Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 3, 1994 TAG: 9401030050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET SHAPIRO THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Long
At Moscow Orphanage No. 5, New Year's and Christmas preparations began some time before the holidays. The youngest children practiced carols taught to them by an American church group. The older kids made cards and tree decorations out of eggshells.
But one main holiday ingredient was missing: The 80 children who live here, toddlers to teen-agers, had no family but each other with whom to celebrate.
These are the unwanted and unneeded offspring of Russia, some of the 69,000 youngsters who live in its orphanages and baby homes. For years the number of these children had been falling; now, tough times, stress and poverty have taken their toll and the numbers are rising.
Only a small fraction of these children, maybe 4,000, are actually parentless. At Orphanage No. 5, only five are. The rest have been abandoned by parents, often alcoholic or severely ill, who do not want their children anymore and cannot cope. Sometimes the state has simply deprived the adults of their "parental rights" and taken the children away.
"It has just become very hard for many parents to support their children today," government analyst Nikolai Shrykin said. Russia's restrictive adoption laws and prejudices against children of alcoholics allow very few such children to be adopted; most will spend their childhoods in places like Orphanage No. 5.
Solemn-eyed Renat Rublyov, 5, is a typical casualty. A few weeks ago his mother, disheveled and hung over, according to staffers, appeared at the weather-beaten door of the orphanage's dilapidated two-story building on the outskirts of Moscow with Renat and his sister, Rada, 3.
"Here," she said as she handed her children over, staffers recounted, "I can't take care of them anymore," and then she fled. Today, her children are adjusting to a life of dormitories with rows of numbered beds, caretakers who all are called "mama," and a "family" of 12 or so other children of the same age.
Renat seemed relieved over his changed circumstances. He told his nanny a few days after he arrived, "I will not love my mother anymore." His sister spent the first few days crying, and now sits quietly with her small peers, looking a bit overwhelmed.
From now on, possibly until they turn 18, they will be fed and educated by the state, clothed by foreign humanitarian assistance and fussed over by an army of nurses, aides and tutors before being turned out, alone, into the world.
Orphanage No. 5, situated in the midst of a typically drab Soviet cityscape of grimy high-rises, is full of similarly depressing little histories that even the best efforts of a caring director and staff will never wipe away.
There is the 4-year-old girl whose father killed her mother in a drunken brawl. He sits for a lifetime in jail. Her hands trembled as she sat quietly at a tiny desk one afternoon, eating a milk-and-roll snack.
There is Dilyara, 13, after 10 years here the longest resident of the orphanage. His father died long ago and his alcoholic mother has had one child after another, all turned over to orphanages. Occasionally her mother comes to visit, I don't miss it at all. I think it's better here. Denis, 10 Son of an alcoholic mother had been homeless before entering the orphanage. but she is inevitably drunk, reducing the girl to tears.
And there is Denis, 10, who lived in train stations and other such places while his mother spent all her money on vodka. He did not go to school until he came here a few years ago. Denis looked almost cross when asked about his past life. "I don't miss it at all. I think it's better here," he said, and then went on reading with his best friend, Viktor, 11.
"We love them all. They are all great kids," said orphanage director Isolde Peterson, 57, who after 20 years of this work still cannot fathom how parents could have abandoned the children. "You can't call these people parents. They're happy to be without them. They just don't want their own kids."
Despite the hard economic times in Russia, Orphanage No. 5 and others are doing better. The government has ordered group sizes reduced, so only a dozen children, instead of 25 or more as in the past, live together with a rotating staff of about six caretakers.
A steady flow of humanitarian aid from overseas has improved the physical surroundings. The orphanage still has an institutional feel and the dimly lit, dreary corridors of virtually all Russian public buildings.
The cupboards are stuffed with jeans, sweaters, warm socks, sneakers, boots, bright sweat shirts, skirts and dresses.
"Our children, materially speaking, live better than the children in the surrounding neighborhood," Peterson said.
These children have also been able to do what even most Russian adults only dream about - travel overseas on summer vacations, thanks to the sponsorship of a German company. One little girl found a family to adopt her during a trip to Spain last summer.
Still, there is little romance to the life here. The day is highly structured, from 7 a.m. wakeup to 9 p.m. bedtime, so that nothing gets too far out of hand. The youngest children sleep in numbered beds that match the numbers on their bathroom cups.
And at holiday times, when most lives revolve around home and family, it can be hard to be without a family, particularly for the older children who better understand how they are different.
At Orphanage No. 5 they set up trees for New Year's, as is the tradition here, and festooned them with homemade decorations. They also practiced skits and songs for a festival that day. Peterson collected treats for the children and planned a special meal for them.
But, she said, "Every child wants to have a family. I can't compensate for the emotional damage of not having one. Not even beautiful conditions can replace that."
by CNB