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The year 2012 was marked by violent unrest in the ranks of the stratum that calls itself the "creative class". Following the “fight for fair elections” and support for the scandalous group Pussy Riot, the country was overwhelmed by the curtain of the outgoing year new wave protests of the angry "creative elite". The reason was the adoption State Duma Russia of the "Law of Dima Yakovlev" as a response to the "Law of Magnitsky" adopted in the USA.
"Cannibal law", "anti-orphan law", "law of scoundrels", "King Herod", "evil persecutor" (about President Putin), "child killers", "fiends", "orcs", "voluntarily renounced the title of civilized people" , (about State Duma deputies) - these are just a few epithets that liberal journalists and the blogosphere awarded Russian President and Duma deputies from all four factions.
Novaya Gazeta and other online media organize regular campaigns to collect signatures of outraged writers, pop stars and Internet users - the last time such a mass hysteria took place only in the Pussy Riot case. US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, who has already gained notoriety, made a special statement. A petition has been posted on the website of the White House calling for deputies who supported the "Dima Yakovlev law" to be included in the "Magnitsky lists". To date, 13,000 people have signed the petition. If by January 20 the number of signatories reaches 25,000, it will be considered by the administration of the President of the United States. President Putin is under massive pressure to veto the law he spoke out in support of during his press conference.
The first signs of a split in the ruling elite have emerged. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov, and Mikhail Abyzov, the person who coordinates the activities of a rather strange structure called "open government", expressed their disagreement with the law adopted by the Duma. Even patriotic people, such as TV journalist Mikhail Leontiev and historian Alexander Dyukov, expressed their disagreement with the adopted law.
The schism also affected the church rows. The heads of the two synodal departments expressed their full support for the adopted law - Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Chairman of the Department for Cooperation with the Church and Society, and Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, Chairman of the Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies. On the other hand, with criticism of the law, unexpectedly the head of another synodal department for church charity and social service, Bishop Panteleimon of Smolensk and Vyazemsky.
What is the essence of the problem, which once again led the notorious “creative class” to rebellion and became a reason for disagreement in church circles?
The fact is that Russia, like all countries of the former Soviet Union, have become the basis for the mass export of children for the purpose, at best, of their subsequent adoption, and at worst - use in the field of child prostitution or transplantation. The most egregious case occurred with a certain Nadezhda Fratti-Shchelgacheva, who fraudulently, allegedly for adoption, took 1,260 Russian children to Italy. Of these children, only five were adopted. Russian investigators found only five (!) children adopted.
According to representatives of the Italian authorities, these children could well become a victim of black transplantation. According to the then Minister of the Interior of Italy, Roberto Maroni, from 1974 to 2008. In Italy, 9,802 minors disappeared without a trace, 8,080 of which were foreigners. Every week in Italy, according to Maroni, eight young children go missing. As the newspaper La Stampa wrote, from the Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea, where reception centers for illegal immigrants are located, more than 400 out of 1320 children disappeared in 2009. Fratti-Shchelgacheva herself mysteriously managed to escape punishment and leave the territory of Russia without hindrance.
Russia has become one of the main suppliers of children to the United States and European countries - it shared these "prizing places" with Ethiopia and Guatemala. According to Pavel Astakhov, Commissioner for Children's Rights under the President of Russia, up to 30,000 children were taken out of Russia during the 1990s. In addition to the official ones, there were also “gray” schemes for the removal of children - rest, treatment, study, acquaintance, etc. Today, the market for foreign adoption of children from Russia is about 300 thousand dollars a year. On the territory of Russia there are about 80 intermediary firms for the adoption of Russian children by foreigners.
The average cost of adoption is up to 60 thousand dollars for one child. Today, about 13,000 Russian residents are in the queue for adoption of children, but they do not pay for adoption and therefore are not interesting for the “children business”. Foreign adoption exceeds by several times the Russian one in the Jewish autonomous region three times, in the Irkutsk region by 2.5 times, in the Khabarovsk Territory by 1.5 times, in St. Petersburg by 1.3 times. At the same time, in the same regions, there was a queue of Russians who wanted to adopt an orphan child: in St. Petersburg, 360 people are on the waiting list for the adoption of children, in Khabarovsk - 185 people.
