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With my alarm clock across the room, Friday morning I wake punctually. I’m venturing to the train station again, this time for Melinda, who’s returning from our region having met Evgenia, four. Barrie thoughtfully accompanies me. Eliminating both the tardy departure and the storm breeds a more relaxed jaunt than yesterday’s.

Evgenia, now five, and able to travel with us

When the train lumbers in, several familiar faces alight with Melinda, including six children whose families have finished court. Arriving in Moscow, they’re in the homestretch of their adoptions. Nadia, 15, greets me with an embrace and an English “Thank you!” worth the world to me. Her new brother Nikolai, 11, shadows her. Melinda’s visit was to his orphanage, and she tells me he was so excited to be going home that he donned his coat two hours before leaving for the station. Daria, 15, is joined by her two siblings. Before they boarded this train, 30 kids and teachers from their orphanage, all crying, came to the station to wish them farewell. I hate mornings, but seeing these erstwhile orphans, now sons and daughters, and knowing I had a hand in it, is a shot in the arm even at this hour.

Barrie, Melinda, and I leave the station alone. I am itching to hear about Evgenia, who due to her young age was not allowed to travel with us. Evgenia’s a big girl, Melinda says, ready to learn and affectionate. Adding she had a rough start in life, Melinda found she does not speak. The orphanage provides speech therapy, but can afford only 30 minutes weekly, which they worry is insufficient. I wonder if any family will take a risk with her.



Peter, a very pensive little boy

Back at the hotel, I find little Peter playing on the floor without his slippers. The soles of both his socks sport the hand-sewn characters A3-7. It’s a pragmatic solution for the laundress who mates hundreds of socks in an institution, but the markings distress me anyhow. A mom could match them, but no one at the orphanage can pair Peter’s without the aid of a monogram.

Artem

Maria

Later in the morning, we talk with the kids. Blonde sprite Maria, six, oozes confidence. Asked to describe herself in one word, she chooses “beautiful” and “smart.” The kids reveal what kind of animal each would most like to be; Artem chimes, “An angel!” It’s entirely apt, from this cherubic lad who remains one of my three favorite Lighthouse Project kids. When the meeting adjourns, the kids tear into their gifts. Maria gets new jeans, which she is soon modeling with evident pride. She fancies the tag, refusing its removal. It’s so comical I grab my camera. She eagerly poses, after turning the tag to reveal its more flattering side.

After the gifts, I repair to my room, only to be interrupted by a frantic knock. I open to Amy, waiting with Sheri grasping Igor’s outstretched hand. “Igor has a staple in his finger,” Amy gushes, “and when I saw it, I said, ‘Becky! Becky’s a veterinarian!’” Theatrical Igor, who even moans with flair, bites his lip hard at the staple buried in the flesh of his thumb, deep enough to pucker the skin. I’ve never treated a human because of my profession, but in Moscow, though woefully underequipped, I smear hydrocortisone over the wound, pinch the finger, and jockey a tweezers under the staple’s bar. As a tear glides down Igor’s cheek, Amy launches insistently into song, “A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” My patient joins her, in English, and dares a little laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Sheri and I start, too, and by “P,” I’ve steeled myself sufficiently to yank out the offending fastener. I trade the staple for a thank you, and seal the deal with a Band-Aid. Hours after, I ask him how he feels. With assurances he’s well, I divulge I’m a veterinarian. He thinks it hilarious to have been saved by a dog doctor.

Crowds in the Moscow metro

At the train this morning, our Russian adoption coordinator Love gave me small flags as gifts for the hosts. Our group numbers 25, making metro travel harrowing at rush hour. I’m forever counting, though I never get that high before the train roars away. Once, early this trip, we disembark so slowly that we cause the separation of a mother and her young daughter. As the door slams shut, stranding the girl, the mother frantically motions the child to get off at the next stop. While I am relieved it isn’t one of our kids, as a mother I feel a vicarious frenzy, mingled with shame, since our disorganization birthed this trouble. Here I vow to co-opt one of Love’s flags myself, and to hold it aloft in the metro as I lead.



