Monday, July 21, 2008

What do you mean we have to paperchase again!? This is some kind of sick joke isn't it? There's really a hidden camera in here right?


Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray? If you haven't, it's basically a movie where a man keeps waking up and re-living the same day until he finally gets it right. I think this movie is a perfect metaphor for adopting from Russia. You see, in Russia you have to do TWO dossiers. That's right, two wonderful, frustrating, exhausting, can't believe they actually want this level of minutiae - dossiers. It's sort of like a buy one get one free sale (the signs for these in stores in Russia say "1 + 1 = 1")... except you don't get anything free with these. Come to think of it, YOU don't actually get anything in them. Hmmm... I guess it's not a buy one get one free sale after all.

Our original dossier had just about everything one could imagine... unless the one happens to be a Russian court official. It's rather amazing what they can imagine. A certified, notarized, verified, apostilled copy of the deed to your home only shows that you own a parcel of land... not a house. A recent post on Our Little Russian Peanut describes how fun this can be. Therefore, we have to include a letter from a Realtor (Thanks Andy!!!!) documenting that we actually have a house on our parcel of land that has so many square feet and so many rooms. We have to have a CPA write a letter verifying that our financial statement is correct. We need a letter from the benefits office at work verifying that the children will have medical insurance. We need a letter from the State Medical Board that says licensed physicians are allowed to make diagnoses. There are lots of thing like that. Ah, I love a good paperchase in the evening. It's so personally fulfilling :-/

Here's the fun part. If we can get it all done by the end of July (i.e. 2 weeks from when we got home from Russia), then there is a CHANCE that we MIGHT POSSIBLY, get a court date in August... maybe. At first I didn't think we could do it, but, as of tonight, we only have 5 documents left! We MIGHT actually make it... maybe. If we don't, we won't get a court date until October. This was a HUGE concern for me because the program that I run at Ohio State is up for re-accreditation and we were scheduled to have our on-campus site visit, you guessed it, this October. Being in Russia for 3 weeks was going to be an interesting juggling act.

Fortunately for us, the Lord provides once again. Just today I received a call asking me (telling me) that the accrediting body would move my site visit to the spring cycle so that I wouldn't have to do it at the same time as the adoption. Praise God! Oh, and just for a little icing on the cake the Lord is providing, out of the blue I was offered an opportunity to review a textbook and make suggestions on improvements and it comes with a $500 honorarium. $500 won't go far for the second trip... but it goes a lot farther than $0 does. God is good. Keep us (and several governmental agencies) in your prayers that we might get these documents quickly.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Hotel and Meals in Stavropol


One of the things about which we were very curious was what the accommodations would be like in Stavropol. A lot of Russian adoption materials say that you should not expect Western standards in Russian hotels outside of Moscow. We've read tales of no heat, no hot water, no English, etc. We were also interested in how the local cuisine might appeal to non-Russian palates. We learned on the Internet and from our agency that there are two hotels in Stavropol, the Intourist and the Euro. We have seen some pictures online and we were able to find the Intourist on Google Earth... but not the Euro Hotel. We stayed at the Euro Hotel and were very pleased. It's a lovely hotel and a place that just about any American would find comfortable. Our stay was in July 2008, so I make no guarantee about future prices but I'll list what we paid.

The Euro Hotel is located about 1 block north from Lenin Square in Stavropol. If you've looked at Stavropol on Google Earth, it's easy to find Lenin Square (just look for the big statue of Lenin in front of a large building with a large paved courtyard). The Euro Hotel is quite modern and the rooms were nice. It looks to be pretty new and is clean and well maintained. They are adding additional floors, but the construction was not an inconvenience for us. It's not the Ritz Carleton, but it's perfectly comfortable. The front desk always had someone on duty who spoke English and they accepted my Visa credit card. They have an ATM machine in the lobby where you can get cash (rubles) using your credit card if you need to. Unlike American hotels, you pay for your room each day or you can pay for the whole stay up-front. The hotel also took care of registering our passports and travel visas. This cost 200 rubles each and it had to be paid in cash up front. The lobby has a business center with a computer with Internet access. It cost us 20 rubles (80 cents) for 30 minutes of use (before 5:00). There is also wireless Internet throughout the hotel. You pay by the amount of data you send/receive instead of by the day. We bought the 29MB for 100 rubles ($4) plan. They also have something like 125MB for 500 rubles. 29MB was fine for us for 4 days of blogging and a few emails. The business center also has a travel desk where you will buy your tickets for your domestic Russian flight back to Moscow. The travel desk would also accepted my Visa card for a 1% fee. The Euro Hotel includes a breakfast bar in your room cost. They had Kasha (think thin oatmeal or grits), eggs, sausages (think kielbasa), Blinny's (think crapes) with sour cream or jam, yogurt, bread pudding, hard boiled eggs, Cinnamon bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, candied cheese (think ho-ho sized chocolate covered cheesecake), and pasta. It seems that pasta is common in Russia. To drink they had coffee, hot tea, soda water, compote (think thin fruit juice), milk (think half and half... almost undrinkable to me and I LOVE milk!) and kefir (soured milk... not for the timid!). Eating a big breakfast is recommended because Russians don't usually eat lunch... and neither will you.