There is a false myth that Russians are only interested in healthy children, while Americans are willing to adopt sick children. Of the 20 thousand orphans taken out of Russia in 2009-2011, 70% are healthy children aged from a few months to 6 years. In 2011, the Russians adopted 188 disabled children, the Americans - only 44. At the same time, the interest of Americans in children from Russia seems completely incomprehensible. According to the American website The New Civil Rights Movement, there are 2.9 million unadopted orphans and 1.6 million homeless children in the United States today.
The topic of the ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans was not born yesterday - it has long been expressed by a variety of representatives Russian society. For several years, we have been faced with facts of abuse and even murder of Russian children in the United States. According to the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich, American justice is extremely strict when violence concerns American children. For example, a court in the Texas city of Dallas sentenced local resident Elizabeth Escalona to 99 years in prison for bullying her own daughter, as a result of which the girl ended up in intensive care. At the same time, the same courts show “incomprehensible and unacceptable indulgence” to foster parents. Thus, in Pennsylvania, the Cravers, guilty of prolonged torture and death of seven-year-old Ivan Skorobogatov, on whose body 80 wounds were found, were sentenced to only 16 months in prison. At the same time, in view of the fact that they served this term during the investigation, the Cravers were released right in the courtroom.
Brian Dykstra
At the same time, the American Brian Dykstra, who beat to death one and a half year old Ilya Kargyntsev, did not spend a single day in imprisonment. The foster father called 911 and reported that the foster son was having a "little seizure." Police and doctors found the child lying unconscious on the living room floor with "an obvious head injury." In the hospital, he was found to have extensive cerebral edema, severe intracranial bleeding, retinal edema in both eyes, and severe bruising on his torso and legs. According to the doctors, the injuries had been sustained by the child earlier that day and were inconsistent with the explanations given by Dykstra. The boy underwent brain surgery, but he died without regaining consciousness. The investigation of this case lasted several years, but the main suspect was released almost immediately. After paying a bail of 15 thousand dollars, he did not spend a single day in isolation. On November 3, 2011, the Johnson County Court of Iowa acquitted Dykstra. Throughout the trial, US authorities did not say a word to either Russian diplomats or the Department of Education, which oversees the adoption.
In February 2009, a three-year-old Russian girl, Daria McNulty, was taken to one of the hospitals in Pennsylvania. She was diagnosed with numerous second-degree burns, as well as signs of beatings on her head, neck, limbs and back. The court found that her adoptive mother Teresa had beaten her for a long time. The sadist received about two years in prison, but this very freedom was released after 8 months.
In March 2010, Michael Grismore was arrested in the United States, who systematically raped his adopted daughter Ksenia Antonova. The American citizen Martha-Annette Blenford, who adopted her from Kemerovo, after some time decided to abandon the girl. After that, Xenia was bailed out by the family of her sister Martha-Annette, where the girl was sexually abused by her new foster father. The court still cannot pass an unambiguous verdict against Grismore, as he states that sexual intimacy with Xenia took place “by mutual agreement” even when the girl was already 16 years old (according to the laws of the state of Georgia, this is the age of puberty). Grismore even submitted a certificate to the court stating that Ksenia at the time of sexual contact with Grismore was not 15 (as according to Russian documents), but 16 years old.
In April 2010, seven-year-old Artem Savelyev was found on a plane en route from the United States to Russia with a note that he was accompanied by his adoptive grandmother Nancy Hansen. According to Mrs. Hansen, her daughter Tori “cannot become a real mother to Artyom, since the child adopted in Russia allegedly “suffers from an alcohol syndrome”.” No special measures regarding Nancy Hansen and her daughter Tori were taken by American justice.