Smiling, before strangers started staring

I always seek to blend in, and heretofore enjoyed a measure of anonymity in Moscow in my black coat, even without the dyed hair or spike-heeled boots Muscovite women favor. Now, hoisting the red and gold standard, I explode from my camouflage. Descending the steep escalators into the metro, the wind tunnel effect whips the flag violently. I feign self-possession, but the flapping draws scads of eyes traveling on the ascending escalator. “People are staring at you, Becky!” someone laughs, in case I haven’t noticed. In their heavy Russian coats, I can’t imagine anyone is naked, so I solace myself knowing they have no idea where the flag is from. Amidst the monochromatic masses swarming the subway, the flag does make shepherding the group simpler. After several hosts hail the flag as a lifesaver, I grimly realize it has a future every trip.

Friday, entering Red Square by Resurrection Gate, SpongeBob, a diapered monkey, and a Stalin lookalike loiter. A Lenin impersonator stands with them, leaning on the pole of an old USSR flag. When he spots me, he raises his flag, waving with gusto, and blows a few kisses. I don’t relish the attention, but answer his volley anyway with a half-hearted wave and one kiss blown back. Numerous wedding parties stroll through the square, after the brides have laid red carnations at the nearby Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Katya, our translator, is getting married next weekend, though she won’t be home until Monday. We’re astonished she’s traveled with us, so close to the nuptials, but she shrugs it off, saying she’s ready except for choosing the traditional white fox cape winter brides wear with their dresses.




Barrie and Alexandra say goodbye

Barrie’s wife Joyce can’t join us this trip, though she traveled in both June and August. Barrie wants more time with Alexandra, 14, and is missing his 40th anniversary for it, with Joyce’s blessing. She’s sent me an anniversary card, with which Alexandra surprises him on the appointed day. Someone gives her a confetti popper, and she releases it to augment the celebration. Barrie is giddy at the prospect of Alexandra joining his family, and shares his anticipation with everyone. While he never shopped much for their other children, Joyce tells me he is driving the expeditions now. When she laughed once he should have been half this excited years ago when she was pregnant, he retorted, “I was half as excited!”

The kids’ last day, Igor wants to sing for us. Valiantly trying to assemble the entire group in the common area for his performance, he counts repeatedly, never reaching 25 as kids keep coming and going. Finally he gives up and settles for having all the adults. He chooses the Russian National Anthem, and with a powerful voice, occasionally cracking, regales us with a passionate rendition. It’s clear he loves singing, and his country.

After the kids are safely returned to the train, headed to their orphanages, the hosts and I share a Moscow farewell dinner in the basement of a new MuMu. We want to enjoy ourselves, but the kids’ departure is too raw. On the way back, we stop at Eliseevsky’s, my all-time favorite store, for chocolate mousse, my all-time favorite food; I unwind with this reward at the end of every trip. It’s nearing midnight when we get to the hotel, but we’re aching for the kids, so David debuts a 2400-photo slideshow he’s compiled of our time together. My host families, friends with whom I’ve shared deep camaraderie these past few days, gather in my room to watch. Only a few photos in, we’re laughing, crying, and reliving our week. It’s so good, and so cathartic to end this way, I almost forget my mousse. As the last photo fades, all concur this was the perfect finale for our time together. I am energized, and yearn to watch it again, now.

Good Lord willing, I’ll be back. There will be new families, winsome kids, more mousse, and my red and gold flag flapping in the metro breeze.

I can’t wait.


Our November kids



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Joy

Sunday morning we lose an hour to Daylight Saving Time. Attending church in a building with a magnificent Kremlin view, I’m humiliated by a farewell presentation that stretches 30 minutes and a moralistic lecture delivered by a man who screams much of his message. One in our band manages to nod off during this ear-splitting homily that leaves me with tinnitus long after the speaker has fallen silent.

Walking back, one girl vomits, another feels feverish, and a boy complains of headache, so some retreat to the hotel to recuperate, while others of us wander Arbat, Moscow’s pedestrian-only street. We lunch at MuMu, an inexpensive cafeteria-style eatery, serving Russian food on dishes patterned after Holstein cow spots. The food is delicious, the stone and timber décor atmospheric, the music sprightly, and the dining area jammed with Muscovites. It’s a hit with our Lighthouse families; every subsequent suggestion of the restaurant is met with a chorus of ayes. MuMu is the place I wish would branch out to Grand Rapids.

