Update from Glenn

I joyfully received an update from Glenn today, one of the volunteers I worked with in Yaroslavl. He lives in England and has returned a few times and looked up a few of “our kids.” He also sent me this link to the orphanage where one of the kids we worked with is now. Here are the interesting parts of his email:

Hi Julie,
… I went there the first week of April … I … saw Nadia and Brian, who are both well. I stayed at the Kotorsol hotel just for the 1 night. Nadia mentioned that because of certain problems with regulations, the maximum stay with [the program] in Russia was possibly going to be reduced to only 3 weeks.

——’s orphanage is one of the better ones in that the director does try to give the children a skill that they can use when they leave, and some of the children are able to stay there until about age 20 instead of 18. The one thing the orphanage lacks is any toys or books for the kids, or computers!! … I actually took 4 russian children books with me (one was like the Guiness Book of Records), and the books were well received.

I am hoping I may be able to supply a couple of computers to [this particular] orphanage so the kids can have some computer classes, because knowledge of computers is so important these days.

… I made sure all the … boys in [the] group had a little gift, just before I left [they] began giving me little notes of paper with requests of what I was to bring them on my next visit!! Very sad but very touching – it was the same with birthdays – the boys were writing down their names and birthdays on little bits of paper and giving them to me, because they wanted me to send them a birthday card. I think I should make a film about my visits – light hearted comedy, some touching moments, and then hard hitting moments when you wonder what life and the world is all about.

Quite [odd] how this place come to be built in the middle of nowhere I do not know – about 15 miles to the nearest town. It is not even in a village, just a few houses dotted around, but perhaps it is to stop the kids running away!!!

I will let you know when I next go over there. The director said it would be good in the summer because of the long school holiday, so there is an outside chance I may go back at end of July, but if not then, it will be in October. In August we are having our 2 boys from Belarus stay with us again in the UK for 3 weeks- they are now 18 and 11 and so I get plenty of chance to practice my russian!!

Keep in touch – Best regards, Glenn

I came across this article in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution and it really made me think of my time in Russia. I can remember walking through the artists markets in Russia — Yaroslavl, Moscow, St. Petersburg — and thinking how all the art really looked alike — lots and lots of landscapes, and the occasional realistic portrait. It made me sad to see such talent homogenized with little to no indication of individuality — the artists were clearly trained that there was a “right” way and a “wrong way” to execute their talents. I also remember reading the English-language newspapers in Moscow and St. Petersburg and wondering what kind of approval or censoring process they went through before publication, because they struck me as the most candid information I’d encountered during my time in Russia. Not that they were strikingly critical or revolutionary — they weren’t, but they were actually newsy rather than PR spin. I remember reading about a bombing at a Burger King in St. Petersburg when I was there and some demonstrations against a local council vote. In Moscow, I remember reading about the arrest and persecution of gays who were demonstrating near the Kremlin. Perphaps I was simply deprived of English language news at the time, but I remember wondering if the news in the English newspapers was being sanctioned and really appreciating the creative freedom of being a writer in the U.S. and never having to worry about my work being censored or sanitized. These thought were especially poignant to me in St. Petersburg, because I was reading “Putin’s Russia” at the time, the final book by Anna Politkovskaya, and we all know what happened to her, right?

If not, click the link on her name.