In May 2010, American adoptive parents named Leshchinsky decided to set up a real forced labor camp for three adopted girls from Russia. Children were raised early in the morning and made to run 10 kilometers, and then sent to other "developmental activities", the main of which was standing with fists and sitting on nails. For each disobedience, the girls were severely beaten. According to the father of the family, Steve Leshchinsky, this is just “a system of education for children from Russia,” who “simply cannot be brought up differently.” As a result, the spouses Steve and Edelwina Leszczynski were sentenced by an American court to ... 4 years of probation and a ban on the adoption of a child under 15 years old.
In 2011, the spouses Shed and Christy Traylors were arrested in Florida on suspicion of ill-treatment of Maxim Babaev, adopted by them in Russia. The court subsequently closed the case. In September of this year, Russian diplomats demanded comprehensive explanations from the US authorities and the earliest possible location of Babayev in order to organize a consular meeting with him, however, upon the request for consular access to the child, Florida District Judge J. Maul issued a negative decision. The boy was handed over to temporary guardians, but Russian diplomats are unable to find out his location and state of health. All requests for information about his whereabouts, the circumstances of the incident and the further fate of Maxim were refused.
In the same year, a 40-year-old manager from Massachusetts, who adopted three-year-old Denis in the Voronezh region, simply presented him to her friends. According to the failed mother, she "did not have warm feelings for the child." The agency Wide Horizons For Children, responsible for the adoption of the child, not only violated the deadlines for submitting mandatory reports on Denis's living conditions in the United States, but also sent false information to Russia. The report sent by the agency, in particular, said that Denis was doing well, he was getting used to a new life, he became attached to all family members. However, a month later, the agency reported that the American adoptive mother had abandoned Denis. Later it became known that the agency transferred the boy under temporary custody to a new foster family.
In 2012, in the state of Virginia, seven-year-old Daniil Krichun, adopted by them in Tula, ran away from foster parents, spouses Matthew and Amy Sweeney, who said that he was often beaten in the foster family. During examination, traces of severe beatings were indeed found on his body. Prosecutors charged the Sweeney couple with child abuse and released them pending trial on $20,000 bail.
But there are also stranger things. In particular, this is the Ranch For Kids shelter in Montana. According to various sources, from 10 to 32 orphans from Russia, abandoned by foster parents, live there, at a complete distance from outside world. Some children are transferred to the ranch immediately after adoption. In separate reports, the child's status is listed as "happily in foster care" while on the ranch. Some children return to this ranch several times. Some are transferred to psychiatric hospitals or colonies for juvenile delinquents.
In 2010, the shelter was denied a license due to the fact that the premises for children are not properly equipped, that there is no sensible fire fighting and fire evacuation plan, that the employees of the institution do not have licenses to carry out their activities, and the children themselves are actually deprived of any rights . At the same time, most of the children on the ranch suffer from serious physiological and psychological disorders, but do not receive a qualified medical care. Moreover, the owner of the establishment, Joyce Sterkel, refused to provide the authorities with any detailed information about their pupils. Since 2010, Montana has been pushing for the closure of the ranch.
A few months ago, the Association of Parents' Committees and Communities (ARKS) began to develop a draft law on limiting the international adoption of children in the working group of Deputy Yevgeny Fedorov, and this work was successfully completed. This bill should have been adopted regardless of the adoption or non-acceptance of the “Magnitsky law”. Thank God that the anti-Russian act adopted by the US Congress and signed by the US President helped pass a law prohibiting international adoption.
Yes, in addition to the above, there were good examples of adoption. And we should be grateful to those ascetic families who were able to bring to life a fairy tale for thousands of disabled children. And we should be ashamed that in Russia there is no (or simply weathered) the same attitude towards suffering children as in most traditional American Protestant families.