In the evening, we visit the eponymously-named Nikulin Circus. A bronze statue of the renowned actor and clown Yuri Nikulin stands outside the pavilion; Faith claims that by rubbing his nose, we’ll become the funniest people in the world. Doug, a host dad, rubs it vigorously, then subjects us to jokes just as corny as before. Inside the arena, fluted columns support the ceiling, obstructing our view while lending the venue an air of sophistication. Though attendance hardly justifies it, every show we’ve been to on our trips has included live orchestra; Russians take their performing arts seriously. As a lover of Equidae, I’m charmed by a humble donkey, plodding heedless of the urging of his driver. As warranted, the performers stay clothed, though a clown in an ankle-length fur coat loses part of his outerwear as he parades around the ring. When the collar springs to life by a fox’s leap to the ground, shadowed by thirty ferrets jumping from the body in unison, the coat is creatively transformed into a PETA-approved style. I leave this circus satisfied we’ve done nothing to compromise the morals of our orphans. As we exit, Faith insists on a group photo by a portrait of the beloved Nikulin, whom she extols for his clean, kind humor and love of children.

We get back late, but I talk several families into venturing out to Eliseevsky’s, my favorite Moscow store. Tracy, a blog aficionado, is anxious to shop there, knowing how I love it. While the edifice is reliably grandiose, I’m disappointed to find them out of chocolate croissants, so I splurge on a consolation box of baklava instead. Successfully navigating the metro as a group without a bonafide Russian speaker, we arrive back home just after midnight. Delving into the baklava in the sanctity of my room, I am horrified to find the bottom blackened. Burned baklava stokes my generosity, stripping me of the gluttonous desire to wolf it down myself.

As I puzzle over how to unload my baklava without throwing it away, a host family taps on my door, ending the reverie. We end up visiting until just after 4:00 a.m., discussing kids they’re considering adding to their family. Having been blessed so richly by my own children of the world, being part of the conversation with other families considering adoption is unadulterated joy.

Joy, at any hour.

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Giving Up On Sasha

In Moscow: Day 8

Yury Luzhkov had a brazen plan, and ever the politician, made an audacious promise to accompany it. Weary of the snow that falls on the country’s capital, and sick of the expense of cleanup, the mayor of Moscow decreed in mid-October that it would not snow in his fair city this winter. With the approval of the city council, Luzhkov hired the Russian Air Force to spray clouds outside Moscow, encouraging snow to fall before it reaches the city limits. We wake up Sunday morning to find Mr. Luzhkov no different than American politicians: full of expensive promises he can’t keep. A light blanket of snow has fallen, likely the first of many this winter, the mayor and the Russian Air Force’s attempts to control the weather notwithstanding.

We walk through Luzhkov’s snow to an English-language church service in an old theater school. Attended mainly by ex-pats, translation into Russian is provided via headset for Russian speakers. Midway through the service, the kids leave for children’s church, which Faith translates for them. When our service ends, we find Faith standing on a bench directing the entire class. Nothing in the scene surprises me; Faith is a natural ringleader, no matter who’s involved. I shake my head in bemused wonderment. “We learned about the Christmas story,” is Faith’s only explanation, as though it clears everything up. We lunch at a little café in one of the theater’s nooks and crannies. While the wait is insufferable, the food is tasty and inexpensive by Moscow standards. A sink on the café’s back wall substitutes for the napkins they do not provide.

The metro whisks us to the city center and Kremlin. Along the way, we stop in front of the Lenin Library to feed pigeons. Anton, twelve, catches several and gives them carefully to other children. Some kids feed sunflower seeds to birds tame enough to eat out of their hands. We circle the Kremlin wall and honor Russia’s Unknown Soldier. Turning right, we climb a hill beside the State Historical Museum, and get our first glimpse of Krasnaya Ploschad, known to Americans as Red Square. At the far end of the square stands Russia’s most iconic symbol, gloriously flamboyant St. Basil’s Cathedral. It’s the ninth time I’ve seen it, but cresting the hill by the historical museum, it still takes my breath away.

