It's a Circus

In Russia: Day 9

Monday morning, we take the trolleybus. Their wires are ubiquitous overhead in Moscow, but I’ve never ridden one before. Faith is looking out windows, identifying landmarks, and offering her own brand of insight. Off the trolley, we stroll a birch tree-lined boulevard. Young Nikolai spots a squirrel with such enthusiasm we haven’t the heart to mention how common they are in the States. On Sparrow Hill, Moscow’s highest point, we overlook the city’s sprawl. The Kremlin’s golden domes are easily visible, and on this unusually clear day, good eyes can just pick out a dome or two of St. Basil’s Cathedral.

Trinity Church is close. This Russian Orthodox church was shuttered during Communist times, as were all churches the government knew existed. Used for storage until Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, today the church again fulfills its sacred purpose. In Moscow, we’ve found enough English speakers that travel has been a snap. But at Trinity Church, the door bears signs in only Russian and German. Faith says this church is strict on appropriate attire; men are forbidden to enter with hats, or women to enter without. Women tourists are excused with winter hats and hoods, but a devout Russian Orthodox woman would never enter sans scarf covering her head. Dark inside, candles flicker, illuminating the gold leaf on the omnipresent icons of saints and apostles. Aromas of wax and incense join forces as smoke wafts in the domes, made visible by light of the small windows high in the church. Russian Orthodoxy is ritual- and tradition-bound, based on sensory appeal to create a religious experience for the worshipper. Our kids, exuberant outside, are reverent and quiet inside. Yulya studies the icons, then confides in her diary. She’s faithfully taking notes everywhere describing her week; I’ve seen her writing at the hotel, on the trolleybus and metro, and now in church. I yearn to read her words, as I admire her pursuit of the more cerebral. Leaving the church, the kids face the sanctuary and cross themselves three times, in Orthodox fashion.

Gazing over Moscow on Sparrow Hill, Russia’s most prestigious institution of higher learning towers behind us. Moscow State University, whose graduates are welcome anywhere, is housed in one of Stalin’s seven neoclassical skyscrapers, built in the 40s and 50s. Considered eyesores by some, the gargantuan “seven sisters” are scattered in Moscow, housing hotels, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, apartments, the university, and other entities. Until 1990, the university was Europe’s tallest building. The building’s shell is replete with communist symbolism and propaganda; statues glorifying the deeds of farmers and workers, hammers and sickles, and a twelve-ton red star adorn it. It was formerly very difficult to get into the university, Faith says. Admission was granted only by passing demanding entrance examinations, or string-pulling with officials in high places. In Communist times, students attended tuition-free. Faith laments that today, the education is pricey, and entrance reserved more for the moneyed than the qualified. As the kids pose in front their country’s Harvard, Faith says about 10% of today’s students are orphans with sufficient promise that the country cannot afford to let them slip into the abyss awaiting most aged-out orphans. Seeing ten-year-old Nikolai, Dima, and Yulya here, I try to imagine them toting backpacks on campus, striving to better themselves if this trip doesn’t end as I hope for them. Perhaps it’s unrealistic, but I derive solace knowing there is a glimmer of hope, however small, for a few of the 700,000 + orphans of Russia.

We’re on to the circus. While in Russia with our own kids, we were goaded to attend, though our efforts at economy precluded it. I make up for it today by accompanying ten giddy orphans who dance up the steps toward the round pavilion housing the spectacle. We’re running late, and the coat ladies here are no faster than elsewhere. In her most brazen act yet, Faith vaults the counter and collects our coats, hanging 19 up in the time the coat ladies do one or two. I am taken aback by her chutzpah, but she is fast, and we sit down in our nosebleed seats with a minute to spare. The circus begins with a triumphant fanfare and laser show, and continues with clowns, acrobats, and a smattering of animals. The costumes and props are extravagant, though even from a distance, the scandalous skimpiness of some of the women’s costumes appalls me. Underdressed and suggestively posed, one rides out on a camel to Faith’s chiding, “This is Playboy!” Despite the first-rate quality of the acts, I am embarrassed at having scheduled this, and groveling thankful my husband and son aren’t along. At the intermission, Faith leads us to vacant seats ringside, and we down a brown bag lunch. When the circus resumes, we see everything better.

