Those who exploit the powerless anger their Maker...

Proverbs 14: 31-33, from the Common English Bible:

³¹ Those who exploit the powerless anger their Maker, while those who are kind to the poor honor God. ³² The wicked are thrown down by their own evil, but the righteous find refuge even in death. ³³ Wisdom resides in an understanding heart, but it’s not known in fools.

We're not the most religious of folk, but then Proverbs is far from the most religious book in the Bible.  Most translations render the word "powerless" in the headline as "poor," but I like this translation, because it appropriately describes the following:

"Putin Signs Bill That Bars U.S. Adoptions, Upending Families," from the New York Times; dated today:

President Vladimir V. Putin signed a bill on Friday that bans the adoption of Russian children by American citizens, dealing a serious blow to an already strained diplomatic relationship. But for hundreds of Americans enmeshed in the costly, complicated adoption process, the impact was deeply personal....

The law calls for the ban to be put in force on Tuesday, and it stands to upend the plans of many American families in the final stages of adopting in Russia. Already, it has added wrenching emotional tumult to a process that can cost $50,000 or more, requires repeated trips overseas, and typically entails lengthy and maddening encounters with bureaucracy....

The bill that includes the adoption ban was drafted in response to the Magnitsky Act, a law signed by President Obama this month that will bar Russian citizens accused of violating human rights from traveling to the United States and from owning real estate or other assets there....

Statistics

As I've mentioned before, one nice thing about the Blogger software is that it includes a crude statistics package, that allows us to track who's looking at this blog.  There aren't a lot of people who find this blog, but those that do are searching for specific things.  That's interesting to us, because hopefully this blog helps people find whatever they're looking for.

You can see part of this statistics package on the right-hand side of this page, under "Popular Posts."  These are the top ten posts that people read.  At the very top is "Exploring St. Petersburg," with, as of now, a little over 600 views.  Next in line, with roughly half as many views each, are "Let's explore Kotlas" and "The baby house in Kotlas, illustrated."  Then, with a little under half of that,  are "Our baby house schedule" and "The Hermitage part II: The upper floors," then "The Hermitage part I: Down in the basement" and "Who elses here has seen the Kotlas baby house? Anyone? Anyone?" with a few less. Finally, with under 100 view each, "It's all about the Yaroslavs," "Malye Korely", and "What happened in court" round out the top ten.

That's actually kind of an interesting mix: five of those post ("Exploring St. Petersburg," "The Hermitage part II: The upper floors," "The Hermitage part I: Down in the basement," "It's all about the Yaroslavs," and  "Malye Korely") are related to Russian tourism, and five ("Let's explore Kotlas" "The baby house in Kotlas, illustrated," "Our baby house schedule," "Who elses here has seen the Kotlas baby house? Anyone? Anyone?" and "What happened in court") are related to in-country Russian adoption, with all except the last one about Kotlas and the Kotlas baby house specifically.

The Swedish are Coming! The Swedish are Coming!

One nice thing about the Blogger software is that it allows us to track, in a general way, who's looking at this blog.  We started it with friends and family in mind, as an easy way to let people know how our trip to Russia was progressing.  However, this blog is indexed by search engines, and a fair number of people find their way here through a search engine.  That's actually really fun - I've had email conversations with half-a-dozen people who we didn't know previously, who had "met" us through this blog.

This isn't a huge number of people - this blog just topped 7000 pageviews, which is relatively tiny as blogs go - but that's OK.  We're talking about pretty specialized subject material, and there's not all that many people who might be interested.

One of the stats Blogger coughs up is the country of origin.  As you might expect, most people reading are from the US - about 65%.  Most of those are probably people we know.  Of the other countries, Russia is, again as you might expect, high on the list.  But it's in the third spot.  The second-most number of people come from Sweden.

Sweden? Why? Well, there's a general answer and a specific answer (more after the cut).

Our lives intertwine

One nice thing about having a blog is that the posts in it are accessible to other folk, and if you're interested in the particularly narrow subject of adopting from the Kotlas orphanage, it's easy to stumble on our blog (Google "Kotlas baby house" to see what I mean).

I had an email conversation with a woman who stumbled across our blog in just such a way.  They adopted their son, Jon, in April 2011.  More excitingly, Jon was one of Elena's dorm-mates; most excitingly, she had pictures from January 2011 of the group of kids eating lunch, pictures which included Elena.  Here are a couple (I've cropped out the rest of the kids out of respect for their privacy).

Mmmm. Soup.

I showed this to Elena. 
Her comment was, "dirty baby Lena."

We don't have many pictures of Elena from before we actually met her in April 2011; the three or four sent with our referral are all we have (see this post; the very first one on our blog).  Here are two of them from the referral:

Who else here has seen the Kotlas Baby House? Anyone? Anyone?

Having a blog about one's journey through adoption is not exactly a novel idea.  I was poking around the web, looking for pictures of Kotlas, and found a few other kids who were adopted from the same orphanage Elena was from.  It's interesting to read the parallel stories, and to see pictures of Kotlas and Arkhangelsk in different seasons.  (For our earlier pictures, see "The baby house in Kotlas, illustrated," and "Our baby house schedule," as well as the "Baby house" and "Kotlas" labels to the right.)
Here are other folks's stories:

Xavier, adopted by Denise and JJ in May 2011. 
Their Babycakes blog has a lot of great pictures, including some January pictures of Kotlas, and more of Arkhangelsk.  They also spent three-plus weeks in St Petersburg, so they have some great pictures of the city, and some interesting and thoughtful reflections on Russian food and living there as a tourist. And, of course, more recent images of Xavier.

David and Michael, adopted by Rachael and Chris in March 2011.
Their Sanity is Optional in Texas blog has more pictures of the Kotlas orphanage (similar to some of ours), some of Archagelsk in the snow, and some Moscow / St Petersburg photos. And more of the boys, of course.

Nicholas, adopted by Brian and Kimberly in January 2010.
Their Adopting Nicholas blog has a few pictures from Kotlas in August and from Arkhangelsk and St Petersburg in December.

Anna Beth, adopted by Leigh and Bryan in January 2010.
Their "Oh the Places You Will Go..." blog has a few pictures both inside and outside from August 2009, and more pictures of a very photogenic Anna Beth from January 2010.

Allison, adopted by Christine and Thomas in June 2009.
Their  Allie in the Family is unfortunately short, but has a few pictures and stories.

Kara and Cooper, adopted by Jane and Jim in October 2008.
Their Life with Kara and Copper blog doesn't have too many pictures, but there is a description of their time in Kotlas, and some pictures taken through Arkhangelsk and Moscow. And the most recent pictures are nearly three years from the adoption date.

Jack, adopted by Erik and Jen in June 2007.
Their Russian Baby Adventure blog has a few orphanage pictures (two, one, one, and one) - The first of those links is interesting, because it shows a room with cribs for younger kids like Jack.  Elena lived in the Kotlas orphanage since she was a few months old, so she probably lived in a room very much like the one pictured. Erik and Jen have some more pictures from Moscow (here's Red Square). And, of course, more pictures of Jack through Christmas 2008.

Bonus slide show: Great minds think alike:
Teresa and Andy, August 2011, in front of the Archangelsk courthouse plaque after a successful court petition.
Denise and JJ, May 2011, in front of the Archangelsk courthouse plaque after a successful court petition.
Rachael and Chris, March 2011, in front of the Archangelsk courthouse plaque after a successful court petition.
Brian and Kimberly, December 2009,  in front of the Archangelsk courthouse plaque after a successful court petition.