There is a lovely marble and decorative wrought-iron staircase and modern elevators. They have rooms with and without air conditioners. Our room cost 2400 rubles per day (~$100) and had two twin beds, a small refrigerator, a desk, television (seeing TV shows you recognize with Russian voice overs is a hoot!). The bathroom had a shower (not a tub), a western style toilet (not the porcelain hole in the floor you find in the Moscow airports), TOILET PAPER (unlike the Moscow airports) and towels (but no washcloths). They also had shampoo, soap, shower gel and a shower cap. They also had little bags where you... how to say an indelicate thing delicately... where you put your used bathroom tissue instead of flushing it down the toilet. There are no irons or hairdryers in the rooms. You can get a hairdryer from the housekeeping ladies on each floor (call the front desk). You borrow the hairdryer and return it to housekeeping as soon as you are finished with it. Oh yes, I almost forgot. The electricity. It's 220V 50Hz current and it uses a European plug. To use American electronics, you need a plug adaptor (we paid a couple dollars for one on Ebay). We saw a little kiosk in the shopping area selling them for 100 rubles ($4). If your electronics use dual voltage (almost all laptop power cords, video camera power cord, etc), then all you need is the plug adaptor. If the electronics are not dual voltage, you'll need a transformer. They are HEAVY and you only have a 20kg baggage limit... go buy a dual voltage curling iron... you'll be glad for it. Oh, I almost forgot. If you want to use the electricity in your room, you have to put your room's keycard into a slot on the wall to enable the plugs to work. It keeps you from wasting electricity when you aren't in the room. There's probably a good lesson in that idea.


You can purchase bottled water and groceries (and a soccer ball) at the 24 hour supermarket that is around the corner (out the front door, go left, around the first corner and you are there). The supermarket girls had quaint uniforms that reminded me of a 1950's supermarket in America. They also were constantly baking fresh bread that smelled great. Most of the bottled water is soda water (they like it fizzy in Russia). If you can't read Russian, you can shake the bottle gently and look for the bubbles to see if you have regular water or soda water. They also have Coke and Pepsi (diet is called "light"). We also bought some cookies and things to try to stuff more calories into the kids. You don't need to be able to speak Russian to shop there. They ring you up and the total is displayed. You just pay and go.

In addition to the supermarket, the hotel is located in a very swanky shopping district. It reminded me of Easton for those who know the Columbus area. There were almost exclusively western stores (Gucci, New Yorker, etc) and they all play American dance music in them and sell clothes with English on them. We had a hard time finding anything Russian. We were able to find some Matryoshka dolls (nesting dolls) in a shop on the first floor of one of the "malls" (not the Galleria, the other one). The dolls were MUCH MUCH MUCH less expensive than the ones in Sheremetyevo airport. There are also several good restaurants along the shopping area. Yuri at the front desk of the hotel can give you recommendations and some had English menus available (the hotel restaurant has an English menu available). Yuri at the front desk is AWESOME... he can help with anything you need. We enjoyed the shish-kabob restaurant he recommended quite a bit. The restaurants in this area cost us about 800 rubles (~$35) for dinner for including diet Cokes and the customary 10% tip. If you are adventurous enough to wander down several blocks, you can find much less expensive eating... but be prepared to play charades to try to order if you don't speak Russian. We found a Pizza place that also had ice cream. Ice cream is VERY popular in Russia.

