We were told to buy ten lesser gifts like chocolates or perfume for female functionaries, 3 larger gifts for three more important bureaucrats, and two larger gifts for the important males that needed to be greased.  Alcohol was suggested by Andrei  our facilitator last month.  We arrived at DUlles with no gifts as yet for the important males, so I decided to get it over with and buy two bottles of Jack Daniels at the duty-free store and stuff them in the backback with the baby blankets and diapers.

We met Jack and Renee from VA at the gate and it was nice that we would be traveling with another couple again.

The Lufthansa flights went ok.  Dulles to Frankfort, hustle across terminal, Frankfort to Moscow.

We were met in  Moscow by our agency's document translator for the US Embassy, Julia.  Julia is a congenial woman in her 30s or so who has been doing this at our agency for NINE years.  She is a pro.  She took us to a nearby hotel to hang out in the plush lounge with a restaurant during several hours of layover instead of straigt to the domestic airport to wait on the floor for several hours.  Before she came to pick us up again, we two couples had a meal in the hotel restaraunt.  Very spendy but nice to kick back....

On the way to Domodedevo airport for the flight to Orenburg, Renee and I asked Julia several questions about Russia, and Russian attitudes about things.  As we passed a checkpoint for the corrupt local gendarmerie, she explained that the striped batons they use to wave motorists to pull over are called "please sticks" by the locals.  US Embassy employees are immune to this treatment and are equipped with what the embassy staff calls "F--k you cards".  We thought that was a hoot.  Andrei our agency's system-worker and people-"influencer" extrordinaire met us there for the flight.

The flight to orenburg on Orenburg Airlines was suprisingly nice, and was on a Boeing 737.  By the time I got to Orenburg, I had been up for over 32 hours.  We were met on the tarmac by a cold rain.  It turns out we were FOUR couples, 2 american, 2 German, being rammed thru the process by our agency.  A squad of drivers took each of us to our different host homes.  Our agency believes in host homes because the host families watch the new children while the parents can be whisked around to get their paperwork in short order.

After what seemed like forever, we arrived at our host home.  When we were shown our room, I saw what we were supposed to sleep in, and it was like a kick in the gut.  It was a tiny futon maybe 4.5 ft wide with solid side armrests that did not allow me to flop an arm over the side, and there was a piece of furniture jammed at the end of the bed.  When I lay on it, three crossbeams jutted into my body.  I just figured the sleep-deprived state would just have to continue for the cause, and I did not move so that at least Lori could sleep a little. 

I thought we were to sleep until 6 AM, so I had asked our host woman, Larissa, in my mangled Russian if that was the case.  She took it as an INSTRUCTION to wake us at 6.  We were awakened at 6 and waited around until 10:30 or so for our driver to show.  Once we learned we were up too early, Lori got a few more Z's.  I had too much adrenaline about seeing Andrew to sleep.

Just before our car left the city limits for the road to Novatroitske, we met the other car of Jack, Renee and our Orenburg translator Anfisa.  Anfisa is a wiry matriarchal woman who looks to be 60.  She teaches advanced English at the city's university.  She is a widow whose husband, an oncologist, died (ironically) of cancer some years ago.  We briefly embraced and our convoy headed 300 km to Orsk-Novatroitske.

Once in Novatroitske's decrepid children's hospital, Anfisa led us in.  We were stopped by the staff, and Anfisa had to explain that we had approval for us Yanks to see the boy.  We were required by Russian law to see a prospective son or daughter one last time before court.  There was no longer space to see him in a crib room (all 20 beds of the unwanted/abandoned infants section were full), so we had to see Andrew Roman in the head doctor's office.  Dr Sergei Ivanov was on vacation, so his deputy pediatrician assisted us.

A nurse brought Andrew in, where the lil guy was clutching a small plastic purple whale, and he was exactly as we left him last, with no real improvement in motor skills, and some spaciness.  He really did not know how to explore or do much with the toys we had.  Anfisa explained that we came during his normal naptime, and they probably had to wake him.  We had all of 45 min to interact with him before the convoy had to head back to Orenburg.  Anfisa left us to attend to the other couple seeing their 2 year old in ORsk.

As we played with Andrew Roman, a gaggle of staff would appear at the door and drift in and out to see who was making off with their little Roman Saigashkin.  I could tell that just as the ladies of the Perm orphanage loved the children in their care, so too did these ladies.  Lori and I passed around the small photo album of Matthew and Andrew (1st visit), and the ladies remarked at Matthew.  They were very nice.  It was easy to say good bye to the little fellow and hand him back since if all went well he would be ours forever the next day.  We left a nice shirt from Penneys fro Dr. Sergei.  Gifts... gifts.... gifts...

