End of Our Second Trip

We just dropped off our son at the orphanage again. This Russian adoption process is insane, but it is what it is. And if you play your cards right, and respect Russian protocol and culture, all goes according to what you are told by those in the adoption agency. Some personalities to highlight, as Celia and I reflect on this second stay.

Ilya: He is your Russian connection here in Petro. Without him, you get no child. He is the one who greases the wheels of the adoption system, and I would say does it honestly. He is very much a business man in the sense that he is very responsible and concerned about his reputation as a professional. You might not think this about him by the way he dresses, however, we have never doubted his integrity. I am trying to convince myself he has a sense of humor. A few times, he laughed at his own comments, but never at our humorous attempts to break the tension associated with the adoption process. He did lighten up, though, last night when we and the Lentells went out to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant here in Petro. We saluted to our respective successful adoptions, and he clearly was pleased with how everything went in the process. Not because he was going to get paid, but because he genuinely felt Kirill and Nastia were going to good families. If you can ever imagine an English speaking Russian figure in a Robert Ludlum spy novel, it would be Ilya. He literally appears then disappears, only to report back later with updates and further instructions.

Alla: She is the very loving orphanage director who always seems to be at the orphanage!! She is always a pleasure to visit with. She loves Kirill to no end. We always felt that she liked us very much as adopting parents. She was also a very good source of information from Kirill about how he felt about being adopted by Celia and me and coming to America. This information was relayed to the social worker and others involved and eventually to the court. She was a strong ally in this whole adoption experience.

Nick: Our driver, looks to be about in his fifties, and spoke very little English. But very pleasant and understood well the words "bathroom" and "food". He also reminded me of a Ludlum character. He apparently likes Euro-techno music. We heard a lot of it in our 6 hour trip to Petro.

Natalia and Anastasia: Both very good translators who know their town of Petro very well.
Natalia is very seasoned as a translator because she had spent time in the U.S., majored in English at her university, and has a mother who taught English. She barely has an accent. She also seems to understand the American mindset very well. Natalia is very pleasant to work with, and interacts well with the children. She is very soft-spoken, but understood us very well, even when we used vernacular or slang terms. For $10/hour, I thought we got our money's worth with these two young ladies, both in their early twenties.

Child Welfare Social Worker: Our interaction with this tall, attractive, professional appearing woman in her thirties was limited to disclosure of Kirill's history and her appearance at court. She does a very nice job informing you of everything you need to know about your child and appears to have worked with Kirill on a number of occasions with respect to how he felt about being adopted. Because Russian are very superstitious, I suspect she did not want to get to know us on more than a professional level. We saw her twice during our visits here. Her job is very difficult as it often involves taking away parenteral rights.

The Ophanage Kids: We were able to see a lot of the as we picked up and dropped off Kirill numerous times in our two trips here. Some are not adoptable and are at the orphanage because their parents cannot afford to take care of them-but they have parents. Others are adoptable, and others are probably somewhere in between, perhaps part of Camp Hope 2009's group of adoptees. They are beautiful kids, always smiling and laughing. We spoke to Karina, one of the kids who knows Kirill well, but she is not adoptable. Her parents ostensibly are undergoing some financial hardship. She is delightful as are the others we ran into. She looks like a little gypsy girl with her beautiful darker colored skin and hair. She stands out in your average group of Russian kids, most of whom are blonde.

We leave Kirill again with a heavy heart. He was sad this time as we dropped him off because even though we told him we could not take him back with us this time, I think wishful thinking got the best of him. This time, he walked back to his room with a long, sad face. It was very hard to leave him this time. He knows, however, Celia will be back with his sister Danielle in two weeks.
In general, we did not have any unfavorable experiences here. Some interesting observation about the people and the system were noteworthy: It is a very maternal society in the sense that most professional positions, such as physician, judge, administrators, and the like are filled by women. Russians don't say excuse me when they want to pass or get by; however, they are not rude, either. They smile, but it's almost a bridled smile, as if not to be too friendly. But the few Russians we met that did speak enough English to help us were very nice. Most of women are generally thin, attractive, tall, and very fashionable. Men here tend to be a bit overweight, sport very short hair, and do not grow beards or other facial hair much at all. They also like dark colored clothing, and smoke more than the women do. However, the people we met and observed here walk far more than Americans do, and are far less overweight. Rarely did we see an obese person. Rarely did we see an overweight child. We did not see any obese children here. What we did see a lot of were liquor kiosks!!