Mourning The Lokomotiv

When the Yaroslavl Lokomotiv plane crashed last month, killing virtually the entire team, I wasn’t prepared to be so grief-stricken. I attended a Lokomotiv game when I was in Yarolslavl — I wrote briefly about it here — and had a wonderful time. It’s the only professional hockey game I’ve ever attended. The love the city had for its team was so clear and evident — the team was a tremendous source of delight and joy for the people of Yaroslavl. All I could think about for days, weeks, after the crash was the grief of that wonderful city. I followed the news. The thought of the people. I remembered. I mourned. They still mourn.

I haven’t really been able to bring myself to write about it until now, and there’s not much to say. My thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Yaroslavl in their time of tragedy, but also in their times of joy. My experience there was amazing, and I will always be indebted to them for the warmth and hospitality they showed me, and for all they taught me. They will always hold a special place in my heart.

May the members of the Lokomotiv rest in peace, and may their loved ones and the city that loves them find comfort and healing.

Here is a recent story on the loss.

The Internet’s Influence On Free Speech In Russia

Another great article from the NYTimes. Media-bashing is quite fashionable these days, but the fact is that some of the bravest and most unacknowledged heroes in history are journalists, including those that covered 911. When I was in Russia, I saw so much fear among its people to speak freely, even though the country was officially a democracy. I’m really happy to see that the blogosphere is inspiring a new generation of Russians to speak/publish freely and to fight for the right to do it.

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November 13, 2010
Attack on Russian Journalist Stirs Online Allies
By ELLEN BARRY and ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — Two years ago, Oleg Kashin was sitting in a sleek little coffee shop around the corner from the Kremlin when a novelist walked in and punched him in the face.

The fight had begun online, during an exchange that included such phrases as “a legless bum that crawled out of the sewer” and “unprincipled prostitute” and “primitively smash you in the mug.” In the course of the beating, the novelist said he realized several things about his adversary. First, despite his shock-jock online persona, Mr. Kashin was not a fighter. Second, he was not afraid.

“I began to look more attentively at him,” said the novelist, Eduard I. Bagirov. “I think that if you hit him in the face it won’t scare him, he does not care.”

Mr. Bagirov was right. What Mr. Kashin did after that was take on bigger and bigger enemies, including some who had the support of the Kremlin.

On Nov. 6, when Mr. Kashin was beaten nearly to death outside his doorway by unidentified assailants, his name was added to the list of journalists who have been silenced through violence in Russia, alongside opposition icons like Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, who were both killed.

But Mr. Kashin, 30, is from a different generation — one wary of both the state and the opposition, one that has flooded the Internet and come of age speaking freely there. And his brutal beating with a metal bar has hit a nerve somewhere deep in that group.

More than 30,000 Russian Adoptees Returned

An outstanding article by the New York Times yields this fact. THIS ARTICLE also provides terrific insight on why there are 700,000 or so orphans in Russia, and how the system profits from warehousing children rather than leaving them in their homes or making them available for adoption.

The orphanage depicted here is not like the orphanages where I worked. It seems better equipped and staffed, but given the frequent question from children cited by the orphanage worker at the end of this article, the children apparently aren’t much different.

I’m pasting the article below, but THIS LINK is worth clicking on; it leads to photos and a nice Back Story audio clip by New York Times Radio.

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May 3, 2010
Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

MOSCOW — There is nothing dreary about Orphanage No. 11. It has rooms filled with enough dolls and trains and stuffed animals to make any child giggly. It has speech therapists and round-the-clock nurses and cooks who delight in covertly slipping a treat into a tiny hand. It has the feel of a place where love abounds.

What it does not have are many visits from potential parents.

Few of its children will ever be adopted — by Russians or foreigners. When they reach age 7 and are too old for this institution they will be shuttled to the next one, reflecting an entrenched system that is much better at warehousing children — and profiting from them — than finding them families.

The case of a Russian boy who returned alone to Moscow, sent back by his American adoptive mother, has focused intense attention on the pitfalls of international adoption.

But the outcry has obscured fundamental questions about why Russia has so many orphans and orphanages in the first place.

In recent days, senior Russian officials have begun to acknowledge how troubled their system is.

The chairwoman of the parliamentary committee on family and children, Yelena B. Mizulina, spotlighted what she said was a shocking statistic: Russia has more orphans now, 700,000, than at the end of World War II, when an estimated 25 million Soviet citizens were killed.

Ms. Mizulina noted that for all the complaints about the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, by his adoptive mother in Tennessee, Russia itself has plenty of experience with failed placements. She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families.

