Epilogue

We flew home on Sunday, July 17th. The flight was 11 hours long, and for the most part, Dasha was a real trooper. But she would lose patience with Sharron, and yell at her. And it wasn't so much an attempt to communicate, as it was lashing out. In the airport we met a woman who was raised in Russia, but has been in the U.S. for 12 years. At one point during the flight Sharron asked the Russian woman to explain to Dasha that she needed to have some patience with us.

We landed in Seattle expecting to catch a connecting flight to Oakland. Unfortunately, the travel agent only booked TWO tickets through to Oakland, and all the flights were full. While Dasha didn't evidence any desire to continue on to Oakland with us, we thought it best to take her. We had to get a hotel room in Seattle, and fly home the next day. It was aggravating, but it did lead to one cute event.

In restaurants in Russia, we'd get an English menu for Sharron and I, and a Russian menu for Dasha. In Seattle, when we got into the Coffee Shop for Breakfast, they gave Dasha a children's menu in English. She looked at it, then got up, marched over to the Register and requested a menu 'pa rooskee' (in Russian). The hostess was dumbfounded by this tiny person making demands in Russian. It was the last time Dasha expected anything to be in Russian. Welcome home.

We drove ourselves home from the airport. When we approached our house we found it had be decorated for our arrival. It was so sweet. There was silver tinsel, and signs welcoming Dasha home.


Living in a Sociology Experiment

It is odd. It feels like we're living in a sociology experiment. We can't communicate what is going on, and she can't communicate how she feels. There is an amazing level of stress. Sharron is on duty 16 hours a day. Dasha is old enough that she needs activities, but since she doesn't speak the language, or have any hobbies or friends, it falls on Sharron to be with her.

We had been told to expect a 'honeymoon' period of a couple of months, when a newly adopted child is on their best behavior. They want to make a good impression, and are scared of being sent back. After that, we should expect to see some troublesome behaviors as she adapts, and even some anger at the strangeness of her new situation. So you might have thought that Dasha would arrive here, and just be floored by having a family and home. HAH. She takes it all in stride. She's not so much grateful as annoyed. Where's the Honeymoon? I want the Honeymoon.

I really can't blame her. No one speaks her language, except Papa, who has the vocabulary of a 3 year old, and can't pronounce anything correctly. But I must admit that I find it hard to understand her tuteledge when she's yelling it at me. She actively refuses to learn English, and gets mad at me when I speak Russian. But English is destined to win. Between cartoons and Barbie.com, she will be assimilated - resistance is futile.

I love the way she walks through the house yelling "Maaaama, Maaaaama, I hachu shtoneeboot". (mama, I want something) I wish I had a recording for you. It is so insistent, with an inflection so foreign.

No food must ever go to waste. So if she doesn't want to finish something, she feeds it to us.

But every day she seems to like us more. One of our cats, Q, has taken to sleeping on her bed, it's very sweet. We go swimming on most days. She pretends she doesn't like Papa, but it's just an act to avoid intimacy. When she needs something, she's plenty willing to get it from me. And once or twice we've actually played together a little. I swam with her in the pool, and chased her around the house.

But what I really want to communicate is that it is hard. It is hard for her, and it is hard for us. She's a trooper, and I admire her courage and fortitude.

Sharron sings her lullabies every night. The first few nights home, Dasha didn't want the words, so Sharron would just hum. Last night Dasha asked for the words. Dasha gently touched Sharron's face, and said 'mama' with each touch, on the cheek, the other cheek, the forehead, etc.

There will no doubt be many ups and downs. But this will work. After Sharron put Dasha down, and recounted the face touching incident, I said to her, "you've saved one little soul", in her wisdom, Sharron replied, "yes, mine".

Peace.

Back in Moscow

It's late Friday evening. Sleeping Beauty and her assistant are in bed. I'm not tired (rarely am), so I went out to play. I stopped by the Pochta (Post Office) and got some Russian stamps for future correspondence. I had blini for dinner, and bought a new book. I had a latte (oh how I miss Peets), and did my blog.