When we returned we were server dinner by our host wife.  She told me that we were to now stay in their main room with a crib in it now that we were to be parents.  THANK GOD I thought, as the pull out sofa of their living room seemed an improvement... or so I thought.  Lori assigned me the lower pull-out section since my limbs and feet could hang off the side.  What it really meant is that she got something resembling a cushion to sleep on, and I got a flat board.  We both only got a few hours of sleep.

We got up late in the morning and ate a hearty breakfast (the host family provides meals, too) and were whisked away to court.  We almost hit one of Orenburg's many stray dogs en route, but thankfully avoided that bad karma.

We were shown into what looked like a real courtroom.  Behind an imposing bench across the room sat three high-backed chairs like a tribunal.  Present were three other ladies- the Novatroitske social worker, a prosecutor from the region, and the court secretary.

In walked a man in a black robe.  He was middle aged with one of the most hideous comb-overs I had ever seen.  It went from the back of his head all the way forward to his brow.  It was all I could do not to continually stare at it like it was a car wreck.  Fortunately, the distance from my bench to his was across several meters so my eye angle was not evident.  Unlike Matthew's female judge, who asked us questions about child-rearing practices, Judge Combover (It was actually Fyodor Ivanovitch Something-or-otherov) was all business. 

He first asked why we wanted to adopt, and I started to give a lengthy response but was cut off.  Anfisa translated that Combover wanted only the essentials since the recorder was HAND-WRITING the testimony.  I kept it short and sweet and to the point.

He went right to the money.  How much did we make?  What was the size of our home.  We had a nervous moment as there was a mistranslation of 154 square meters (our home) into a mere 154 square feet.  Combover seemed agitated about the discrepancy and grilled us on it, but seemed satisfied.  Anfisa explained later that Russians are obsessed about how much money we make and how we live- especially the salary of the same profession in America.  The prosecutor and social worker each argued that we should get the boy and get him immediately.  This was unlike Perm's hearing for Matthew, where the prosecutor hag argued that we did not have sufficient grounds to waive it.

We answered his questions, and I could see the prosecutor and secretary looking bored and at their nails.  In my concluding statement, I reiterated our request to obtain custody immediately so that Andrew could receive physical therapy in America for his abnormal leg and foot muscle tone (dystonia).  He then went to his chambers to render his decision.  During this interval, Anfisa said we could show the other ladies the pictures while the judge stepped out.  They were very nice.  We learned that the social worker only made $200 or so a month.  Our incomes must seem obscene to them.

Judge C came back in and read his verdict-  our petition was granted in full, including waiving the 10-day wait!  He closed his statement with good wishes for us.  After he conlcuded the hearing, we were allowed to shake his hand and thank him.  We later learned that HE was one of the two males to get the hooch.  Now I REALLY understood why I had to keep it short.  My blathering was the only thing between him and his bottle of J-D in his chambers to pound while his printer pumped out a boilerplate verdict.  I think the poor fellow needs Hair Club For Men (or at least a decent toupee) as a gift more than booze...

After us came Jack and Renee's hearing for their boy and girl (unrelated). Due perhaps to Jack's advanced age (56), they got more grilling.  Lori and I waited outside in the hall.  Their verdict was identially perfect.  The four of us went downstairs and waited for an hour or two in a hallway while Andrei hustled from office to office in the building to get a printed copy of the court's decision so that he could promptly apply for our kids' new birth certificates, adoption certificates, and passports.  We learned that our agency had somehow not transmitted a power of attorney document to Andrei, and he would be unable to complete our paperwork unless we had one drawn and notarized in town.  This was bullet-dodge number one.  Fortunately, our Adoption coordinator in America insists that all couples travel with a complete set of apostilled and notarized dossier documents.  I was thus able to fish the backup out of my satchel immediately, and Andrei simply filled his name and address in the blank and off he went.

Andrei was amazing.  Lori thinks (and I agree) that this man could do ANYTHING he put his mind to.  He was always on the move, getting the Germans what they needed and us two Yank couples what we needed.  He was running around forever it seemed.  Finally, he escorted us out of the building to the cars.  We then went to the registry office to get birth certificates and adoption certificates.  We learned that our children were already at our host homes!!  Do the math.  A three-hour drive from Novatroitske and Orsk. Kids in our homes within an hour after our two hearings....  Those tots were in the back of a car before we even set foot in the courtroom!  Talk about foregone conclusions.