Reading this post, you'd think Stavropol is very upscale. The area around the hotel certainly fits that description (except for the falling down building next door). If you walk a half-mile, it changes to much older shops. Go a little further than that and you find crumbling fences and poorly maintained cottage sized houses. Other areas have rows and rows of Soviet era concrete apartment buildings.
The hotel area is clearly THE upscale part of town and is not reflective of the rest of Stavropol.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Back in the States... but not home yet


We made it back into the US Friday afternoon after an uneventful flight. At least the flight was uneventful... the airport in Moscow wasn't. Mark's cell phone was pick-pocketed in the airport. Next time, we'll know to not have a cell phone on the belt and to keep it in a pocket instead.

We're spending a few days at Lisa's parents in Alabama and we'll return home on Monday. Once we get back, we'll post several more posts about our trip to Russia. We learned a lot and have lots to share.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Overnight in Moscow


We just arrived in Moscow and are now in an apartment. It's actually the "city" apartment of our driver. He and his wife will spend the night in their "country" apartment. Renting us the apartment is MUCH cheaper than us spending the night in one of the "American" hotels in Moscow. It turns out that Moscow has the most expensive hotel rooms in the world. It is kind of neat to be able to see an actual, in use, apartment in Moscow. It's not very big by American standards, but it's quaint and very much a home. The driver's wife even made us dinner and left it in the oven. Very kind of them.

We arrived here at 10:30pm local time at the new (larger) international airport that is used by American Airlines and it took us over an hour to get to the apartment. The new airport is much nicer than the airport we originally flew into (used by Delta). We flew here from the airport at "Mineral Water"... a 2 hour drive from Stavropol. Doing so let us take a later flight so we were able to spend part of the morning with the kids. It was EXTREMELY difficult to tell them goodbye. Gena cried... over the pretense of having to put on his school uniform because the camp was taking a group picture today. He later confided that he cried because he doesn't want Mama and Papa to go back to the US without him. He wanted to know how long it will take for us to finish the papers and come back. He decided that the answer was "too long". He is really ready. Yana became jealous today. When Lisa comforted Gena, it was hard for her. She's been in the mother role for him far too long. It's clear that it's going to be very difficult for her to learn to be a child again and let Lisa do the mothering. It's now 12:30am local time and the driver will pick us up at 8:00, so we'd better get to bed.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Papers Please


In Russia, official papers are very important. The kids have no biological father because no father is listed in the official papers. I'm pretty sure they were not another case of immaculate conception, but officially, they have no biological father. That's the way it is... end of discussion. When you are doing business in Russia, particularly when it involves offical papers, you DO NOT mix in idle chit-chat or make pleasantries. Business is business and social graces are not. You do not mix the two. If you try, they just look at like you should be focusing on the paper you silly American :-)

Like yesterday, today was split between the kids and business. We spent 90 minutes with the kids in the morning, and then had to leave to go to the notary to sign the documents for “officially” accepting the referral. These were a set of three documents. One where we formalized our intention for assuming parental care for Gena, one for Yana, and one that goes to the ministry of education. We had a new translator for this part and he indicated that the fee the notary charges is 1000 pyb. (rubles) [about $40]. Once we had the papers completed, we were informed that the fee had changed and it was now 500 pyb. per document. Typical Russia… things change almost weekly. In fact, when we asked the translator what to expect for out next trip for the court date, he replied that he would not give us that information now because it will be different next week, let alone next month or the month after. We’ll get the most up to date info right before we come.

Part of the documents involved listing the names we intend to adopt the children under. We have discussed this at length for months and we were pretty set on a boy’s name. We’ve really been struggling with a girl’s name however. We poured over more name lists yesterday and settled on two finalists. I really liked one more than the other and I think it fits Yana’s personality. When we asked the children if they would like to have new American names for when they come to America, they both said “da”. We gave them each two choices. We had a lot of fun taking American names and trying to write them out phonetically using the Cyrillic alphabet. Apparently we didn’t do too badly because Yana could read them and said them correctly. She chose the name I liked more. She also attempted to choose the name she liked best for Gena. He, as usual, deferred to his older sister’s judgement. We’ll post the names after we tell them with Beth and Luke when we get back home (they can already guess Gena’s new name). It was a little different for the kids to no longer have patronymic names where they middle name is an adaptation of their father’s first name. They have new first names and we are keeping Yana and Gennadiy as their middle names. When they are older, they will be able to decide which name they prefer to use.