The various housekeeping tasks of the adoption have kept me so busy that I don't have time to make Blog entries. What does it mean when the activity gets in the way of writing about the activity? I've been further hampered by poor internet access in Moscow, and I even LOST a post. It was my best - by far. I'll try and re-post the information, but I fear that magical prose is lost forever.

After our day off in Kemerovo, we flew to Moscow. It was a 3 hour 45 minute flight, and we lost 4 time zones. So we landed in Moscow BEFORE we took off from Kemerovo. Modern technology make such weirdness possible.

In Moscow, we started with a Doctor's appointment for Dasha. Each child has to be checked out, and cleared for entry into the US. We then went to the US embassy to get her an Immigrant Visa into the US, plus an application for Citizenship. She will become a US citizen the minute she sets foot on US soil. Given our flights, I suppose she will technically be a Seattlite.

The adjustment has been hard for Dasha. She was worn out from the long flight and all the paperwork. We had a break at our hotel before the embassy visit, and she was unwilling to leave the hotel and head for the embassy. I had to pick her up to get her out of the Hotel room. Once underway she was cooperative. But it's obvious that all this is overwhelming.

Here's the quintessential Russian Adoption photo. It took a surprisingly long time to find some one to take our picture. I often offer to take other people's picture for them (with their camera), but that seemed to be an odd offer to most folks here. We finally found a guy from Oklahoma who took this shot of us.

Major streets don't have crosswalks on the surface. Instead you descend into an underground tunnel called a Perihod. They have small kiosk shops, and often a Metro entrance. This was a particularly nice entrance.

In this Perihod we found a guy selling bootleg copies of DVDs. We bought 1 DVD with Garry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (they don't have a soft H in Russian), and two other DVDs which EACH have 10 videos on them, things like Shrek 1 and 2, Madagascar, really recent stuff. Each DVD was $5. We thought it might be nice for Dasha to have a few videos in Russian during the early transition at home.

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A day in Kemerovo

We didn't do much today. We finished all the adoption paperwork that is required in Kemerovo yesterday. We got Dasha a new Birth Certificate, listing us as her parents. That allowed us to get her a Russian Passport. It's Red and has a cool two headed eagle on it. Mama gave Dasha a pedicure.

After supper we went for a walk. We walked to the river and over this bridge.


On our walk back, we found this park.

We leave for Moscow early tomorrow morning. It will be nice to be starting toward home.

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One More Moore

It is now official, and real. We have Dasha with us, and it is magic (though far from easy). This picture, while not charming, reflects the reality. We got a call from our agency (boo, hiss, mumble, mumble) yesterday evening saying that there was a change in plans. Rather than driving to her orphanage to pick her up, the director of the orphanage was going to bring her to us at the hotel. Imagine 2 very unhappy people. We objected. See Fait Acompli in your dictionary. There is great symbolism in claiming a child from an orphanage. The imagery is much less pleasant when she is 'delivered' on an anonymous street corner. She was in tears, and extremely scared and uncomfortable.


On our first walk, she was silent and sulky. We sat on a bench, with Sharron and I searching for some way to ease her discomfort. I held out the camera, and took a picture of myself. Then I showed it to her, pointed at my woeful double-chin, and said 'tolstay' - Russian for 'fat'. And she giggled.

And I took her picture, in the same hold-out-the-camera-without-looking-through-the-view-finder way. And she made her trademark Dasha face. And she laughed.

And once again, I held out the camera, and I took Sharron's picture. And we all laughed, relaxed, and began our adventure in earnest.



Fast forward 6 hours. We've gone on a couple of walks together. We bought a book at the book store. We've colored. The video of Sharron feeding Dasha Cheerios, one O at a time, is priceless. She is more at ease, and more playful. Every word of Russian I have learned has been of use, and the soft, gentle touch of my wife is magic.

One last update. We are at "The Chicken House". This Russian fast food restaraunt was so named by our travelling companions from North Carolina. We had Chicken for dinner, and for desert, Morozhenoye - Ice Cream.