Built in 1555-1561, legend claims Ivan the Terrible was so smitten by its design that he blinded the architect to ensure a masterpiece its like would not be constructed elsewhere. While Ivan was not above maiming and killing, the subsequent activity of the St. Basil’s architect suggests the legend is only that. More recently, Josef Stalin thought the cathedral obstructed the exit from Red Square, and he entertained repeated notions of its destruction to facilitate his military parades through the square. Today, gazing in awestruck admiration at an edifice without equal, we are debtors to the architect who curbed Stalin’s ambition, trading his freedom for airing his opinion, doing time in the gulag for threatening suicide if the folly was consummated.

The kids pose in front of the cathedral and most good-naturedly pose in the chill. We retreat into the ritzy GUM Mall (pronounced “goom”), home of upper crust western merchandisers like Cartier, Dior, and Estee Lauder. A glass and steel arcade covers the three-story mall, and bridges span the main hallway. In Soviet days, the mall was nationalized and never suffered the shortages for which the rest of the country was infamous. Faith used to wait for hours in lines here that snaked through Red Square for the opportunity to buy whatever GUM had in stock. It was advantageous to know an insider employed here; this inside information might glean a shopper a coveted item otherwise unavailable. Faith once went to GUM to purchase shoes. When she reached the head of the line, those available were three sizes too small, but she dared not bypass them. Such was life in the Soviet Union. Paradoxically, things in GUM today are less attainable than in communist times; grossly inflated prices ensure most people there are working, browsing, or warming up.

On our way out of Red Square, we see two men dressed as Cossacks outside the State Historical Museum. The kids stop to ogle them, and the men browbeat us to pay for a picture. As we hesitate, Faith works her magic. The men ask her if the kids are orphans; when she says, yes, we’re here to spend time with them, the Cossacks tell us to take the picture free. I ask Faith later how they knew the kids are orphans. “They have good eyes, and know orphans when they see them,” she says cryptically.

We enter a bookstore, and Dima shows us a section where he has already read most offerings. The store is distressingly overcrowded, making browsing a bane rather than a pleasure. I recall an insightful book I read about marketing. Researchers observed shoppers in stores to determine how many times they could be jostled while looking at an item before they abandoned it and moved on. They found buyers would tolerate being bumped from behind twice, but not thrice. The researchers called this result the “butt brush effect,” a name and concept burned into my brain. While in this bookstore, I conclude the research was not done in Russia, since the butt brush effect would come into play after three seconds, and the bookstore would go out of business within days. Of all the things that would make life in Russia doleful, I find the overcrowding everywhere to be among the most egregious.

On the way home, we visit my favorite Russian store, Eliseevsky’s Gastronom. Formerly known as Gastronom Number One when nationalized in the Soviet era, the supermarket sells gourmet foodstuffs and houses my favorite pastry counter in the world. The ceiling and walls are carved and gilded, and chandeliers illumine the products. I worry I’ve irritated Faith with my incessant requests for Eliseevsky’s and their peerless chocolate croissants, but one bite reminds me I can withstand her impatience. Faith thinks I should buy a croissant in a street underpass and save the Eliseevsky mark-up, but the ambiance of the store is worth every ruble to me.

All week, Alexander M., eight, known by his nickname Sasha, is challenging. He lags behind, fights holding hands, and struggles with correction. I worry as we walk through the metro, holding his hand at times as he strains to get away, that someone might think I’m a foreign kidnapper. Sasha doesn’t cooperate at St. Basil’s and whines at the smallest provocation. Every few minutes our walk is punctuated by, “Sasha, nyet!” or “Where’s Sasha?” He worries me because his getting lost could shut down our program, and because the way he’s acting, he’s not likely to find a family. I can’t in good conscience put a child like him on another trip when other kids also needing a chance will be more compliant. Sasha needs good parenting, and I hate to think at his age, his behavior on a single trip might doom him to a lifetime as an orphan. I desperately will him to behave, more for his good than ours. When it doesn’t work, I decide dejectedly there are other, more likely candidates for adoption. Knowing there are more kids than families, Sasha's second trip would take a chance from another child. I resist giving up on anyone, but can’t harm other innocent kids who need families as badly as he. It’s a helpless feeling seeing an eight-year-old unwittingly making a major life decision alone and unawares.

There’s nothing feel-good about it, just a good faith judgment call, trying to help as many kids as possible get home forever. But right now, I have no reason to believe Sasha will go anywhere other than back to his orphanage.

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See accompanying photos and videos here.