Anfisa explained that this registry building is where couples HAD to get married to get recognized/registered by the state.  They rigged up a nicely-decorated Baroque room for weddings and pumped in recorded wedding march and postlude.  We saw one such quickie union, that stuck us as Vegas-like, but the smiles of participants and celebrants were universal.

We came home to OUR Andrew Roman and loved him up a bit before dinner.  Larissa the host wife prepared us a great stuffed pepper meal then let us eat it at our leisure while she held and entertained the boy.  It was really nice just to unwind and eat like a civilized couple while our child was being tended to.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to communicate with Larissa a little to learn more about her and her family.

On thursday, we were trapped in the environs of the host house all day because Anfisa and Andrei had our passports to get stuff done.  Russia is not where you want to be if you have no "papers" on you.  The highlight of our day was taking Andrew out for a walk within a block or so of the house.  The plus was getting to know the host family.

Larissa and her husband Vladimir were hosting us in their three-room house (not including foyer and bathroom).  Like other houses in their row along a dirt road, theirs featured barred windows, and was surrounded by a stout solid high fence, rendering their domain rather fortress-like.  Inside the perimeter of their property was Larissa's large garden.

Larissa knows no English.  We communicated using my skeletal Russian, gestures, drawing on a note-pad, and using their small Russian-English dictionary.  She and I were able to get many ideas across.  I learned that she was in Berlin when its wall fell in 1989,  She is a dispatcher for a security company.  It was apparent, however, that the little dictionary was not up to the task- Lori and I could not, for example, tell her that her meal was "delicious," so I resolved to buy them a comprehensive translation dictionary.  When I had a chance to interact with Vladimir, I learned that he sells tires and wheels.  He works 7long days on, 7 off, so since he was working this week, we saw him only for a few minutes each night when he came home, but I could tell he was a jovial and sweet man.  They have an athletic 15-year old son who is a cadet in a military academy and was gone all week, so it all worked out well with the timing of Americans taking over thier home for a week.  They have a dog that the boy named "Spike," who was enclosed in a doghouse all week.  I never saw him, only his bark- like Charlie Brown's teacher....

I had always been told that Russians were fairly stiff and indifferent to strangers, but would give you the shirt off their back if they were your friends, and I could tell from the good vibes from this family that this may indeed be so!  I enjoyed joking around with Vladimir.  The highlight was once after Lori was obviously nagging me about something, I turned to Vladimir and said in Russian: "My wife nags me every day!"  He howled with laughter, and Larissa jokingly poked him as with a cattle prod.  From our room, I could hear Lori demand: "WHAT did you just say?!!"

Nyuk Nyuk.

Before dinner, Andrei came by with all our documents ready to go.  We sat at Larissa's table, and I forked over the cash.  Lots of cash.  New bills just like the Russkies like it.  Anfisa translated how Lori and I were amazed at him- a comment which he took with humility.  I then presented Andrei with his gift, a Zippo lighter with a Boston Red Sox logo-- quintessentially American.  I had Anfisa translate that the Red Sox are a baseball team that has a following like a religion, and is the closest Yanks come to, say, Brit soccer worship.

On Friday, Anfisa finally had some time to take us all around the city.  One German couple got to leave that morning, leaving us, Jack and Renee from VA, and Julio and Maria, Spanish nationals who were working and living in Germany.  We Yanks left our kids with the host families, while the Spaniards brought their toddler, who was very cute, and looked uncannily like his new father.

Anfisa took us to the Ural river, which marks the dividing line in the south of Russia between Europe and Asia.  On the bridge across the river, there were pillars reading (in Russian)  "Asia" as we walked across Westward, and "Europe" as we returned westward.  On the eastern side, in "Asia" we all strolled thru a nice park.  The weather was gorgeous.  We then were all driven to get baby supplies, and Anfisa took me to a bookstore to get our host family their gift. We then went to buy some other souvenirs and to the internet cafe where I was able to send word earlier.

Our last item of business in Orenburg Friday afternoon was to pick up the kids' Russian passports, in which their American immigration visa would be placed, and with which they needed to travel.  The office closed at 5pm, and we pulled up a little after 4.  Anfisa asked me for Andrew's new birth certificate.  Oops.  I forgot about that part!  I had assumed that the birth certificate had been provided to the passport office already.  As it turned out, that document was needed by yet another office at the same time, so Andrei was able to get our passports moving with a *promise* that we would pony up the real deal when picking them up!!  Again, the guy could really work people.   If I could not get that document to the office by 5, I would still be in Orenburg right now, sleeping (or likely not) on the slab and getting more huge red welts from insects my immune system has never seen.