But let's imagine that the American adoption of all Russian children is successful. That there were no 19 murders, numerous rapes and beatings of adopted children from Russia, their gifts to other people or sending them back to Moscow on planes. Suppose that even an Associated Press article about a strange ranch in Montana is a journalistic myth commissioned by Kremlin lobbyists. Imagine for a moment that all Russian children adopted by Americans are happy in new families. In this case, the adoption of Russian children - healthy and disabled - by foreign adoptive parents would be justified.
In my deep conviction, no. First, because Russia is not a banana republic. Russia cannot be put on a par with Ethiopia and Guatemala. For this reason alone, any foreign adoption Russian children by foreigners (with the exception of Russians from former USSR), for whatever "humanitarian" reasons, should be prohibited. Simply because no self-respecting country would allow this, just as the United States does not allow other countries to adopt 3 million of their own orphans. A poor mother who sells her child to a wealthy family is committing a crime, no matter how kind the foster family may be. As journalist Denis Tukmakov wrote in his blog, if we choose “life with strangers” for Russian children, then we, as a nation, end there.
And secondly, there is the question of faith. And this question, in my deep conviction, is the main one. Children born in Russia, many of whom have already been baptized in Orthodox churches, will find themselves in the bosom of an alien, heretical religious tradition. Giving children into the hands of practicing heretics (no matter how good people they are) is not even for the sake of saving their lives. Saving their lives, we close the way for their souls to salvation, which is not possible outside the Church of Christ. For “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and harms his soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Both the state and the Church should learn lessons from all this history. It is necessary to eliminate all bureaucratic delays for Russian adoptive parents in the adoption of children. It is necessary to make sure that disabled children in Russia live as well as in America. The adoption of orphans should become the norm for Orthodox families. It is necessary to develop and encourage the system of church and monastic shelters, such as the orphanage in the St. Alexis Hermitage, created by Hieromonk Peter (Vasilenko). Every public building and underground passage must be equipped with ramps for the disabled. But the issue of foreign adoption must be closed once and for all.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy reports that it has achieved the lifting of the ban on the adoption of Belarusian children. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry claims that there was no ban.
The message that Italy has achieved the lifting of the previously introduced ban on the adoption of children from Belarus by Italian citizens was published on February 26 on the website of the Italian Foreign Ministry. According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy Federica Mogherini, an agreement on this was reached following lengthy negotiations between the Deputy Head of the Italian Foreign Ministry Martha Dassou and her Belarusian counterpart Elena Kupchina.
"This matter was brought to the attention of the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, at the request of the families with whom the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in constant contact,"- reported on the website of the Italian Foreign Ministry.
According to the press secretary of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Mironchik, we cannot talk about lifting the ban on the adoption of Belarusian children by Italian citizens due to the fact that "There was no such ban."
“Diplomatic work in this area is carried out at various levels. The whole process is carried out in strict accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Belarus,” Dmitry Mironchik said at a briefing on February 27.
It should be reminded that Italy is the only state that agreed with Belarus on the procedure for international adoption. Citizens of Italy adopt Belarusian children every year. However, the Ministry of Education, which regulates this process, does not name the number of adoptions.
The issue of international adoption is considered within a month in the local guardianship and guardianship authorities, then in National Center adoption and sent for a summary to the Minister of Education. International adoption is governed by chapter 13 and art. 233 of the Marriage and Family Code, Resolution of the Council of Ministers of January 31, 2007 No. 122 “On Certain Issues of Adoption (Adoption), Establishment of Custody, Guardianship of Children”. Children who have been in the database of children to be adopted for at least a year and who could not find a family in Belarus can be recommended for international adoption.
At the end of 2010, then head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry Sergey Martynov handed over to the Italian Foreign Ministry a list of 100 Belarusian children who can be adopted by Italian families.
The rules for adopting Belarusian children were tightened in 2007 after a dramatic story. Belarus has decided to give children for adoption to foreigners only on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement.
