Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We have, of course, been come for a week or so now, but haven't been as conscientious about taking pictures as we were when we were foreign tourists.   Here are a few pictures, though:

Posing with a handpuppet monster.

The shirt reads "I love shopping" in Russian.
"Shopping" is even phonetic.

Playing with a complex marble toy in her room.
(Thanks to Liam and Madeleine for the toy!)
Teresa's showing Elena how it's done
(or possibly the other way around).

Modeling mom's shoes with dad's hat and mom's hat.

There's no such thing as too much accessorization.

(She did this herself, by the way--no prepping or suggestions.)

USA! USA!

Elena is a Russian citizen, and will retain that Russian citizenship for life, unless she formally renounces it.

She's also, now, a naturalized US citizen.  The way this works is IF:
(a) a child is under 18,
(b) she's legally adopted by a US citizen, and
(c) all the paperwork is completed so she can legally emigrate to the United States as a permanent resident alien (on a green card, in other words)

THEN she's automatically a US citizen the minute the plane touches down on US soil.

That means Elena had to travel between Moscow and Washington DC an a Russian passport as a Russian citizen, but now she's got dual citizenship.

We actually sort of marked the moment she gained US citizenship.  This was the end of a pretty long flight, and Elena was getting more than a bit fussy.  However, the end of the flight has all sorts of bumps and dips and noises as the plane approaches the runway, and Elena likes the novelty, so she was paying attention.

As we were just about to touch down, I started psyching her up with "ready? ready? ready?..." and then kaBUMP! we landed, I said "NOW!", the pilot started decelerating, and at the same time the hydraulic flap control lines started vibrating the roof of the cabin.

Elena liked the kaBUMP and the overhead hydraulic whine, so the second we touched down, her finger shot up to point at the roof and she went, "OOOOOOOooooooo!"

Welcome to America, kid.  You're a citizen now; it's your country, too.

Elena's Russian passport picture

Photos With Stories

The Plastic Bag Shapka (hat).

Elena likes to wear hats.  For most of the year, Russian kids wear hats when they are outside.  She decided that the plastic bag from the airplane blanket made a very good head covering. I rolled it up to make it cute (and safe),but had to take it off regularly when her hair got super sweaty.  Later when walking Elena around the plane to keep from getting bonker stir crazy, the stewardess recognized her, (when sans the bag for a little while),as "the baby who had on the funny hat".

 

Brushing Teeth at Dulles Airport in Washington DC.

You know things are at a very low point when brushing your teeth is the most amusing and fun thing you can do.  The next on the list of enjoyable things was going to the bathroom.  This was during the extra 3 hours of plane delay that was added onto our 16 hour trip.  Oh it was awful.

At Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

The trip to Saint Basils Cathedral was about a 3 mile round trip from our hotel.  Not a bad distance to walk on a beautiful day.  I thought that someday Elena would like a picture of herself in front of one the worlds most beautiful and iconic buildings, so we ventured out.  We figured if it was not going to work out we could go back anytime--no big deal. It was also practice for walking through the airports later, when getting places in a timely manner as planned IS a big deal.  I had to carry Elena the whole way.  She only weighs about as much as 3 gallons of whole milk, (25 pounds) but milk does not throw your glasses on the ground, stuff a hat in your face, squirm, scream NYET! NYET! NYET! when ready for a raisin snack break, or want to get down to pick up pieces of paper (bumaga!!!!).  After lots of rest breaks and raisin breaks for Elena we made it!!

Presenting: Miss Elena Ekaterina

I just flew in from Moscow, and boy are my arms tired

We finally got back home at 10:30 or so last night (Detroit time), 25 hours after we woke up in the Hotel Peking in Moscow.  Elena's going through a "clinging to mommy" stage, which is perfectly natural, but which includes the bonus "expecting mommy to carry her."  Distances in airports can be quite substantial, and the line for security screening in Washington DC was insanely long, so Teresa's arms really are pretty sore.

Elena actually took the airplane flights pretty well, especially considering she's two years old.  She slept the first couple hours of our Moscow-to-DC flight, and the entire DC-to-Detroit flight.  She started to get really fidgity at the end of the Moscow-to-DC leg, but it's a 10-1/2 hour flight, so most of the adults were feeling the same way.  Most of the adults, however, could restrain themselves from running randomly around the plane, but Elena needed a little help in that department, so it's not like it was a completely uneventful flight by any stretch.

Although the flights were mostly OK, the airports were pretty stressful.  The Moscow airport was crowded and noisy, and way overstimulating for someone used to a regimented routine in a quiet orphanage.  As I mentioned before, the immigration, customs, and especially security waits in DC were completely insane, and Elena melted down in the security line.  Then our DC-to-Detroit flight was delayed for three hours, so we got to spend a lot of extra time waiting in a large, overstimulating gate area.  She finally fell asleep at 7:30 Eastern time, just before the plane started boarding.  That's 3:30 Moscow time, exactly seven hours after her bedtime.