Fortunately, the Spanish couple and their driver was in the neighborhood of the host families, and Larissa fished it out of my satchel and it was brought with about 20 minutes to spare.  Those 30 minutes I waited were by far the longest of the trip.  I had flashbacks of our 23-day ordeal to get Matthew that had been prolonged NOT thru our fault.  We got the passport and were all good to go to Moscow the next morning.  Bullet dodge number two.

We had one more nice evening with Larissa and Vladimir, and we gave them the dictionary, as well as some tea and cooking untensils from the US.  Larissa asked if we could send them some photos of us and the boy, and I promised we would.  Fortunately, our agency works in Orenburg often and could send items to them.  We will forever remember them.  While we could have done without the massive insects that made their way in to feast on us, and we could have used a couple real mattresses, it was worth it to get to "go native."

We flew out of Orenburg at 8am Saturday morning local time, and Andrew was pretty good on the plane.  I was so comically cramped in my middle seat that I held my arms over my head and clasped the seat back for there was no other place for my arms!! Lori responded to my plight by tickling my armpits and laughing....

Julia met us and took us into the heart of Moscow to the Marriott Tverskaya hotel.  En route, she reviewed our documents and confirmed we had everything we needed. We got to our room and beheld its nice vaulted ceiling and the bed.  The BED,.... THE QUEEN SIZED, INSECT-FREE BED!!!!  As I touched its softness, I could hear a choir of angels, things were looking up!

To be continued....

Jim (and Lori)

We arrived at the Marriott Tverskaya in Moscow late in the morning, but mercifully, we were allowed to check in as soon as we arrived.  I spotted a Sbarros across the street, and went and got us a small pizza on which to engorge ourselves after days out in the hinterland.  We couldn’t do that every meal tho.  Breakfast in the hotel was $20 per person for a CONTINENTAL breakfast.  (Cough- wheeze) Since I can only slit my wrists so deeply, the first thing I set out to do was find out where there was a grocery store nearby.   The front desk clerk steered me to a 24-hour grocery that was a half a block away behind the hotel.  It was a godsend.

We spent the weekend walking up and down Tverskaya street in Moscow.  The weather was unseasonably warm and clear.  Not grim and rainy like last time.  The fact that we were doing this about two weeks earlier in the year than with Matthew probably helped. 

On Sunday, I scouted out by myself taking Moscow’s underground metro to the huge underground mall near the Kremlin.  My beloved cheap high-speed internet was only three stops away from “Belaruskaya,” the station nearest our hotel.  The tour guides are correct.  The Moscow subway system has very elegant-looking architecture, and is nice to look at in its own right—nothing like the bland generic Washington, DC Metro.  Touches of Art Deco.  Only 15 rubles (about 65c) for a one-way ride anywhere.  There really isn’t English printed anywhere, so one needs to at least learn the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet to get a feel for what the signs are telling you about the stops.  Once I got to Red Square OK, I rode the Metro back and got Lori and Andrew, and we all went to Red Square.

As we got out of the station near Red Square, we heard a bearded man rabble-rousing with a Megaphone.  Several of his flunkies were waving old soviet flags and signs with Lenin’s picture on them.  I could hear the words “Putin” and “Capitalist” in his diatribe.  The local cops, some on horseback, let them have their say.  Later, we spotted them in a procession to Lenin’s tomb at Red Square itself.  Old Commie diehards.  God bless ‘em.

The human and non-human scenery were grand.  In 2004, I thought Russian women were hot.  In 2006 I can say they are STILL hot.  The young women of Moscow present themselves very well, are very seldom overweight, and have a penchant for high heels.  No flats, even.  The only tennis shoes we noticed were on one of the very very few pregnant women we saw.   In both Orenburg and Moscow, whenever I saw a woman on the street holding hands with a younger child, there was always only ONE child.  Anfisa chalked it up to economic uncertainty.  If a couple has any kids at all, they only have ONE (that they KEEP anyway).

The situation is looking a little brighter of late, though, and Anfisa our translator in Orenburg told me she has seen more pregnant women waddling about than she has seen in 10-15 years.  Not long ago, Putin was exhorting his nation to be more pro-creative.  One journalist wrote that Putin is now Russia’s national phallic symbol.  The Moscow Times (English, delivered free at our hotel) had an article saying this offending writer is looking at jail time and/or the loss of a couple months’ wages.  Freedom of the press in Russia?  HA!  (At the time of this web recap, the Russians just buried Anna Politkovskaya, the noted journalist and outspoken critic of Russian policy in Chechnya.  Seems she had an unfortunate run-in with a hit man in the lobby of her apartment building).  Uncle Joe Stalin is looking up from Hell with a grin on his mustachioed face.