Toward the performance’s end, after an especially revealing act, Larry, our most reserved traveler, sits blushing, thankful a cloak of darkness covers him. In a flabbergasting display of multi-lingual clairvoyance, a bumbling and miscreantic clown bursts from the ring, dashes up a few rows with spotlight shadowing, and grabs our Larry! As she drags him from his seat, I am incredulous he goes with her. Our group roars, releasing an incongruous amalgam of emotion: mortification, concern, and hilarity. In the center of the ring, she hangs a cloth over poor, chagrined Larry, with only a cutout for his head. In the blinding spotlight, he is unaware he wears a drawing of a muscle-bound man, complete with strategically-placed fig leaf. Another clown-accomplice draws a life-sized caricature, shakes Larry’s hand, never realizes he’s an English-speaking monoglot, and directs him still blushing, drawing in hand, to his seat. Our group applauds Larry, his good sportsmanship, and his expeditious return. When the circus is over, Larry is a Lighthouse Project celebrity, posing for pictures with his drawing, accepting congratulations, and vowing never again to gloat that the spotlight isn’t on him.

Faith reenacts her cloakroom attendant imitation, then we head into the chill. Back on the trolleybus, we travel one-half mile before it breaks down. We switch to another trolley, ribbing, smiling, and reminiscing over the most fantastic events of our day. Maybe trolleys don’t break down daily, and maybe clowns don’t accost every American circus-goer, but as we settle into our return home to the hotel, we laugh that we have now had every experience Moscow offers.

This is our best day, and I, for one, am glad to share it.

***

See photos and video here.

Driven

In Russia: Day 5

On Tuesday, we set out with Yelena’s husband. He leaves us at the second orphanage. After the visit, several Lighthouse alumni awaiting their families walk us down a wooded driveway to a nearly abandoned road, where Faith begins thumbing it. The first car down the road is a severe, two-door communist holdover; its driver stops for us. With three more bodies, we aren’t in a minute before the windows fog. I’ve never ridden in a Russian car with a sufficient defogger, so a towel is standard equipment. When we mention the fogged-over windows, our driver makes a futile attempt to reassure when he claims that in winter, he drives with only a small square of ice chipped off the windshield. The implication is if he can drive with that handicap, this one is child’s play, but the message I actually receive is that his judgment is irreparably seared. On a serpentine road slicked with driving rain, our driver takes an unseemly interest in his cell phone. The death wish Russian drivers exhibit in lane changes paralyzes me: charging up on the next car’s bumper and tailgating until oncoming traffic passes, they swerve out immediately into the opposing lane, pass, then veer back into the right lane. When you’re lucky, you’re not rounding a bend or on a hill, or both, as the stunt occurs. Time not spent praying is spent marveling there are not more crosses roadside. Faith sees I’m board-like, with bulging eyes. “Don’t look,” she counsels. Sitting in back, on a trip of unknown duration with a stranger driving who speaks no English, I’m struck by the parallel between my current predicament and the experience of the Lighthouse kids going home with their host families from distant airports after arrival. I conjure up new empathy for them, incredulous that their circumstances in Russia are so austere that such a risk becomes a good one.

Two days later, we’re at our second-to-last orphanage. We pick up Alexander, Elena, and Larisa for the trip to Moscow. They’re abuzz as they get in the car with their small cache of belongings; they’ve never before been on a train or to Moscow, they tell us. The car we’re in is a Volga; we rode in this same car, with this same driver, when we picked up our own kids from the orphanage three years ago. The recollection is sufficient to jar me as snowflakes begin their descent. With seven people now in the car, Elaine rides in front with a seatbelt and more space, though the tradeoff is a better view of the driving. Faith, the three kids, and I are crammed in the back. It’s boring at first, but the kids snap to attention as I write their names almost correctly in Cyrillic in the omnipresent fog on my window. Elena sits on my lap, and our window tic-tac-toe is a cat’s game. Midway through our trek, we pass a horrendous crash, surprisingly the first we’ve seen; there’s no way the driver could have survived. I doubt our driver takes the crash to heart, because within a mile he’s fumbling with his MP3 player in a protracted ordeal that makes me grab the front seat with one hand, and dig my nails into the door’s armrest with my other. I finally heed Faith's advice and close my eyes.

We stop at another orphanage, interviewing fourteen-year-old Nadia, who wears a “Jesus” necklace. She dreams of adoption and becoming a veterinarian, but her biological mother is imprisoned and must first relinquish her parental rights. Nadia wrote her yesterday, confessed she yearns for a chance at life, and begged to be released to go to America. She prays her mother will sign the document, but if she won’t, this demure girl is truly hopeless. Someone in our car is completely smitten with her, but without relinquishment papers, it hardly matters.

We pick up Dmitry, Alexander Z., Nicholas S., and Yulya at this orphanage. A van brings us all to the train station, along with the chaperone, a caretaker here. These four kids look so expectant as they board the van I suspect they don’t know there’s no host for any of them in Moscow.