Still, the whole trip was far better than I feared it would be. (We were talking to another couple in the Moscow airport who had adopted a Russian boy three years ago.  On the trip to the US, he repeatedly threw up, developed hives, and screamed the entire way.  Seriously.)

We're back in Moscow

Elena did arrive on Thursday morning as expected, and all three of us have been doing family-type stuff for the last three days, which is a novelty to all of us.  Unfortunately, the hotel internet went down, so we weren't able to post anything until now; and the computer facilities in this hotel won't let me connect the camera, so pictures will have to wait until we get home.

The first day Teresa and I had to figure out exactly what Elena was like (and I'm sure she was figuring out what we were like). What does she eat?  How much?  When, exactly?  Does it matter?  What is she afraid of? How can we tell if she's sad or scared or angry?  Can we do all this without really knowing much Russian?

It actually turned out easier than I expected it to be.  We made a few mistakes at first, and there were a few miscommunications, but we all lived through the first day, and there weren't even any major incidents.  Elena's much better behaved than I thought she would be (ummm...for now, at least).  Her attention span is short, as you whould expect, but she doesn't throw many tantrums, and takes the occasional "nyet" with equanimity.  She sometimes even obeys.  We've mostly been eating in our room for meals, and she's not that messy of an eater.

We evidently know enough Russian.  It's suprising (at least to me) how far you can extend a conversation using only four or five differnt words, most of them nouns.  It's still a little frustrating, because there's an awful lot of personality within the little person, and we can't quite see all of it.  But she's learning English at approximately the same rate we're learning Russian (lesson for anyone adopting in the future: "сказать" (skaZAT, meaning "say") is an awfully useful word.  Lena, сказать 'dog.' Lena, сказать 'up.' Lena, сказать 'down.' Lena, сказать 'mama.' and so forth.
Anyway, we stayed in Arkhangelsk until Saturday morning, then flew back here to Moscow.  We're staying in the Hotel Peking, a half-mile down the street from the US embassy and a mile from Red Square.  The hotel gives families adopting kids a discount: we've got a fairly large suite with a monstrous bathroom far only a few rubles more than we paid for a conventional double in the same hotel last week.
We'll be in Moscow through Tuesday (when we pick up a visa from the embassy) and we'll fly back to the US on Wednesday.

We're hanging around in Arkhangelsk

We've got a vouple days here in Arkhangelsk to kill, so we're exploring parts of the city.  We spent a couple hours at the city's History Museum.  All the exhibits were labelled in Russian, so we weren't able to understand everything completely, but the exhibits were grouped well enough both thematically and chronologically that it was suprisingly interesting for foreigners like us.  A few of the docents didn't quite belive in our inability to speak Russian, so we got some pretty detailed explanations on local fauna, of which 99% was beyond our Russian capacity.

Some of the more interesting displays were from the early Soviet era.  Here's a couple closeups of a carved bone chess set from the early 1930s.  The evil capitalist bourgeousie:

 And the good hard-working proletariat:

Peter the Great designated Arkhangelsk a center for shipbuilding in the late 1600s.  As far as I know, they still make ships here.  The museum has a pretty extensive collection of craftsman's models of ships of many different ships from different eras.  The flat-bottomed craft at the top is (I think) a river barge.  The longer ship at the bottom is opened up to show the inner construction.

We also did a little shopping.  We found a fairly large bookstore with kid's books and games, and picked up a couple puzzles and a couple books:

Clockwise from the top, the items are: a large insect-themed 1-10 number puzzle, a wooden telephone puzzle (bolshoi to malinki sized), the book of happy vegetable rhymes, and a "what do animals eat for lunch?" book.

The view out our hotel window

We're staying in the Pur Navolok Hotel in Arkhangelsk.  It's right on the Dvina River, but we've got a "courtyard room," which is a nice way of saying the rear parking lot.

We've got a corner room, which is nice, but the view out our hotel window seems a little on the non-picturesque side, doesn't it?  The best view of the Dvina River we have is a little slice between a stand of trees and a few buildings.

 Well, the view is actually more interesting than you might think.  The obscured dome in the picture above is actually this building, part of the Gostiniy Dvor:

The Gostiniy Dvor was built back in about 1680, when Arkhangelsk was Russia's major port city, and served as the area's cargo trading center.

Not so many places in the US where one's hotel room overlooks a building quite so old.

It's raining in Moscow

We did get to spend a day-and-a-half in Moscow.  Unfortunately, the whole day-and-a-half was pretty much unremittent drizzle.  But we squelched our way through the city anyway.