Over the weekend, I started looking to pick out who the foreigners were.  I used the same tactic Russians use.  Look at the shoes.  Russian men wear mostly black or dark brown leather shoes, even with denim jeans.  When they wear athletic shoes, they are always these thin-soled moccasin-like Adidas or something.  Therefore, when someone (like us- cough) strolls around in comfortable, thick-soled athletic shoes, it’s a good bet it’s a Yank.

On Sat and Sunday evening, we had Bjork Cinema in our room on our little portable DVD player once lil Andrew went to sleep, which he did readily.

Most other weeks, we would be getting our visa on Monday, and we would have gotten an immigration physical for Andrew over the weekend somewhere for a slightly higher fee.  However, Julia our Moscow translator informed us that not only does the US Embassy staff in Moscow take every US Federal holiday off (see Columbus day disaster of our 2004 trip), they also take every RUSSIAN holiday off AND they don’t work on the fourth Monday of every month.  They make an American Department of Motor Vehicles look like Japan.   Soo, we had to content ourselves with getting the boy his mandatory physical on Monday at the same large children’s hospital complex near the Embassy- like we did with Matthew.  We were with Jack and Renee from Virginia the whole time.  Their girl needed a venipuncture for an HIV test, since she had a positive result at one point in her past that the doctors think was from intermingling with mom’s antibodies conferred by the mother’s infection.  This little girl’s mother died this year—probably of AIDS.

It was like Déjà vu, down to the same building, exam room, and even the doctor himself.  The doctor was a very friendly Russian named Boris, who I remembered with Matthew.  He wore a button on his coat that read “famous doctor” and he was very friendly.  He deemed Andrew in very good health but with underdeveloped leg musculature.  Dr. Boris expressed confidence that Andrew’s legs would catch up once he had somewhere to crawl to.  As with Matthew, Andrew decided during the course of his exam to cut loose with some serious number one.  Unlike whizzing upward into Dr. Boris’ face like Matthew did, Andrew let it go face down, and I felt it spread across my Dockers since I was leaning against the exam table trying to help.

We then went to this same subterranean photo shop to get his US Visa photo that we did with Matthew’s adoption.  Again, it was like we were there just yesterday.  Julia took us all to Arbat street, one of Moscow’s oldest for souvenirs.  I bought a sheepskin (or so the vendor told me) Russian Navy hat.  It is a big furry black thing with the fold-down flaps for the ears.

Typically, Russian facilitators for American adopting couples prepare all the paperwork and application for the American immigration visa since these are the people who translate the court decision etc. into English.  All the couple has to do is wait for their afternoon appointment to meet with Embassy staff to answer a few questions and get the visa.  It was on this day of the process in 2004 that the main facilitator of the agency for Matthew’s adoption called to admit that he forgot about the new regulation that he was supposed to have also obtained Matthew’s Russian passport as part of the preparation materials.  Back then, we were staying so far away from the Embassy in the Moscow outskirts that there was no time for someone to pick it up.

We were dreading getting any call in the morning at our hotel, and we got none.  We and the VA couple were all ferried to the US embassy to get the kiddies their visas.  It was nice to see all the other American couples and their new children.  Not as many as last time, since perhaps court dates had only recently picked up from the summer vacations.  The American staffer asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to just talk with her about what the whole experience was like these days from an adoptive parent’s perspective.  I thought that was rather progressive and unusual from a federal bureaucrat.

I declined to participate since it dawned on me that really, our whole process to that point had been PERFECT.  Really.  There was not ONE thing our agency could have done better paperwork-wise.  Andrei was a wizard in Orenburg.  Julia was a nine-year pro in Moscow.  This was all getting done about as fast as possible considering we had to wait around over a weekend.  Also, the agency made sure we got from our pediatrician a letter we needed to get the 10-day appeal period waived.

I listened in on some other fellow telling his tale.  Turns out that during his court hearing, the prosecutor, whose job it is to look out for the interests of the child vis-à-vis Russian law, unearthed a great-grandmother of the child he was adopting who had NOT been contacted about the child’s pending adoption by a foreigner.  His adoption proceeding was suspended, and he and his wife had to wait around in that city for four more days until the old lady could be tracked down and consent given.  At least they waived his 10-day waiting period… Thank God they look so hard after the interests of the child (sarcasm warning!).