At the train station, we de-van in a drizzle and meet the rest of our group: Nikolai V. and Anton, both from two previous trips, and Denis, in America last March. Denis is being adopted, but his family is here to meet another child, too. They want to see him, and Hope has been kind enough to let him join our group. Our band complete, we wait inside the station. I have been coveting a photo of the perfect babushka for my blog. I finally find her inside the station. She is heavyset, wears an ancient coat, wraps a scarf around her head, and clutches a plastic bag with one hand and a branch for a walking stick in the other. As I discuss with Elaine how to discretely snap a photo, my new camera falls hard on the terrazzo floor. I pick it up, but it’s clearly broken. Elaine lends me her camera; the memory card is full. While we fumble, the prototypical babushka slips into the darkness outside the station when her train arrives. I berate myself for missing the shot, but derive slight consolation in skirting the photographic propriety quagmire.

We cross the tracks to our platform as the light of our train approaches us too quickly for comfort. Traveling with ten kids is daunting, and is exacerbated when another train charges by on the neighboring track without stopping. It forms a deafening wind tunnel, and we race through the rain to board our car on time. Once situated, I talk Elaine’s ear off, trying to make sense of what we saw in the orphanages this trip. I have a mountain of compelling blog material, and I settle in to work when Elaine is too tired to listen further. Finding my computer’s battery is dead, I reluctantly succumb to my need for rest, and, for the first night since I left home, get more than three hours of sleep.

Morning dawns and I awaken to our train lurching into the Moscow station. We reunite with the kids and chaperone, who rode in three, four-bed compartments several cars behind us, and join the tapestry of passengers from trains arriving from far-flung reaches of Russia. Taxi drivers solicit us, but Dima, Faith’s brother, awaits us with his van. Fifteen of us scrunch in with our luggage; Dima wants to hire another cab, but Faith, the senior sibling and unfailingly frugal, overrules him and says we’ll all fit.

Combating rush hour traffic on the drive to the hotel we’ll stay at, Dima leaves us sitting in the common area since our rooms aren’t ready yet. The kids wile the time watching scandalously trashy music videos. Their chaperone seems not to notice, and I derive from this omission further motivation to get the kids out of their orphanages. Meanwhile, Dima hurries Elaine to the airport for her return flight home, and I am distraught to see her go. When Dima returns, he’ll have my host families in tow; I’m anxious to meet them. They’ve been warned this is an inaugural trip. All have agreed to be flexible, and I believe them, since they’ve already been very gracious. After forty-four trips to the United States for the Lighthouse Project, that trip is quite streamlined. But this version will be a learning experience, and statistics I take for granted at home are out the window now. Everything is new.

Everything, that is, except my prayer that in all my trips, each of the kids entrusted to me find their families.

Sent Packing

I’m an avid traveler, priding myself on efficient packing. I depart for Russia Sunday, with plans to visit several orphanages prior to the host families’ arrival in Moscow next week. In the throes of packing now, my spatial reasoning is sorely stretched; toys, games, food, aid for the orphanages, and packages from adoptive families to their waiting children all jockey for position in my bags. While I’m never certain until I’m in country, with my travel experience, the likelihood is on any trip, I’ll have everything I should.

Seventeen children were scheduled to travel on the October-November Moscow Lighthouse Project trip. On previous trips to new areas, it is a massive effort to get people to sign up as hosts. The early stages of this trip were typically slow going, so last week seven kids, including Elena and Lidia (Hopeless?, 10/6/09), were cut for lack of families. It left ten kids, only five of whom had identified hosts. Needing several new travelers so these others would avoid the disappointment of arriving in Moscow, only to find no one waiting, I failed to convert any leads to hosts. The sign up deadline slipped by Monday, and travelers no longer have time to receive visas. I am grateful that five kids have hosts, but haunted by the equal number who don’t. The Russian government expects to send all ten, eliminating the option of further cutting. My heart aches for Yulya, Nikolai S., Alexander Z., Alexander M., and Dmitry B., without families preparing to meet them. While I despise cutting kids from trips, how I yearn now for that option, rather than bringing them, to no one.

Seven kids stay behind in their orphanages for want of a host. Five more come, equally in want of a host, but publicly exposed that no family would take a chance on meeting them. I’m missing kids, and I’m missing families. Dutifully packing my bags, conscientiously double- and triple-checking my mental list, it’s a sobering realization that no matter what else I remember, what’s most important is already left behind.