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Our Day in Court

Our day in court was an interesting affair. Neither of us were nervous going in, for a couple of reasons. First, the Kemerovo Region is very adoption friendly. While some judges in other places will have a 2 hour hearing, it is usually over in about 30 minutes in Kemerovo. Second, as an older couple, with other children, in a community with many Russian Emigres, we're a no-brainer for approval.

Perhaps I'm difficult to deal with. You be the judge. We're on the steps of the Court house, waiting for our hearing. The agency rep says she needs payment, and hands me a scrap of paper with $4,100 dollars as the total. That's just this payment. Many have preceeded it. She requires Cash. In $100 dollar bills. I ask for a signed receipt. She refuses. What? You expect me to hand you $4100 dollars in cash, but you can't give me a receipt? They actually call our Agency in Oregon so they can explain to me that no receipt will be forthcoming. I can think of very few reasons why some one would be unwilling to issue a receipt, and frankly, none of them are good. I am told, flat out , that I can pay up, with no reciept, or end the process. No pressure there.

I'm used to the Pirates. I fork over the cash. This is about one little girl, not cosmic right and wrong.

Court was harder than expected. The Judge speaks Russian (no real surprise), and we get simultaneous translation from our person, Svetlana. It was surprisingly hard to be looking at the judge talking in Russian, and listening to Svetlana translate in English. We were fed the proper answers, and gave them at the correct times. After 20 minutes of the prescribed protocol, we broke for the judge to consider her ruling. After 60 seconds, we were summoned back into the court and awarded custody of Dasha.

We're happy and relieved, but the we're-too-shady-to-give-you-a-receipt experience was unpleasant. We spent the rest of the day goofing around. We went shoe shopping with the couple across the hall from us. They needed smaller shoes for their little boy. We walked a few miles, then I finally hailed a cab and asked him to take us to a place with a kids shoe store. It is amazing the words I can string together. I belive his answer was "The cows are on motorcycles - film at 11:00".


The cabbie took us to a Mall. 3 stories, 60 stores, food court, holy cow this could be Kansas. There were 10 shoe stores, and we found some they liked. We spent 45 minutes in the grocery store in the base of the mall shopping for supplies. It just occurred to me that this was the anchor store, not Macy's or Nordstroms. It was very much like one of our upscale supermarkets, but just not as big - and the labels were in Russian/Cyrillic.

When we returned to our room, our day took a nose dive. We received a call from Svetlana letting us know that we would not be driving to the orphanage to pick up Dasha tomorrow. The orphanage director has a meeting in Kemerovo, and she'll bring Dasha to us. I say no. There is a lot of hopeful symbolism in retrieving a child from an orphanage. The reality we were to face was far different.

I dug in my heels, but it was obvious that we had no options. To complicate the situation, we had planned on locating Dasha's grandmother when we picked up Dasha. Prokopyevsk is 3 hours away, and it was the only way to do it. If we didn't go pick her up, there was no way we could look up the grandmother. And we had added in an extra 3 days to our trip (for $1,000), to accomodate this side trip. We went to bed unhappy, to say the least.

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Welcome to Kemerovo

This is the Hotel Kuzbass. I would not have thought that anything could make me long for the opulence of the Rossiya in Moscow. There is a very strange feel to the Kuzbass. The first oddity was the elevators. The doors were literally 30 inches wide. Our rolling suitcases barely rolled in. Once inside, there was room for 4 people - who are on friendly terms. Next we arrive on the landing of our floor, and the protocol is derived from times gone by. We hand a card with our info on it to the Dyezhurnaya (key lady), and she gives us our room key. This woman is like a Conceierge for the floor. She dispenses keys, extra pillows, and reports your commings and goings to the KGB.

Our room is so small. I forgot to pace it off, but it couldn't have been more than 10' x 10'. I found it interesting that when we first got in, I was shocked and dismayed, and felt like we'd been shuttled off to the worst hotel in town. But after a day, it was just home. I actually have fond memories of the place. We had a choice of an Eastern or Western Exposure. We chose Eastern, with the morning sun. We checked in at 9:00 AM, and it was 90 Degrees in the room by 9:30. No air-conditioning. But we had hopes of being cool in the evening.