Here's one one of the entrances into Red Square.  St Basil's, in the background, is obscured by the rain

Here's a closer view of St. Basil's, which is located on the south side of Red Square..

The walls of the Kremlin:

Soviet workers at the New Tretyakov Museum of Modern Art. 

We're waiting a bit longer...

...but only a little bit.

We're in Arkhangelsk, after flying in this morning from Moscow.  There's paperwork to do, but not very much of it.  We had thought we'd be able to pick up Elena on Tuesday, or Wednesday at the latest, but it turns out we'll have to wait until Thursday.  So we get to cool out heels in Arkhangelsk for two-and-a-half days or so.

Big Trips Big Changes

I'm getting nervous about keeping a child safe in Moscow! Its the NYC of Russia. Never been to NYC or Moscow before.   Exciting, scary!

Yes, many things are just common sense, but so much will be new for all of us.  Tired people don't always make the best descisions.   Just getting food will present logistical difficulties in a strange city.  I know russian food words at least...We will be getting to know each other in hotel rooms in 2 different cities, then survive a gauntlet of airports and long plane trips.   We bought lots of good snacks to dole out.

We will take more pictures during trip #3.  Its a fairly long trip, 12 days.  All of that wonderful huge Russian country is Elena's heritage.  Some things are already a part of her like the memories of favorite people, favorite foods, the sound of the language.  She will like to see pictures of everyday activities:  like markets, trains, parks, buildings etc...as well as a photo of her at Red Square(I hope).  She will always remember living in a place that overlooked a large, beautiful river. 

Lots of work/fun when we get home. I bought her a bathing suit at the thrift store--maybe we can use it once or twice before it gets cold.  I am working on making Russian style soups and salads.  They are really good.

T

Elena's New Blanket

We asked Martha Bishop to make a cozy blanket for Elena.  She crafts amazing textiles from recycled sweaters that she finds at thrift stores.  THANKS MARTHA--it turned out wonderful!  It will go along with us to Russia!  It is pictured sitting on a comfortable chair in Elena's room with Spud and Tater, two stuffed kitties I made from reused sweaters.

T.

Souvenir Magnets

These magnets show the official seals of Arkhangelsk and Kotlas.  A favorite local character of Arkhangelsk is the tasty Halibut (called Paltus locally), and The city of Kotlas loves the Red Star train that used to go to Moscow in the Soviet days.

Dvina River Geology Lessons from the Plane

You can see thousands of years of the Dvina River's history written in this beautiful succession of meanders and oxbows.  This is near Kotlas where the baby house is --400 miles from Arkhangelsk and the White sea.

Little towns nestled within the many channels of the Dvina River.  The river is even bigger further north 50 miles or so, where the delta expands and empties into the White Sea.

You can see why fresh fish is on the menu for every meal in the area!  YUM!!

Some Pictures from Kotlas and Arkhangelsk

The plane flights from Arhkangelsk to Kotlas are only twice a week.  I like the "porthole" windows on this vintage plane.  You load your own luggage on and off the plane in the small Kotlas airport.

While in Kotlas we use some of our time to get ready for court

We saw this spectacular, folk art inspired car in Arhkangelsk.  These flower motifs are usually painted on wooden bowls.

After the stress of court it was nice to relax for a while during a good meal.  The waitresses were patient with our limited Russian vocabulary.  The ikra and piva were excellent!  (caviar n beer) Then we got on a plane to Saint Petersburg.

A wedding custom in Arkhangelsk is to put a special lock on the bridge to the church.  You can see the couples' names and marriage dates.  There are hundreds edging the bridge.  I like the log cabin lock best.

The Emergence of Lenin

Lenin emerges from a block of stone in front of the Arkhangelsk City Hall.

What happened in court

After a week or so to digest it, let me tell you what exactly happened in the courtroom last Friday.  Remember this was the formal decision on whether or not we could adopt Elena, so even though the judge and other participants tend to be relatively kindly disposed toward us, it's still pretty momentous and nervewracking.

Luckily, we were able to meet with a representative from the Russian Department of Education (who oversees the orphanages in the area) a few days before the court hearing.  He was surprisingly jolly (surprising only because we had the preconceived notion that Russian government officials were going to be pretty dour).  During this meeting, he went over the court procedure, what we were expected to say, and gave some example questions the judge might ask.  He also gave us a written "crib sheet" that suggested what we might say in court.  Invaluable.

Our court appearance was 11:30 on Friday, and the whole thing lasted until nearly 1:00.  The courtroom was relatively small, with the judge seated in front and the petitioners (that's us) seated facing him.  Our interpreter was seated next to us, and the other people involved (represetatives from the Dept of Education, the orphanage, and a "prosecutor" representing the state) seated to one side or behind us.

More after the jump: