April
Trip to Russia.
March 4, 2004
Letters from Jacque
Letters from the Director,
Jacque Higgins-Rosebrook
April
Trip to Russia.
March 4, 2004
Letter to Harper's. Apr. 4, 2003
Winter trip report. Jan. 6, 2003
Report on the kids. Feb. 26, 2002
Annual meeting. Nov 14, 2001
Summer report. Oct. 7, 2001
Return from Russia. May 14, 2001
Next trip to Russia. March 12, 2001
The solstice from Jacque's cabin
____________________________________________
March 03, 2004
Dear friends and family, Well, it looks like spring is on its way in the Northwest. Up here where snow flurries are still part of the day, the pussy willows are just beginning to show some fuzz. Down in the lowlands, daffodils and quince and forsythia are blooming away in yards and parks. I can hardly wait until the cottonwoods buds burst into leaf and release the lovely green fragrance to the breezes skimming the last of the snow on the way up the mountain to me.
Spring is a time of preparation and change for me and this spring preparation for change is especially important in my work with Children of Sosnovaya Street. Due to the kindness of one of our supporters, we are looking forward to making some organizational changes this summer that will allow me to be more effective in planning and implementing larger scale programs to help our young friends in Svirstroi and St. Petersburg. I still don't know what shape these changes will take ultimately but when we've got it all organized, I'll throw a big party and invite you to come see. It'll be wonderful.
Meantime, I'm preparing to return to Russia to visit our young friends again at the end of the school year when they will be making plans for their own transitions – into the working world, into their family homes, into marriage and families of their own or into summer jobs from which they will return to school in the fall.
Naturally, I will also be bringing goodies and supplies to the detskii dom itself and to the children there who I always look forward to seeing.
Have I told you lately how proud I am of these young friends of ours? Every time I visit them and every time I receive a letter from one of them I grow more proud of how they are growing and evolving into responsible adults with practical plans and visions for the future. They're becoming much more sophisticated and are taking hold of their lives in a way that's unusual for Russian youth and almost unheard of for detskii dom children.
Why is that, you ask. Well, I'm convinced that you who have contributed and supported our work with the children over the years can take a lot of credit for this chain of events. Without you there, caring what happens to these dreamers in their remote little world, none of this would be possible. The bottom line is that because someone here cares what happens to them there, the children who are growing up at the Svirstroiskii Detskii Dom have begun to have hopes for their own future – and to care about themselves.
This spring, I am planning to travel to Russia on April 21st and return May 5th . While I am in Russia, I will be traveling to Svirstroi, Podporozhe, Lodeina Polye and St Petersburg. I'm so excited about the plans and projects for this trip that I hardly can wait.
Won't you please take a few minutes and read over my projects trip plans on the next page and consider making a contribution to help us keep our young friends' dreams alive?
Jacque
Dear Harper's
Last week, a friend handed me the March, 2003 issue of HARPER'S because she thought I'd be interested in a photo she found inside. The photo, titled "Sink with Fountain Pictures, Svir Stroi Orphanage" by Misty Keasler is on page 28 of that issue. It shows other photos of fountains at Peter the Great's Summer Palace in St Petersburg hung among the broken tiles on a concrete wall over a sink in one of the bathrooms of the Svirstroiski Detsky Dom (Svirstroi Children's Home) in the small, remote village of Svirstroi about 200 km northeast of St Petersburg.
The once quite elegant building, of an Art Deco-ish design is a former officer's training quarters for the nearby Russian Air Force base. Built during the 1930's, it had lovely marble floors, wood paneled walls, tall windows, balconies, a theater, ballroom and a gym. During the German occupation of that part of Russia during World War II, it became officer's quarters for their army. There are even some graves of German soldiers on
the sandy slopes to the Svir River behind the dom. After the war, the
returning villagers who had fled to Karelia and points north, used the building as shelter, hospital, school during the first two winters while they lived in dugouts underground and tried to rebuild their homes. In 1954, the building was dedicated as a detsky dom and for years, it was a pretty self sufficient institution with farms and gardens and regularly paid staff who kept the building and the children in good health.
Svirstroiski Detsky Dom has deteriorated significantly since perestroika. This past New Year's Day, when the temperature was -47c, the wall in the photograph, along with every other wall that carried plumbing, exploded when the pipes froze and burst. For some reason, the electricity from the hydroelectric plant nearby on the Svir River went down and the boiler that provides the only source of heat in the building, broke. The auxiliary power generator at the detsky dom did not kick in and so, walls began crumbling and bursting all over the building.
Thanks to the efforts of many helping agencies, including MiraMed Institute, Buckner Orphan Care International and Children of Sosnovaya Street, the organization of which I am Executive Director, the money has been raised to repair the damage to the plumbing and the walls and to replenish some of the supplies lost in the mess. As of today, there is no money to restore the auxiliary generator, nor is there money to replace food, clothing, school supplies, etc. that were lost.
Meantime, the 88 children who are in residence year round, are living in two classrooms on the top floor of the Svirstroi Public School. The children there range in age from about three years old to about seventeen. Under the circumstances, nobody has any privacy, there are no laundry facilities and there are no showers. The school building does have a cafeteria and the detsky dom cooks are allowed to use it for breakfast and
dinner. At the end of May, about 40 older children who are away
studying at vocational schools and community colleges in and near St Petersburg will return needing a place to stay. Svirstroi is about on a parallel with Anchorage, so it will be still quite chilly in the evenings but the children will be moved back into the detsky dom while the repairs go on.
In Russia today, there are about one million orphaned, displaced and abandoned children. Of that number, about 600,000 are housed in about 2,000 detsky doms. These children are seen by the general populace as the dregs of humanity, drunks, junkies, thieves, murderers. Not much effort is made on the part of Russian officialdom to change that. There is no comprehensive program to see to the proper education of these children, their health is neglected, their sometimes very brave and ingenious caregivers are not paid on a regular basis and clothing for the children is generally pretty hit and miss at best.
I met the Svirstroiski dyeti the summer of 1999 when, under the auspices of MiraMed Institute, I spent the entire summer living in the dom as surrogate babushka, English teacher and therapeutic counselor. I had done lots of work in the past with migrant farmworker and Native American educational issues here in this country and I had taught English as a Second Language on Crete but nothing prepared me for the heartwrenching - and heartwarming - experience of working with these children.
Among the children I know from the Svirstroiski Detsky Dom is one young man from the Altai. He is brilliant at maths and can name dozens of the stars and constellations in the sky over the dom. There are two very talented sisters who want to study design and architecture. One young man `wants to get all the drugs out of Russia` so he has joined the Russian army and suffered unspeakable indignities and great pain because he was advised that he couldn't enter the Police Academy without finishing his Armed Services duty. These young people are trying hard to build a better life for themselves and we at Children of Sosnovaya Street are doing our best to help them.
Jacqueline Higgins-Rosebrook
Executive Director, CoSS
astarte@vircom.net
Well, 2002 is over and a new year is upon us. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and that your new year will be grand.
I've still got a little of the cough I brought back from Russia but I'll live ;) I never did get sick, just coughed a lot - I think it was the air pollution in Moscow.
I hope that by now, you've had time to read and think about that enormous trip report I sent out last week. I know it was time consuming to read and had a lot of information to digest but I was hoping to hear some comment from more than the two people who commented offlist.
This past year began with a bit of a disappointment for me. I had wanted to go to visit the children in the spring like I did in 2000 but my health problems and our lack of funds kept me here. My health is much improved and the outlook for fundraising has gotten a lot better lately, so I'm making plans to return in May this year.
Last Spring, I contacted Professor Alexander Kondratyev from Herzen Pedagogical University in St Petersburg. He was a visiting professor for a year in the Math Dept at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. Professor Kondratyev very enthusiastically agreed to help mentor Sasha Dubrov through university if I could get him to his office.
Early in the summer, I bought a scanner and a cd burner for the computer here. They have been a boon for sure in keeping a photo and letter file of the kids and will surely make the additions and changes to the website and brochure a lot easier for us.
In September, I connected with an old friend who ended up donating enough money for Sasha Dubrov's first year at university. Getting Sasha into university proved not to be as easy as we'd hoped but we're still working on it and Professor Kondratyev is still enthusiastic.
In October, we elected new officers for the Board of Directors. Joanne Walby, our new Board Chair brings direct personal experience with the Svirstroiski Detsky Dom, familiarity with grant funding, fluency (and a BA) in Russian and working experience with Russian bureaucracy to the board.
Lisa St George, our new treasurer has good experience with public fund accounting, grant management and organizing projects. She has a Master's in Education and has taught high school. Now, she works for an educational resource project in Seattle.
Joline Railley is again our Secretary. She has the whole history of CoSS' organization in her head and on disk, so it's good to be able to count on her being there. Her graduate degree is in records management - a skill that's very important to a group that lives on gifts and donations!
Tim Hunkapiller is still our webmaster. He and I will be getting together soon to make some needed changes to the website. Take a look at the website sometime in the next week or so and comment if you will.
This fall, Ginny Higgins, who put together the original brochure, very generously took the time to change the format of our brochure from Quark Express to Publisher so I could make changes to it. I now have it on cd and will be working on it in the next few days. Last time I had lunch with Joanne, she and our friend Tony Collis took a look at the old brochure and made some comments. I'd really appreciate it if the rest of you who have the time could take a look. Remember, it's on the website in PDF. The text will be changed pretty dramatically given the new information I learned while in Russia in November. There may be some picture changes as well.
The brochure changes are timely because the friend who gave us the money for Sasha Dubrov has suggested that I send him some brochures - - because `I have a lot of friends with a lot of money and they give it away`!!!! So I'm getting right on that to be sure.
This friend also told me that I should tell him how much money I'll need for the trip in May and he'd see if he could come up with it - this after he'd read that I want to go for two weeks.
My local newspaper, the North Kittitas County Tribune has a feature every week where they run a photo of a local citizen who takes a copy of the paper with them when they go somewhere. I took a copy with me and had Marina Kotov take a photo of me with the paper in front of the detsky dom. Not only did they run the photo but the editor looked up our website and wrote a nice article to accompany it! Joline has posted that to the OurKids archives, so take a look.
Daniel Scarborough, the Peace Corps Volunteer in Lodeina Polye has truly been a friend to us already. I'm so pleased to have found him. He is willing to do a lot of liaison work for us and he has an ATM card ant is willing to distribute money for us while he's in Russia. That may not be long however. President Putin has ordered all Peace Corps Volunteers to be out of Russia by the end of March. I don't know why. Daniel is going to try to stay somehow - get another job, enroll in university, something
- mostly because he's engaged to a Russian woman who has one more year of university but also because he wants to stay and help. Daniel's father, a physician in Florida, telephoned me today to give me his mailing address and to tell me he thinks it's wonderful what we're doing.
I have asked Daniel to check in on Alla Mochalova, Olga Radionova and Misha Sakhniouk for us and let me know how they are and what they're doing.
The one point I forgot to include in the Trip Report was about summer housing for the older children who are still in school. We were worried because we'd heard that some of them who are over 18 hadn't returned for the summer last year. Ivan Nikolaevich assured me that they would be welcome to return to the detsky dom during the summer if they were returning to school in the fall. I hope he communicates that to the children! I will ask him when I return again in May.
It's worrisome to me that so many of the guys have sort of dropped off the radar as it were. Somehow, it seems to be lots harder to keep track of them than the girls. When I asked for the `graduates` by name, I got addresses either from the director or from the staff for all the girls. I got only vague responses about the guys `working in Kirovsk` `working in Peterburg` `working somewhere near Kirovsk` or something like that.
I know that several of them are hiding out from the draft because they wrote to me asking for money. I wrote back and told them that the only way they could escape the draft was to stay in school until they're 28 or to go to Elena Vilenskaya at Mothers of Soldiers and do what she says. I told them that we would help them do either of those things but that we could not send them money to hide out on.
Arkady Mixailov wrote and told me that he was finished with school and had got his family home back. He said he needed money to fix up the house. I wrote and told him that he needed to do something about the draft - either stay in school until he's 28 or go to Elena Vilenskaya. I told him that if we fix up the house now and he's called away into the army, the neighbors will just gut the house again and we'd be faced with fixing up the house when he got out of the service.
Dima Kanchev wrote and told me that his brother had gotten out of the navy and was back in Lodeina Polye and that he, Dima, had left the detsky dom and was living with his brother. He said that his brother, a much decorated veteran, wanted them to start a home repair business but they needed money for tools. I wrote him and told him to write to Eric and describe what they needed and what it would cost and we'd help. I never heard back and neither did Eric.
Last week, I mailed the short notes from the older children to Joanne for translation - and then I forgot to tell Joanne I did it. I apologize for that. I hope they've arrived and that translating them won't take long.
New Year's eve, I sat down (until four am!) and wrote fifteen letters to fifteen children. I told them how glad I was to see them (or sad not to have seen them) and how proud of them I was. I told them that we want to help them get a good education but that we can't do that unless we know where they are, what they need, what they want to study, etc. I reminded them that Raisa Fyodorova has envelopes and stamps so they can write to us. I also wrote to Zhenya Jacubova who has moved to another detsky dom to let her know we're still thinking of her. I sent a cute little card with a very rudimentary Russian thank you to the grupa of tots who gave such a cute performance for me and Daniel.
When I leave here on Thursday afternoon, I will have fifteen more letters ready to send.
When I come to Seattle next week, I will have a copy of the new brochure to send out for final comment. I don't know when that will be exactly because I don't know when NOAA will deposit my check. After I know that, I have to figure out when I can get a ride (only one more month until I have a car) and where I will stay.
I'll keep you posted.
Jacque
Feb.
26, 2002
Dear friends,
Perhaps you heard the report
this morning on NPR's Weekend Edition about the plight of homeless children in
The Russian government
officially acknowledges one million homeless children in the country.
President Vladimir Putin has gone on television to publicly chastise
those ministers in his government whose responsibility it is to care for these
children. A solution to the problem
will not be easy because there are four separate ministries with responsibility
for different segments of children's issues.
Nevertheless, awareness within
A quick check of
The children at the
Svirstroiski Detsky Dom have not entirely escaped these pitfalls.
One young man has been arrested for theft but he was released. One young
man has experimented with heroin but I'm told that he no longer is a user.
One young man began drinking heavily and now nobody knows where he is.
One young woman is a mother and homeless.
Each of these instances by
itself holds the potential for tragedy, of course but not necessarily.
The young man who was arrested for theft is now connected with a human
rights organization in
Another of our young men, Yuri
Nazin, in an attempt to earn veterans benefits and entry into the
Since I learned of Yuri's
plight, I have been working with Mothers of Soldiers in
Their representative in
Still, if we look at an
arbitrary cut off age of sixteen for young people vulnerable to all the pitfalls
described in the statistics above, out of approximately sixty in that
population, our kids are not doing too bad. In fact, I'd say they're doing very
well. Of
all the young people who have `graduated` the detsky dom, only one is at
a stalemate in his life and alcoholism doesn't have to be a dead end.
Only one of the young women has
not gone on for further education but she has gone to live with her elderly aunt
and uncle in a village near Svir Stroi and seems quite content to be caring for
them.
All of the others are in
school, either to learn a trade or to pursue higher education.
One, Olga Zhidkeivich, has completed a computer training course, gotten a
job with a large retail store and recently received a promotion!
I'm so proud of her.
I am very proud as well of Alla
Mochalova, the young Turkmen refugee who has survived nine years by wit and
determination to finally be old enough to apply for and receive official
documents of Russian citizenship. She
did this almost singlehandedly, given that her mother abandoned her and her
elderly grandmother didn't have the resources to help her.
The fact that she managed to survive all that time without being
arrested, abused, deported and any number of other horrors that could happen to
an unprotected beautiful young woman in rural
If one takes only a cursory
look at the statistics for Russian detsky dom children, it will be obvious that
our kids are doing amazing things.
Naturally, the children's own
innate intelligence and desire to succeed is the major factor in all this good
news but we have been a positive influence as well and I am proud of us for
that. In her most recent letter,
Alla says that she couldn't have done it without us.
Misha Sakhnouk is competing for a slot in an exclusive electronics
program at school because we believe in him.
Every letter from the children contains a plea `not to forget me` or a
thank you `for not forgetting me` and a request to write soon.
I do write and others of you
write and that means so much. Letters
of encouragement, affirmation, love and direction are invaluable to these
children as they struggle against incredible odds to realize their dreams.
That someone out there even knows they're there, much less cares how they
are doing is such a novel idea to them that they constantly remark on it.
Every letter also asks `When
are you coming?` `Are you coming
soon?` and that's important as well. My
visits are important to the children and to their caregivers.
My visits are important to me and CoSS as well because that is the only
way we can be sure if the children's situation.
There are so many tasks I can accomplish only if I'm in
I'm sure you all understand
that travel expenses have increased dramatically lately.
Because of that, I must ask you to dig as deep in your pockets as you
feel you can to help me get to Saint Petersburg and Svir Stroi to visit the
children and do what I can and must to help them along the way to successful
lives.
If you can give fifty dollars,
that will pay for me to stay one day in a `homestay` arranged by MIR Travel.
If you can give twenty dollars, that will pay for my train fare to Svir
Stroi. If you can give thirty
dollars, that will pay for one day of a translator's time. One hundred dollars
will pay for my overnight layover in
Even the smallest donation will
help, as you know. A ride on the
Metro is less than a dollar, the bus from Lodeina Polye to Svir Stroi is eight
cents and a trip to Pizza Hut with six teenagers is thirteen dollars. There will
be many things I will need to buy while I'm in
Dima Kanchev's brother Yuri has
just returned from the navy where he earned honors on a ship in the
So, I'm asking you to dig deep.
These young people are doing so well, let's help them keep up the good
work!
Please
send your donations to:
Children
of
Thank you so much for your
continued support.
Jacque
Nov. 14, 2001
We did hold our annual meeting Sunday, 11 November at noon at Tim's office on Northlake but it was a short meeting! Tim came in announcing that he did have a time constraint - given that they were actively in the birthing process. We got immediately to business and approved the financial statement (available to you on request) and chatted a bit about website changes and the soon to be finished new brochure and I teased Tim about having to buy a family car and we adjourned. I haven't heard any news yet but the little missy really isn't due for a couple weeks. We did set as a priority raising money to send me to Russia as soon as possible. My favorite departure date would be in March, sometime before Easter. I'm looking into costs now.
Today, I spent $275 on postage to send donated clothing, toiletries, food, etc. to the young people who are away from the detsky dom at school. This fiscal year, we have delivered a little over 800lb of goods to the children, including clothing, music for the library, science kits and puppets for the library, first aid supplies for the nurse, small toys, photos, toiletries, food and letter writing supplies. We have two computers, including monitors and keyboards, waiting for transport. I will take them with me when I go next time.
Lately, I have been e-conversing with a woman from Democrats Abroad in Moscow about their activities. There is a new chapter forming in St. Petersburg and they will be looking for worthwhile activities to sponsor. My correspondent thinks our project is just the kind of project they'd sponsor. In fact, she knows Eric at MILSAC (the Moscow-based agency helping homeless youth) through her work and from that contact is quite enthusiastic about the work we're doing. I will keep following that lead in hopes of finding someone(s) who will take on a mentoring role with Olga and Larisa and Tanya and the others as they look for work and begin to take care of themselves.
We now have five young people living in St Petersburg attending college or vocational school. There are five or six studying at Kirovsk just outside St Petersburg, three in Podporozhe, two in Lodeina Polye and three or four at Lomonosov as far as I have been able to discover. In a recent e-mail, Olga Zhidkeivich said she's found a job as dispatcher at a department store in the outskirts of St Petersburg. She likes the job since she gets to use her computer skills but she feels it's a long commute. I congratulated her on the job and told her that if she practices her English, maybe she could get a job closer in where there are tourists.
Vladimir has written to say that he is working and going to school. He didn't mention whether he's gotten the apartment yet. The Amazon connection is working. So far, we've gotten two checks from them for our share of purchases made through our website! This being the gift buying season, I'm hoping you'll go to our website, go to the Partners page and explore the shopping opportunities there. Remember, the Board members did some thorough research to find vendors we could be proud to have as partners. Urge your friends and family to check in on us as well!
While you're shopping (if you're doing it in the Seattle area, that is) check out the bargains available from Park Avenue Importers at 34th and Stone Way in Fremont - on the northeast corner of the intersection. The Park family does this sale every year of the current year's samples. The proceeds for part of what they sell goes to AMFAR and, again this year, we get leftovers after Christmas to take to the children. What they have for sale is the kind of good quality merchandise carried by nice gift shops - books, toys, candles, soaps, ceramics, toiletries, etc. The photo on the Who We Are page on the website shows me giving out the gifts from Park Avenue to the children.
Roman wrote to ask for a little time and space. He's having to work two jobs and do his graduate studies and, with a new wife, he feels like he just can't spend a lot of time working with the guys right now. I told him that we all truly appreciated the time and energy he's given so far and that we understand. He will keep in touch, of course.
Anton and Polina have all the contact information for Yuri in the army and are trying to see what they can do - along with Mothers of Soldiers in St Petersburg - to get him out. The last communication Roman had from him was that he was in a great deal of pain but that his commanding officers were being intransigent. Mothers of Soldiers has a website and their report to the United Nations on the conditions of soldiers is there in English.
Every letter I receive from one of the svirstroiski dyeti contains an enormous thank you for all the generous gifts they receive. They ask me to say hello to you all and thank you. We are making a difference in their lives. Their future is brighter because they know someone cares about them and wishes them well. Every time I go to Seattle, there are a few checks in the mailbox at 655 NE Northlake Way, 98105 and I am grateful for that. We need to get more checks coming in though. Please, if you
haven't written CoSS a check in the last three months, write one now and send it in. Every little bit helps.
Be well.
Jacque
Oct. 7, 2001
Well, summer seems officially to be over. It's supposed to snow up on
this mountaintop sometime in the next couple days. This year, I'm really not ready. An injury to my right wrist early in July slowed me down
considerably. It slowed me down but it didn't stop me and I have some good news to share.
Larisa is in college. Thanks to her own determination and a lot of help from a friend who volunteered at SvirStroi the same summer I did, she has
an apartment and is on her way to a better life.
Tanya is in a junior college studying to be a court recorder. This is one spunky girl and I'm very proud of her. She actually went out and got a
job to pay for her keep because the government-promised stipend never arrived. Luckily for her, we have a new, very generous donor who has
given enough money so that Tanya will be able to quit her job and concentrate on her studies.
Vladimir is applying for his apartment in Sestrorezk, a suburb of St Petersburg. He has finished the commercial truck driver school and has
been working hard all summer.
We gave Katya another $100 in cash to help pay for necessities for baby Daniel.
These are plucky and determined young people and I'm so pleased with their progress. There is one element that's extremely important in all this,
even if a little less tangible. That's the fact of your support. The children tell me how very much it means to them to know that someone out
there even knows they exist, much less cares how they are. They, and I, thank you for that from the bottom of our hearts.
The not so good news is that Yuri, who entered the Russian army in June is having a very hard time with pains in his joints and bones - probably a
result of lifelong malnutrition. The army is being intransigent about letting him go and we have even been told a bribe might be necessary. The
better news is that I contacted Mothers of Soldiers in St Petersburg and they agreed enthusiastically to help us help Yuri. I'm so impressed with
those women. Please look them up online
and you will see why. Read their report to the United Nations on treatment of recruits and
you'll see why I'm so anxious to get Yuri discharged.
One of the teenage girls at the detsky dom has been adopted in the United States. She has written and tells me she's very lonely for Russia and for
her friends at the detsky dom - and that she really likes her new family. I made a photo album for her of pictures of the
Children from Sosnovaya Street that I've taken or received from other friends over the years and
sent it to her.
We've been given two computers for the older students. One came from a board member and another from a dynamic lady I met on the return flight
from Russia in May.
One of our most constant supporters, who lives in Canada, has knit a hat or slippers or a shawl for every person at the detsky dom plus blankets
for baby Daniel and for the baby girl our colleague in St Petersburg is expecting this next month.
Another board member recently went through our Amazon.com connection to order all the furniture and paraphernalia for his daughter-on-the-way.
Have you checked out that connection lately to do your ordering? Please do click on our partners when you're looking for a special gift or travel
arrangements.
This week, I will mail food, toiletries and clothing to the older children whose school addresses I have now. I'm looking for a recipe for not-so
perishable cookies that I can send sometime soon. If you have a good recipe for shippable, nutritious goodies, click on the `contact us` button
and send them along.
Recent world events notwithstanding, I am planning to return to visit our young friends just as soon as I can. I need your help to do that. I need
to raise $5,000 in order to make a successful trip. Your donation of any
amount to CoSS will be greatly appreciated.
If the Russian government is joining our government in this current effort, then for sure, her orphans and displaced children will be even
further neglected. That's why I feel we must step up our efforts to help the children at Svirstroiski Detsky Dom.
Cash is what we need now. I'm hesitant to accept material goods because I don't know if I will have trouble getting them on the plane with me and I
can buy the things the children need in Russia for just about what it
would cost to ship them. If you haven't made a donation in a while, if you got a nice tax rebate, if you're
feeling like you need to do something to help in the world situation, consider writing a check to:
Children of Sosnovaya Street
655 Northeast Northlake Way
Seattle, WA 98105
If you do your banking online, consider setting up a monthly transfer of any amount. I'll send you all the bank transfer information on request.
And as always, keep us in your prayers.
Jacque
May 14, 2001
I think I'm coming out of the jet lag and culture shock.
All week, I've had episodes of suddenly feeling like I weigh a ton and my head is full of
molasses. I think it's good I've been here in my own environment instead of in town like I was in `99.
I remember that time, standing for an hour at what I remembered to be a bus stop before I figured out to look and see
that the bus stop had been moved!
I must say that after everything I experienced in Russia, it was so nice to get out of the airport shuttle and see my daughter and her husband and
the kids in the yard doing normal family things. Their eldest son was learning to mow the lawn - actually the curbside planting strip and their
youngest son was crying because all the long grass was being cut. He was dressed in his cowboy hat and vest and spurs and his younger sister was
going around the yard with a bucket picking up little things and singing.