My favorite aspect of the room was the 'baseboard' in the bathroom. At some point they had painted the baseboards in the room a chocolate brown color. They continued the line into the bathroom - where there was NO baseboard, so they just painted the tiles. Note the swing arm on the faucet which serves both the sink and the tub. The toilet runs non-stop, almost by design. The bathroom door was held closed by a friction fit. There was no mechanism on the door knob, just a piece of leather on the door jamb that wedged the door shut.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the Kuzbass. It was by far the most rustic of our accomodations, but it just fine. If I could be transported back for a weekend visit, I'd jump at the chance.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the "Sunflower" restaraunt - so called because of the plastic sunflower decorations that adorned the patio. It was a delightful place. They had 1 english menu, and we ordered off it. The waitresses were far more pleased by my attempts to speak Russian, and the food and prices were extremely reasonable.

This is the exterior of a small grocery store across from the hotel. Note how plain it is.

And this is a shelf in the interior. All of this was behind the counter. In the center of the store were a few free-standing refridgerated cases you could reach into. But for the most part, some one had to hand you anything your were to purchase.

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Novodivichy Monastary

Today we visited Novodevichy Monastary. It is known for being a good example of surviving 17 Century Architecture. There has been a lot of burning, sacking and looting in Russian history. Just being old is an accomplishment.



We began our tour in the cemetary. I've never seen anything like it (is it me, or does every entry start this way?). It was the largest concentration of extravagant burial monuments I've ever seen. Imagine the largest Forrest Lawn you've ever seen, with a Telephone Booth sized monument on every grave. Each grave contained multiple people. Often husband and wife, but many kids and siblings. The only one we recognized, out of thousands, was Nikkita Kruzchev. Residents from the Soviet period predominated. The soviets may not have expoused a belief in God, but they certainly celebrate their comrades in death.

The Monastary is also impressive. It is encircled by Fort walls, and was a point of defence for Moscow. The French occupied it in 1812, and tried to destroy it when they left. They lit the fuse on dynamite packed into the main cathedral. Nuns in hiding emerged when the french left and extinguished the fuses. The nuns are listed as honored combatants in the War of 1812.


This is the private chapel of a businessman built in the 19th century. His firm survives to this day. This is included as further proof to Mr. Kuhlman that we are not in Vegas.

Here are some interesting monuments.





Why yes, that IS a monkey on his shoulder. I'll have to remember that when my time comes!

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Izmailovsky Market

Izmailovsky Market is a HUGE outdoor market with hundred of booths selling souvenirs to tourists. Thousands of Matroshkas, Russian Medals, Birch and Laquer boxes. If the Arbat is Chinatown, Izmailovsky is Tiajuana. Part of a single aisle is pictured. There were dozens of aisles. The Russians do everything BIG.

We strolled around the market for a couple of hours selecting items we would eventually purchase. We decided that Randall would return to Izmailovsky after we take custody of Dasha. The airline charges for over-weight baggage out to Siberia, and we were already at the 40 pound limit. So next Saturday Randall will return alone to pick up souvenires and gifts.

We ate Sashlik for lunch. Sashlik (pronounced sash-leek) is meat that is cooked on a skewer. I've eaten several, and all were overcooked. I asked for Beef, which they explained was Pork. That would account for the 2 helpings of beef I had in restaraunts which tasted suspiciously like pork! It was quite atmospheric, but the food was just OK.

Riding the Metro is quite an adventure. Some of the signs are tansliterated to english characters, but none of the instructions are. My ability to decipher Cyrillic has been invaluable. I look at the Metro map, and figure out where we want to go . This often requires 2 transfers, on 3 lines. At each station, we have to figure out which line to get on, which line to transfer to, and which direction to go. We've gotten pretty good, but it took a couple of days. For example on this sign, we want to head for Taganskaya (ТАГАНСКАЯ). Can you find it on them sign, and figure out which way to go?