In September 2006, the couple Alessandro Giusto and Maria-Chiara Bornachin, to which Vika had been visiting for several years for the summer and Christmas holidays, refused to return the girl to Belarus. Vika was hidden for 20 days. Maria-Chiara Bornacin and Alessandro Giusto alleged that an 11-year-old girl was subjected to physical and psychological abuse in an orphanage in Vileyka.
Through the efforts of the Belarusian embassy in Italy and the local police, Vika was found and returned to Belarus. The Italian couple failed to adopt a girl after returning.
Since 2007, the number of adoptions by foreign citizens began to decrease. In 2003, foreigners adopted 714 Belarusian children, in 2004 596 children found a new family abroad, in 2007 there were only 37 such adoptions, and in 2009 - 26.
Italians have been leading in terms of the number of adoptions all these years, and now they are the only foreigners who can adopt Belarusian children.
Citizens of countries that allow same-sex marriages will no longer be able to adopt orphans from Russia. The corresponding decree was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The Russian government has changed the rules for placing orphans for adoption, supplementing them with a ban on adoption by foreign same-sex couples. The decree published today on the government website contains a clause according to which adult citizens of both sexes can be adoptive parents, except for “persons who are in a union concluded between persons of the same sex, recognized as a marriage and registered in accordance with the laws of the state in which such a marriage permitted, as well as persons who are citizens of the said state and who are not married.”
Thus, the ban on adoption applies not only to same-sex couples (President Vladimir Putin signed the relevant law back in July 2013), but also to all citizens whose countries recognize such marriages. “The implementation of the resolution will contribute to the improvement of the procedure for transferring children left without parental care to be brought up in families of citizens of the Russian Federation and foreign citizens and ensuring the protection of the rights and interests of such children,” the government is convinced.
Since January 1, 2013, Russia has banned the adoption of orphans by US citizens. In April of the same year, Vladimir Putin called for a review of the adoption agreement with France, where at that moment the issue of legalizing same-sex unions was being decided. According to the results of 2011-2012, orphans from Russia most often left for the USA, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Great Britain and Israel.
Same-sex marriages are currently recognized by Spain, France and the United Kingdom. Children from Russia will also not be able to go to Belgium (18 adopted children in 2011-2012), Denmark, Iceland, Canada (109 adopted children), the Netherlands, New Zealand (7), Norway, Portugal, Sweden (61 children) and a number of others countries. The question remains whether citizens of Germany will be able to adopt Russian orphans, where same-sex unions are registered, but the adoption of children by such couples is prohibited. Italy, which according to the results of 2012 received the most orphans from Russia, same-sex marriages this moment does not register, however, there is an active debate about the legalization of such marriages in the country.
The author of the film about orphans "Bluff, or Happy New Year" Olga Sinyaeva in the firm "Kommersant FM": “This also applies to unmarried citizens. Personally, I am a supporter of traditional relationships, but children who grow up in orphanages, in an orphan environment, do not belong to themselves, they do not feel their body at all, contact with their body. They constantly grow in deprivation, first of all, of personal emotional contact. For them, especially for young children, this is so critical that if, for example, even a same-sex family or unmarried citizens can give this contact to a child, this close contact, then the child blossoms, comes to life and moves on.”
Why Alexander Bastrykin asked the US to deal with orphans
In November 2013, the head of the ICR, Alexander Bastrykin, sent a request to the US Attorney General to check the possible violation of the rights of 26 Russian children adopted by the Americans. We are talking about the facts set forth in a journalistic investigation by Reuters and the NBC television channel: as correspondents established, an underground orphan exchange network was organized in the states.
Why Intercountry Adoption Failed
In one European country there lives a family that has been dreaming of a child for many years. Maria and Jan cannot have their own children. It is practically impossible to adopt a compatriot child: the number of orphans wishing to adopt is several times greater than the number of orphans themselves. Family friends adopted a boy from Russia several years ago - with developmental delays and other diagnoses that are often found in the medical records of orphanage children. Foster parents spent a lot of effort and money, and today the boy studies at a regular school, draws beautifully and is dearly loved by all his relatives.
