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This article was written in Russian by Julia Kolesnickenko on 3 December 2014. Julia was kind enough to translate the article into English for us to help get a better translation than what Google Translate provides. Remember to Like us on FB to keep up to date on what we are doing to help make things better for the children.
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Sadomasochists Against Cannibals
We are sadomasochists; at least, according to President Putin. Really, how else do you explain why, despite all the hopelessness, we do not forget about this subject?
On December 13th at 17:30 at the festival of documentary films "Artdokfest" the Russian premiere of the documentary "Children of the State" by Olga Arlauskas and Nikita Tikhonov-Rau will be shown. Our family unexpectedly became one of the main characters of this film. Why?
Two years have passed since Dima Yakovlev’s law was signed. Two years ago, my husband, journalist Alexander Kolesnichenko, while questioning President Putin at a press conference, called this law "cannibal" in a last attempt to attract the attention of the authorities and the public to what’s going on and in the desperate hope to change something.
It so happens that we already had been involved with our orphanage system before our officials decided to use children
in their political games. We started with the most obvious: bringing gifts to
the kids in the orphanages, collecting diapers, and corresponding with children
in institutions. But we eventually realized the only thing that really works is
adoption. No, I'm not trying to belittle the work of volunteers - their
participation in the lives of children in state institutions is necessary, and
sometimes even priceless. I;m afraid even this participation has some need for improvement -
but let’s talk about this another time.
We are not heroes! We're just
ordinary people, that we were able to only adopt one child from the system. That’s how we got our son and our daughter
got a younger brother. That’s how we all became twice blessed. But, having
learned from experience what our orphanage system looks like, we could not
forget it. We had to help other children find their parents. In a few cases we succeeded - and, hopefully, will do it again.
Let me remind you that one of the vices of the Russian orphanage system is based on the fact that it’s not about finding the child suitable parents but parents searching for a certain type of child. After all, there are much less prospective adoptive parents than there are children. Which means you can choose: please, give me a young one, with no health problems, without bad heredity, without siblings, Slavic appearance, and
the one that make my heart sink at the sight of them ... In my class for
adoptive parents, for example, there was a lady who wanted only a young,
healthy, blue-eyed girl. Unfortunately, most
the children are not young blue-eyed girls but instead they are teenagers, children
with serious illnesses and disabilities, brothers and sisters, who by law
cannot usually be separated.
We know the amazing people in our country who take the most "difficult" children, literally saving their lives – I’d like to bow to them! But we also know that these people are very few ... Much less than children who urgently need help. There are few in our country and not many in others. But if we put this "few” and "not
many" together the children have a chance! Also we should remember that
foreign adoptive parents are more often ready to take orphans with disabilities
simply because in their countries and societies they offer these children more
opportunities.
We always believed that if you can’t do good thing yourself at least try to support someone who can. And certainly do not interfere! It seems for us that having hundred thousand orphans, most of whom have biological parents alive, knowing that every year this number is replenished by more than half; the government should raise the alarm.
All efforts must be directed at the prevention of child abandonment, promoting the adoption should be heard from the TV and radio, and Mr. Astakhov and his colleagues should not sleep until the last orphanage is closed - or, at least, turned into a small family type home.
But no - we are reducing the number of orphanages only by uniting them. Instead of promoting adoption Ombudsman Astakhov is promoting only himself,repeating like a mantra the tale how we the queue of future adoption parents
are growing. And politicians, wondering how to hurt the West more suddenly
decide: look, we have orphans! We have almost as many of them as oil. And,
oddly enough, these crazy foreign adoptive parents need them as much as oil.
Let’s punish them - and we will not allow them to take our children anymore. And
the whole subject will sound so urgent and patriotic: our children should live
here!
Because of the adoption ban every year thousands of children lose their chance for a family. Some of those who two years ago could have had Moms and Dads, some are no longer alive. Some of them, fortunately, still got to go to families - in Russia or in the countries where it was still possible to adopt. But too many are still in orphanages and apart from their American parents, who are still trying to reach out to us with a desperate plea, "Please help these children grow up in a family - if not
in our country, than in yours!" “Don’t let them be forgotten!"
I cannot explain how painful is to read the letters of these parents. When the pain becomes unbearable, I write another article, trying to tell you about Kolya, who was separated by this ban from his brother, about Lera, a little girl with Down syndrome, who has yet another birthday with no family this month, about Dima, who was promised to be cured by doctors in one of the best American clinic but instead is still crawling on his hands on the floor in orphanage in Tver region, about Dasha, Arina, another Dima, about two other brothers who not only lost parents due to the ban but each other when they were transferred last year to different orphanages, about Nicolose, ‘butterfly-boy”, who in a few months should be moved from the baby home to the orphanage that
could mean death from sepsis to him.
I write because I do not know what else to do.
Because it's the only thing I can do. Because at least one child from this
list finally got a family. Because to keep silent about it is even harder than
to tell. That’s why all of us, me, my husband and our children agreed to participate in the documentary of Olga and Nikita. Documentary film makers, in no way connected with the orphanage subjects, they also were shocked by the cynicism of the law and could not stay away. "This film is not political, - says Olga Arlauskas. - Making it, we didn’t take the side of either Russia or America or Europe. We have tried to take the place of
children. And it was very scary.
We, by the way, we are also scared. It
is one thing to let people who were unknown at first but became very close after in your home and in your soul and it's quite another thing to put everything very personal, and most importantly – our children in public. We are scared even now, because we have not even seenthe movie yet. And, although we trust the professionalism of the authors, we admit that we can have a different vision. And of course we feel we very uncomfortable - why us? We’re not heroes at all! But even scarier of all this
is the thought that these children we’ll be forgotten. That everyone will believe
that all foreign adoptive parents are monsters and that the orphan crisis is almost solved in our country and citizens do not need to worry about it. That the whole
orphanage system aimed in self-reproduction, will continue to eat children, and
we won’t do anything to stop it ...
However, the real heroes of this film, of course, are not us. They’re Katrina Morris, her husband Steven and their five children – three biological sons, adopted daughter from US Foster Care and Lera, forever locked because of the ban in Russia. Lera has Down syndrome. Children with this diagnosis in Russia are rarely adopted and quite often abandoned. Katrina and Steven had collected all the necessary documents and were waiting for a court date when they heard about the ban on Lera’s birthday. Now instead of being home with Mom, Dad, brothers, sister, friends,school, Disneyland down the street and a long happy life, Lera will face moving from an orphanage to mental institution for adults and then to a special nursing home - if she is still alive then.
Katrina and Steven, like many other parents, still fight for Lera and for the rest of the children. That’s how we met. Katrina was the first of many American parents whom we knew in those first days of despair. Each of them longing to adopt children with disabilities in Russia...
And the last thing: as you may heard Mr. Medinsky (Russian culture minister) said that "festival "Artdokfest" will never get any money until I am minister of culture"
because its organizer Mr. Mansky "pronounced so many anti-state things ."
So everyone including the authors, the heroes and the media will have to buy
tickets to watch this film on their own. Let it be at least some sign of
support for the children, parents and the project itself ... And I hope to see you all on
the 13th of December.