In the afternoon, we went back to see the kids and Gena had a note for his “Mama”. It seems that he cried after we left (one of the other boys was calling him a crybaby). The note was clearly written with the help of one of the caregivers to help console him, but it ended with “I love you Mather and father” in English in a child’s handwriting. Gena is really starting to bond. Both kids are VERY excited about joining our family and they want to go with us now. We had to be careful when discussing today’s official papers with them so as not to give the impression that the process is finished. They wanted to know when were coming back to get them and we told them that the choice is not up to us. We told them October (there are no court hearings this September we have learned), but there is a chance that we might be able to get an August date if we can get the rest of the court dossier paperwork together by the end of the month… we’re now on a mission. We gave the kids a new soccer ball today and spent a lot more time playing soccer, checkers and chess. They play what we now call Yana-Gena checkers which is where you make up new ways to move your piece to suit your particular need at the moment. Need to jump 4 spaces diagonally over a couple rows… no problem.

Tomorrow morning will be our last meeting with the kids. We have to fly out tomorrow for Moscow because all of our in country coordinators say there is no chance we will make our Moscow – US flight at 12:55 if we take our originally intended Stavropol – Moscow flight that arrives at 10:00. The drive between airports is too questionable with bad traffic to risk it. This disappointed greatly because we had specifically been instructed by our travel agent to confirm with our adoption agency that this would work. We had two different flights we could have taken from Moscow. Our agency said that we would be OK taking the earlier flight. Turns out that they were mistaken. Make sure you have at least 4 – 6 hours between flights or you are in trouble. Take heed! We’ll travel to Moscow on Thursday, spend the night there, and fly home on Friday. Our regional coordinator has been very gracious and found a way for us to spend some time with the kids on Thursday by flying out of a different airport (2 hours away). He didn’t have to do that, but we are very thankful that he did. I can’t say enough good things about the job he has done for us in Stavropol.

We do not expect to be able to get an internet connection where we will be staying in Moscow tomorrow night, so we probably won't be able to post anymore to the blog until we return to the states. We love you and thank you for all your prayers. See everyone soon.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Stavropol Day 3


Today involved meeting with the orphanage director, assitant director, and doctor to learn about the kids. They also let us see the areas where Yana lives (bedroom, classroom, play room) but we couldn't see Gena's area because it's being renovated while the kids are at camp.

After that, we traveled to the camp to spend some more time with Yana and Gena. It was only an hour because they had to go for lunch and nap time. We came back to camp at 4:15 and spent around two more hours with them. Gena was much more enthusiastic about joining the family and coming to America. Both kids are worried about learning English. We asked about their favorite foods and it turns out that they like to eat macaroni and cheese (or at least the Russian version of it). They also like to drink Coca-Cola, so we got them each a can as a special treat. We also asked them if they wanted to join our family... and they both said "Da" with big smiles. We were also able to get some measurements for clothing for when we return to Russia for the court date.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Meeting the Kids


Today we met our children. They are not at the orphanage this month. Instead they are at “camp”. Before we could meet them, we had a few hoops to jump through. All that travel to have to wait… welcome to Russia. We first had to get the permission of the Ministry of Education. The Minister has a meeting every Monday morning, so we had to wait until that was finished. Then, we traveled to the orphanage to give them the ministry’s permission document and to get the orphanage director’s permission document. We had to take one of the caregivers from the orphanage with us to the camp to supervise our meeting. When we arrived at the camp, the (armed) guard at the gate had to take our documents to the camp director before we were allowed to enter. When it started raining, he had pity on us and let us wait in a building for the camp director. The kids were brought to that building to meet us.

When they first met us, they were a little shy… but Yana took control of the situation. She ordered her brother to take “Mama” by the hand while she took “Papa” and led us to a small gazebo with a picnic table where we spent much of the day. We looked at pictures of America and played with toy motorcycles and floam (no one here had ever seen floam before). We also played with a beachball that looked like a globe (played volleyball and used it like a map to show our route of travel), played with bubbles (big hit!), and Yana had a great time taking pictures and showing the "crowd" where we were from. She very quickly figured out our camera and our video camera and seems fascinated with electronics. We also played a game of “futbol” (soccer) where Mama and Papa played goalkeepers. Watch out Beth... they are both strikers.

Our impression is a good one. The kids really needed a bath and several good meals, but they seemed happy and reasonably well adjusted. Yana was eager to start bonding and Gena did not resist the idea. The hardest part was the group of boys (and a few girls from a distance) who followed us EVERYWHERE and used every English word that they knew to try to impress us. It was clear that they wanted a chance to have a family and come to America. They were trying so hard to be “worthy” so that maybe we’d pick them. One boy in particular really made an impression. He even tried to give us a 5 ruble coin (about 20 cents) as a souvenir of Russia and so that we’d remember him. Another girl stayed on the fringes, but kept looking like she was going to cry. This experience is both wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Stavropol At Last!