Where do Russian children go when they disobey American parents?
One of the main arguments of the supporters of the law prohibiting US citizens from adopting Russian orphans was the impossibility of exercising control over the life and fate of children. An example was a ranch for children located in the town of Eureka, in the state of Montana. According to Pavel Astakhov, Commissioner for Children's Rights, the orphanage was specially created for American parents who want to get rid of adopted children from Russia. Mr. Astakhov claimed that he was not given the opportunity to visit there. Kommersant tried to figure out what was happening at the ranch and why Mr. Astakhov could not get to him.
How does the ban on the adoption of children by Americans work in practice?
In January, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation simplified the procedure for adopting orphans for Russian adoptive parents. And by February 1, the government was supposed to submit to the State Duma a bill that should stimulate the adoption of children with disabilities. The emergency measures are prompted by a broad public reaction to the State Duma's legislative response to the Magnitsky Act, which prohibits the adoption of Russian children in the United States. Kommersant found out who would suffer from the "anti-Magnit law" and whether the Russian authorities would be able to minimize these losses.
About the boy Vita from the Kemerovo region, who was destined to become the last child in Kuzbass, adopted by foreigners. A family from Italy actually saved the life of an orphan. The boy spoke, went to school, he had friends and hobbies, although he was considered hopeless in the orphanage.
A family of Italian bakers adopted Vitya in August 2013. A month later, the Kemerovo region, by decision of local deputies, became the first region in Russia to completely ban foreign adoption.
Malgin met Viti's foster family by chance in Italy in February 2014. Then the five-year-old boy did not yet speak either Russian or Italian. Having visited Vitya's family for Christmas (December 25, 2015), the blogger reported on the dramatic changes that had taken place with the boy. A story about Viti's life in Italy is published in a blog review.
In Russia, Vitya was considered hopelessly ill
As Malgin writes, in order to adopt a boy from the Kemerovo region, his new family had to fly to Siberia three times and live there. Vitya became the last child in the region who could be adopted by foreigners. "About 70 children who have already met future foreign parents have remained in orphanages and orphanages," the blogger notes.
At the same time, the Kemerovo guardianship authorities picked up Vitya for the Italians, because they were sure that he was mentally retarded and hopelessly ill. “At the age of four and a half, he did not speak, did not respond to speech, he could not walk in a straight line, fell on his side. His eyes could not focus on the interlocutor. Therefore, at the age of four he was kept in a children's playpen, and tranquilizers were generously injected. , he yelled and immediately received a new dose, "says Malgin.
The Italians were shocked when they first saw the child. “But they were told: either this one, or you fly back and start the process all over again (the painful process of collecting certificates lasted a year and cost tens of thousands of euros),” the blogger explains.
As a result, the foreigners decided that they would accept the child into their family. "Somewhere deep there was a thought: what if it will be possible to cure him?" writes Malgin.
While the issue of adoption was decided in court, the secretary of the court asked the Italians: "Tell me, are you taking him to the authorities?" Foreigners reacted to the question with bewilderment. “The court girl read in the newspaper that all Italians (namely Italians) adopt children in Russia in order to dismantle them into organs in their basement in Italy and then sell these organs individually,” the blogger explains. As soon as the court approved the adoption, the adoptive family, together with Vitya, flew to Moscow, and from there to Italy.
Italian doctors found no pathologies in Vitya
As Malgin notes, after the orphanage, Vitya, who was four and a half years old, "did not know how to speak, only mumbled, sometimes shouted like peacocks in a zoo, he could barely walk, his gaze was turned inward, they fed him from a spoon, and drink from he did not know how to cup - everything flowed past his mouth. But the child's parents "did not despair and gradually, step by step, taught him human skills."