We now have a collaborator who has agreed to receive money from us to spend for our young friends. I'm so glad she offered to do this - and
grateful. She is so savvy in the ways of Russian bureaucracy as it pertains to children's issues because of her long experience at a detsky
dom for deaf children and having her as an ally will be a great help.
The big duffel of baby things donated by many friends and the pretty maternity clothes from Karen were a big hit with Katya and Pasha.
Baby Daniel is due in August and Pasha is busy planting a big garden at his parents' home in Kirovsk where they will live after they've finished their
vocational schooling in June.
Several of the older children went with me to the Dom Knigi (house of books) in Petersburg
where we bought the computer books they'd been needing. I gave them cash to buy English language workbooks and tapes
when the MIR bookstore reopened after the holiday.
About a dozen of the older children will be homeless after school is out this year because they're too old to return to the detsky dom.
That's a big problem. We have one possible solution, a friend who has emigrated
has offered a nearly finished dacha about half hour by train from Petersburg.
It's got eight rooms, so it has plenty of room but the permitting process for a home like that can be grueling.
There is no telephone either, and installing a voice line and e-mail line will be
expensive. We'd have to hire a `house mother or father` with some experience in social work to oversee things too.
It's worth exploring and our friends in Petersburg will be looking into it.
About the glasses Sasha needs, I asked our new liaison and she said he could go to the regional public hospital and get them for free.
That's what she does and her glasses are just fine. She says he'll have to queue
and there won't be and Armani frames to choose from but the glasses will be good and the prescription correct.
She will tell him how to do that.
This is turning into a longer report than I intended but I do want to tell you one fun story about the visit to the detsky dom.
One of the little bags of goodies I took with me was something Jill had come up with.
I forget where she got them but they look like something form Archie
McPhee. It was some little plastic frogs, just a single layer of plastic molded in
the shape of the top of a frog on all fours ready to jump. From the back of the frog is a little tab that, when depressed and released makes the
frog jump. Well, after Polina and I had sat in the gazebo in the playground giving out gifts to all the older children, we went up to the
grupa where the little ones had just finished their nap. We took along the little frogs and after we'd given the `malinki` their stuffed toys and
other goodies, I took out the frogs. The children looked at them like `yeah? so what is this?`
Then I got down on the tile floor of their empty salon and made one jump! Pretty soon, we had sixteen pudgy fingered two
and three and four year old frog leapers laughing and giggling and forming races and leap length contests.
It was so fun taking one little fat finger in my hand and depressing the tab and watching the eyes as the
child caught on! Yay Jill!
March 12, 2001
Things are hopping since I finally bought my ticket for Russia!
We are working on getting some of the older children to English Language camps in E Europe during the summer. I am very much enjoying the correspondence with the founder of the organization, Bridges for Education, and we're hoping we can gather ten of the students from Svir Stroi and maybe another detsky dom who have good English skills to send with a teacher from one of the doms. The camps do more than teach English, they teach leadership skills and civil society concepts as well. Tuition for each student is $300. The Council of Europe is subsidizing travel expenses for this program. If we send ten students, the teacher goes free.
I'm exploring the possibility of establishing a cooperative program with a group called Women's Initiative who work with women in the prisons. The mothers of many of our children are in prison and I'd like to help them keep in touch.
While I'm in Russia, I will visit groups who work with homeless children in Peterburg. We know that at least one student is not returning to the detsky dom this summer. Although he hasn't finished the vocational school, he's been `graduated` from the dom. He needs a safe place to be for himself especially but also for the computer that we're hoping will be his key to a better future.
Since the older children are going to vocational high schools in several places, I expect to spend a lot of time in trains visiting Lomonosov, Kirovsk, Tosno, Lodeina Polye and Svir Stroi (twice), Podporozhe and Moscow.
While I'm at the detsky dom, I'll make a big party for the younger children on the 28th. I have all those little gifties that Park Avenue Agents donated at Christmas time to give to them.
Jacque
Email to coss@vircom.net
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