We made it! FINALLY! The 9 hour layover really took its toll after an 11 hour flight. It seemed to take forever to finally be able to get on the last flight from Vnukovo airport (over an hour away from Sheremetevo 2… if you are making this trip in the future, you had better plan at least 4 hours between if not the 6 they recommend). We are absolutely exhausted. We’ve now been awake for 32 hours now and we can really feel it. We made the trip with 2 other families from our agency (1 is here for trip 2 [court] and the other is for trip 3 [went home instead of doing the 10 day wait in Russia]). Our regional coordinator met us at the Airport and drove us to the Euro Hotel. It seems very nice… but more on that later. We have VERY limited internet access, so we probably won’t be doing much email. If you want to get us a word, leave a comment in the blog. Good Night.

A Brief Stop at Red Square


On the way to the second airport, our driver stopped off at Red Square to let us look around a little (we had a 9 hour layover… there was plenty of time). I find it really hard to believe that the world has changed so much in my lifetime. In high school, my idea of red square was time magazine photos of military parades complete with missiles and tanks. I never imagined that I be standing there 20 years later. Now, it’s full of tourists and cameras. St. Basil’s Cathedral is every bit as impressive as you always hear. We also saw Lenin’s tomb, but we didn’t have time to tour either of these… maybe on trip #2. My impression is that in Moscow, the free market economy has taken root more than I had guessed. There is also A LOT of new building. Construction cranes are everywhere. There is a mix of Soviet era ugly concrete apartment buildings along with very elaborate new apartment buildings. Much of Moscow you could easily confuse with a U.S. City (signs printed in Cyrillic aside).

Russia Trip 1 Begins


We’re now officially traveling for trip 1 of our Russia adoption. We left Lisa’s parents in Alabama at 9:30am Central time to drive to Atlanta for our flight. It’s going to be a very long day. Our flight to Moscow was 11 hours and took us north over Tennessee, West Virginia, up across Maine, Newfoundland, and out over the North Atlantic. We stayed just south of Greenland and Iceland and the first land we saw was Norway. I never realized how beautiful the mountains in Norway are. We landed in light rain in Moscow’s Sheremetevo 2 airport at a little after 10:00 am local time. The problem is that it was 2:00am to us (Moscow is 8 hours ahead of Ohio). We tried, but were unable to sleep on the flight, so we’re going to be exhausted by the end of this day.

Friday, July 4, 2008

It's Time To Go...

It's time to go.
Can you believe it?
It's time to go.
Can it be true?
It's time to go.
Are we ready?
It's time to go.
It's all coming true.

We are on our way... almost. We drove to Alabama yesterday to spend the Holiday with Lisa's parents. They will also watch Beth and Luke while we are in Russia. We fly out tomorrow from Atlanta. Our flight to Moscow is direct and will take 11 hours. Then we have a 9 hour layover in Moscow before our flight to Stavropol. During the layover, we will be changing airports. Moscow has 5 airports and the domestic and international flights are at different ones. Fortunately, we have an agent in Moscow who will meet us at the first airport and take us to the second. Our flight from Moscow to Stavropol will be around 2 hours. Adding up our drive to the airport, our check-in, flight, layover, and flight, we'll be traveling around 27 hours... not including the drive from the airport to the hotel in Stavropol. I think it's going to be a long trip.

Beth and Luke are struggling a little today. Luke has been a little distant and Beth has been on edge. Luke finally told us that he's afraid we're going to Russia to get a new boy to replace him. His private insecurity tore at my soul. We spent a long time today explaining that we're not adopting because we think he needs to be replaced... just the opposite. We're adopting because we have a family that we want to share. I can't wait to give Luke as a brother to a child who needs a family. Beth is feeling frightened that something will happen to us while we are away. She doesn't know what she'll do without us. You see, a small plane crashed in Stavropol recently and she's afraid about our Russian flight. We had to explain that the crash was a small private plane, not a commercial one.

It's already been a long trip... and I haven't even discussed losing 2 hours in traffic in Cincinnati or how Lisa put my wallet through the washing machine yesterday morning before we left.

... more to come (assuming I can get an internet connection in Stavropol).