In addition, after waiting several months in line, the foster mother went with Vitya to an expensive clinic in Livorno, where "there is a luminary - a professor specializing in mentally retarded children." “Vitya was checked from head to toe using the most modern technology, all tests were taken, he underwent various psychological tests. Mom returned inspired: there were no pathologies in the brain,” Malgin notes.
It is worth noting that Viti's family earns a living by baking bread. “At five in the morning, you need to light the oven and start baking bread. Previously, they did it one by one, but now everything fell on the shoulders of the father. We witnessed this difficult period in their lives, they, of course, are heroes,” the blogger emphasizes.
After a month in the clinic, Vitya's adoptive mother strictly followed all the recommendations of the specialists, and the necessary skills were restored quickly. “Except for one thing: the child had complete atrophy of the speech apparatus. I don’t know if it was congenital or simply because no one was involved in it. And so, having received a whole book from the doctor describing exercises for the tongue and mouth, she began daily exhausting work” , - says Malgin.
Parents did everything to ensure that the child develops comprehensively: they hired Vita a swimming coach, taught him to ride a bike, although at first the boy did not even understand that he needed to press the pedals. In addition, it turned out that Vitya likes to collect puzzles and copes with even the most difficult of them in a few hours. "When we got there in the spring, they had boxes of puzzles in the corner: the stack was from floor to ceiling, I swear. He did it all!" - admires Malgin.
Vitya spoke
As the blogger notes, one day he once again visited Viti's family and heard that the boy was talking, eating with a spoon, knife and fork, despite the fact that immediately after adoption he used to drink from the toilet, scooping up water in his palms. "This yesterday's plant has a character. This also had to be dealt with," notes Malgin.
Victor went to Kindergarten and then, in September of this year, back to school. “By this moment, he already spoke decently. The only problems were with diction, not all sounds were equally good,” says the author of the material.
According to Malgin, Vita really likes school. The boy was given a separate teacher at the expense of the state, who sits next to him at his desk during all lessons, while the class teacher stands at the blackboard. Viti has friends in the class, and he knows everyone by name.
During the blogger's last visit to Vitya's foster family, the boy was talking. "Slowly, choosing words, but he spoke to us on various topics. He asked questions, answered questions about the school and about his news. It was some kind of miracle," writes Malgin.
The blogger also spoke about the amazing features that he and Vitya's parents drew attention to. First, the boy reacted with joy to Russian speech when he heard it in Italy after a long break, although in such cases children may become hysterical, because the words in their native language remind them of a difficult period in their lives.
In addition, it turned out that Vitya remembers some Russian words, although the child did not speak at all during his life in Russia. "I remembered a boy - the character of Fazil Iskander - who was silent until the age of seven, was considered dumb, and then one day he came up to the table where a family with numerous relatives was sitting, and clearly told them: "It's time to sow winter crops!" writes Malgin.
The blogger recalled that Vitya's mother is an alcoholic who died when the child was four months old in a village somewhere on the border with Mongolia.
Adoption bans imposed by the Russian authorities
During a large press conference on December 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the easing of the ban on the adoption of children with disabilities in the Russian Federation. In response, the head of state said that, according to statistics, the percentage of foreigners who wish to adopt disabled children in the Russian Federation is much less than those who apply for healthy children. Therefore, Putin said, there is no need to rush to revise the decisions that were taken on this issue.
It is worth noting that the Kemerovo deputies banned foreign adoption with the wording "the adoption of minors is an internal affair of Russia, an internal affair of Kuzbass." Later, the Council of People's Deputies of the Kemerovo Region proposed to the State Duma of the Russian Federation to completely ban the adoption of orphans by foreigners in Russia, arguing its initiative to protect children from "forced training in gayism." The lower house of the Russian parliament rejected this initiative.
Since January 1, the “Dima Yakovlev law” has been in force in Russia, prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian orphans. In June 2013, the State Duma of the Russian Federation passed a law prohibiting same-sex families from other countries from adopting children from Russia. A little later, the Federation Council approved a ban on the adoption of orphans from the Russian Federation by same-sex couples, as well as unmarried or unmarried foreigners from those states where such marriages are allowed. At the same time, these norms were included in the Family Code of the Russian Federation.