Child’s Return Spotlights Need For Two-Sided Reforms

This story is sad. It highlights the need for international adoption reform by both countries. On Russia’s end, with three-quarters of a million Russian children without parents, less than 2,000 a year are nade available to American adoptive parents who would give them good and loving homes. Why? Overall, Russia makes a very small percentage of parentless children available for adoption, and often, the children that are available have serious problems. On the U.S. end, it’s past time to take a look at standards, due diligence, screening and placement practices of American adoption agencies.

Adoption freeze urged after boy returned to Russia
NATALIYA VASILYEVA and KRISTIN M. HALL, AP
Fri Apr 9, 12:01 PM EDT

A top Russian official urged Friday that all child adoptions by U.S. families be frozen after a woman from Tennessee put her 7-year-old adopted Russian grandson alone on a one-way flight back to his homeland.

The grandmother, Nancy Hansen, told The Associated Press from her home in Shelbyville, Tennessee, that she put the child on a plane to Russia with a note from her daughter. She said the family paid a man $200 to pick the boy up at the airport and take him to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.

She said that boy had been violent toward his mother in the U.S.

A previous string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong — including at least three in which children died — had already made Russian officials wary. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the latest incident the last straw.

The boy, Artyom Savelyev arrived unaccompanied Thursday in Moscow on a United Airlines flight from Washington.

The Kremlin children’s rights office said the boy, whose adoptive name is Justin Hansen, was carrying a letter from his adoptive mother, Torry Hansen of Shelbyville, Tennessee, saying she was returning him due to severe psychological problems.

“This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues,” the letter said.

Most orphans have parents

This article from the BBC caught my attention. It is certainly true that most orphans in Russia have parents: 90% of them are social orphans, but I don’t think the coersion is as prevalent there as it seems to be in other places. Here’s a snippet of the article:

A new report says that at least four out of five children in orphanages around the world have a living parent.

The charity Save the Children says some institutions coerce or trick poor parents to give up their children.

As a result, the report says, millions of children are put at risk through living in an institution, and face rape, trafficking and beatings.

Save the Children says resources should go into projects which support families so they can look after their children.

To read the full article, click here or the link above.

The New Fertility Destination?

Apparently, Russia is becoming THE place for couples seeking fertility treatment because of its low costs and willingness to work with older women.

For more info, click here.

Cyberdiplomacy

Cyberia appears to be a new frontier for U.S.-Russian diplomacy, according to an article in today’s The New York Times:

June 28, 2009
U.S. And Russia Differ on Treaty for Cyberspace
By JOHN MARKOFF and ANDREW E. KRAMER

The United States and Russia are locked in a fundamental dispute over how to counter the growing threat of cyberwar attacks that could wreak havoc on computer systems and the Internet.

Both nations agree that cyberspace is an emerging battleground. The two sides are expected to address the subject when President Obama visits Russia next week and at the General Assembly of the United Nations in November, according to a senior State Department official.

But there the agreement ends.

Russia favors an international treaty along the lines of those negotiated for chemical weapons and has pushed for that approach at a series of meetings this year and in public statements by a high-ranking official.

The United States argues that a treaty is unnecessary. It instead advocates improved cooperation among international law enforcement groups. If these groups cooperate to make cyberspace more secure against criminal intrusions, their work will also make cyberspace more secure against military campaigns, American officials say.

Another Letter From Anton

Anton and I have been staying in touch on a regular basis, and I’ve received a number of letters from him. I received one a few days ago that I thought I’d post — it seems to give a nice idea about his life and the kind of kid he is.

Hello, Julie,
This is Anton, I am doing fine, answering your question about the hospital – i went to the hospital just for a check, i do not have any pains, it was just a medical examination.
Julie, I go in for sports, I play soccer, volleyball, basketball. I also can balance a stick on my nose, I learnt to do it myself, nobody taught me this.
I can speak and read a little English, I like to read about animals and birds, I also like to have a walk and perform tricks from high roofs.
Julie, my [CD] player [that the incredible Glenn gave him and told him was from me] got stolen at night by the graduates, I had put it in a cabinet. I got an A for my dictation, and a B for my test.
Here’s my short story, I don’t have a photograph.
Love

He also drew the flower in this photo. The caption says, “This rose is for you.”

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BusinessWeek ran a great story recently about how the global economic crisis is affecting Yaroslavl. I highly recommend it to everybody!

The BusinessWeek article is accompanied by a slideshow of terrific photos. Be sure to check them out!

Did You Know?

This video was created by Karl Fisch, an administrator at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colo., for teachers at his school. It was later tweaked by Dr. Scott McLeod , coordinator of the Educational Administration Program at Iowa State University.

Fascinating. Must watch.

On an unrelated note, I received another letter from Anton recently. He’s doing great!

Russia: The Land

Lovely slide show from the New York Times on agrarian life in Russia, including the influence of the church and the challenges that the villages face.