The Russians do not seem to appreciate my efforts to speak their language. There are 3 distinct reactions. On the first day, I would formulate a question, and do a good job of asking it, so I'd get an answer far beyond my ability to comprehend. Other people look at me as if I were saying "Blue Martians are eating the Eiffel Tower - butter the blinni!" The most annoying reaction comes from the people who allow me to struggle, indicate that they don't understand me, then speak to me in fluent english. They NEVER say 'good job', or 'nice try'. These people make the French look friendly.

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Blisters on our feet

I wish we'd brought a pedometer. We're on our feet almost all day, and we both have blisters. Sleeping Beauty is down for the count, and I'm here in the internet cafe.

Our major activity today was seeing the Armory Museum. It is part of the Kremlin complex, and houses the Royal Treasures of Russia. There are possessions of the Royals, many being presents from visiting nobility. The collection includes 84,000 items, and over 4,000 were displayed. Words simply cannot convey the overwhelming number of treasures.

We hired a guide to take us around. For $15 you get to skip the line, and have some one to tell you what you're seeing. Individual items are not described in English, so having a guide is really helpful. It also created a delightfully eerie situation. We went in with our guide, and it was a crush of humanity.
People were packed together trying to listen to their guide's lecture, while tuning out every one else's. There would be 20 people in from of a display case, with 2 or 3 different guides, speaking different languages. Sometimes we'd get a case to ourselves, but often not. I didn't take a picture specifically of the mobs, but this gives you an idea.

Now fast forward to the end of the tour. We left our guide at the door and went back up to the display hall to have a view of the treasures at our leisure. There were NO OTHER PEOPLE!
It was spooky to be the only people in a 5,000 square foot hall that had contained hundreds of people 30 minutes before. It appears that groups are admitted every hour, and they all get herded through by their guides. When they complete the treasure room, they all move to the Carriage Room, for 15 minutes before the next admission, the Treasure Room is EMPTY.

This is a Gospel Cover. There were a dozen of these. All in gold encrusted with jewels. This one has cloisenay on the cover.





This is an air freshener (click the picture to enlarge it). Apparently the world was a malodorous place of yore. It wasn't clear to me if they just stuffed it with nice smelling things, or burnt incense. But it was quite a bit more beautiful than any thing available from Johnson and Johnson!

This is a sailing ship goblet. Mostly I'm including this shot to show you how each case had 2 dozen fabulous objects, and there were dozens of cases.


Finally, we went through the Carriage Room. Pictures cannot convey the grandeur of these vehicles. There were about 20 of them, all huge and magnificent.

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Sightseeing the Arbat

This part is just a sightseeing journal, not related to the adoption. I'll try to keep from boring you with 'slides from our vacation'.

I awoke at 6:00 AM and went out to find some coffee. $8.00 in the hotel bar - and it just wasn't that good. I walked around the hotel at 6:30 AM. It was interesting to see Moscow as just another European city. It simply isn't as mysterious and different as I thought it would be.

We went sightseeing on Arbat Street. It is an enclave of shops about 1 mile long. It struck me as being very similar to San Francisco's China Town, but in Russia. There were loads of street vendors and classic Russian souveniers - Matroshka, painted laquer boxes, birch boxes. We didn't buy much.

We had breakfast on the deck of a cafe. We're dressed disguised as young Russian women in order to evade the authorities. A Russian from Texas overheard us lamenting our language defficencies and gave us a few pointers.


Here we are at a statue. I don't know it's history, or significance, but it was shiny.

Ron Kuhlman doesn't believe we're in Russia. So this sign gives some indication that we're not really in Las Vegas. Please note that this is not an establishment at which we would dine.


After the Arbat, we went to see Christ's Church. It was originally built to celebrate Napolean's defeat. But it was destoyed by the Soviets in the 30s. In the 90's, Muscovites voted to rebuild it. They did so in 5 years, and it is magnificent. It is just huge, and has the kind of granduer one sees at St. Peter's in Rome. Note the people visible at the base of the building.

