In all, I spent 11 days in Russia, and it was an amazing experience.
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