Finally, here are a couple of shots of the Rossiya (pronounced rosSEEya). It gives some idea of it's size. This is one side, there are 4 just like it.


And the inside. Note the spacious luxury - NOT.

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We've arrived in Moscow.

Our trip to Moscow was uneventful, if long. Flying through Seattle, we flew a polar route to Moscow. We were so far North, that the sun never set, even though we took off at 4:00 PM Seattle time, and landed in Moscow at 3:00 PM the following day. Here's a picture out the plan window over Greenland. That's an awful lot of snow for July 5th!

There was a group of 16 High School Juniors and Seniors on our flight with t-shirts that said 'Camp Siberia' on them. It's a group from Seattle which flys to Russia every summer and host a summer camp for orphans. What a small world.


The view out our window is fabulous. We overlook the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral. There was a huge gathering outside the Kremlin for the announcement of the winner of the 2012 Olympic Host City bid. Moscow was a hopeful. Unfortunately for our hosts, the 2012 games were awarded to London.

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We're Leaving for Russia!

We got "the call", and we're leaving for Russia on Tuesday, July 5th. There had been much uncertainty about when we would travel. We had been told June 20th, but the paperwork in Russia took longer than expected. We applied for Visas, and sent updated paperwork to Russia, but it wasn't until Thursday June 30 that we found out we'd be traveling 5 days later!

We'll arrive in Moscow on Wednesday, July 6th at 2:00 PM. We get to spend 5 days in Moscow sightseeing and goofing off. Our Court date is July 12th in the Regional capital, Kemerovo. After the hearing we'll drive 3 hours to Prokopyevsk, and claim our girl. We then have 2 days of paperwork in Kemerovo. The only concrete task I know of is getting an updated Birth Certificate which reflects the adoption. But I'm sure there's more to do.

On Friday, July 15th we return to Moscow for more paperwork. Our daughter will get a medical checkup, and we'll apply for an immigrant visa at the US Embassy so she can enter the US. The processing can't be completed in a single day, so we'll be staying in Moscow over the weekend. We hope to do some sightseeing with our new daughter, but a lot will depend on her temperament and ability to handle her new surroundings. We'll finish the paperwork on Monday, and return to the US on Tuesday, July 19th. We'll be home around 8:00 PM, after a 12 hour journey.

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Our First Trip to Russia

Adopting a child in Russia requires that you travel to Russia twice. Before you travel on your first trip, you have to fill out a ton of paperwork. Then you are matched with a child in your specified age range and gender. This is called "getting a Referral". After you get a Referral, you travel to Russia on Trip 1, to meet the child. If all goes well, you sign paperwork committing to adopt the child and return home. About 2 months later you return to Russia for a court hearing, which finalizes the adoption, and you bring your child home.

We left for Russia on December 13, 2004, and had a ball. The trip started out on a positive note when we got upgraded to Business Class. The seats were wider, and it was a flying 7 course gourmet meal. It simply could not have been nicer, and set the tone for our entire trip.


This is Sharron and Randall site-seeing in Moscow before heading out to Siberia. We've just exited the Kremlin, which is a large walled in fortress that contains a large number of governmental buildings, plus some beautiful churches with golden Domes. After spending a day site-seeing in Moscow, we flew to Novokuznetzk, a city in the Kemerovo Oblast, just 30 miles from Prokopyevsk, the city where our daughter-to-be lives. There are 49 Oblasts, which are administrative regions similar to our States, but I don't believe they have the same sort of Federal/State relationship.


Here's a picture of the Orphanage. It's called Destky Dom No. 6 (Children's Home No. 6). It's in Prokopyevsk, which is in Siberia. Note all that snow. It was actually colder in Moscow, which is further north. But the amount of snow in Siberia was impressive.

We met met our daughter-to-be on December 15th. She is wonderful. She's obviously quite inteligent, and very playful. At 8 years old, you can really discern her personallity. We feel she'll fit in quite well as a Moore.

Russian adoption laws do not permit us to share any information about our daughter-to-be until she's legally ours. But not to worry, the upcoming journal of Trip 2 will be replete with photos!

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