And in early February of this year, in the development of the so-called anti-gay orphan law, the government of the Russian Federation limited the adoption of Russian orphans in countries with legal same-sex marriages. The new norm introduced by this decree is that now not only open foreign gays - who do not hide their relationship with persons of the same sex - but also those foreigners who, according to the Russian authorities, may turn out to be gay, will not be able to adopt children. .
Russian President Putin approved the adoption agreement only with Italy, because in our country only married couples can take adopted children, but not couples out of wedlock, single people or same-sex unions, Italian media reported.
"The similarity of views, which should not please us," Chiara Saraceno's commentary on the decision of the Russian president on the adoption of Russian orphans abroad was published in the newspaper La Repubblica.
“In recent years, international adoption has increasingly become part of interstate relations and agreements,” the author of the article writes. “Putin’s decision to approve an adoption agreement only with Italy, because in our country only married couples can take adopted children, but not couples out of wedlock, single people or same-sex couples, testifies, first of all, that the legal systems of the two countries support a single, strict definition of the family and the conditions under which one can become legal adoptive parents.
"I don't think we should be happy with such a similarity of opinion with a country that, to put it mildly, freely interprets the concept of civil rights and freedoms, including the rights of children left without parents," the author continues, emphasizing that Russian orphans "very often have to live in overcrowded and poor orphanages."
The newspaper Corriere della Sera publishes an article by correspondent Fabrizio Dragosei "Putin's decision: Adoption of children only for Italy, a country where there are no same-sex marriages."
"Despite the fact that in Russia the problem of orphans is quite dramatic, it will continue to practice a ban on adoptions for almost all Western countries - with the exception of Italy. Our country," writes the author of the article, "is the only state that has a valid agreement with Russia in this area ". According to the Russian authorities, Italy deserved this by not allowing same-sex marriages and adoption of children by same-sex couples. Adoption in the United States, the country that has hosted the largest number of Russian children in the past, has been blocked as a result of a political dispute and as the issue of same-sex marriage has evolved, Dragosei recalls. With France, the issue of adoption was closed in April after the French parliament lifted a ban on gay weddings and adoptions.
This spring, Putin announced that bilateral agreements with certain countries should be revised. The Duma then introduced a ban on the adoption of children in countries that recognize same-sex marriages. The Church has said its word: "Russian children must remain in Russia." The author of the article comments: "According to Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Interaction between the Church and Society of the Moscow Patriarchate, we are talking about right and wrong faith: a baby who finds himself in a non-Orthodox family, even a Christian one, "departs from the path that leads him to the kingdom of the Lord." In other words, the one who leaves Orthodoxy will not end up in paradise."
Anna Zafesova's article "Putin: Russian children only for Italians", published in the newspaper La Stampa, also discusses the topic of adoption of Russian orphans. "Pavel Astakhov, the Kremlin's commissioner for children's rights, said yesterday that only Italian citizens can have the right, in accordance with Russian law, to accept Russian children into their families: "Italy does not recognize same-sex marriages and is the only country with which we have bilateral agreement on adoption and which implements this agreement".
“Italians are good people, and what many people think is a sign of backwardness is, according to Russians, a virtue. Russia’s conservative turn has to pay the price of Russian orphans,” writes Zafesova. “In 2012, 2.6 were adopted by foreign parents thousands of Russian children, of which 762 ended up in Italian families.In second place were the Americans (646 children), and they would have adopted more if it were not for the so-called "Dima Yakovlev Law" - a boy who died in the United States. This law became a pretext to ban the adoption of children overseas, where, according to Astakhov, “pedophilia, violence, abuse flourish like in no other country.” In fact, the journalist recalls, the ban on the adoption of Russian children by American families was a response to the “Magnitsky Law "- the imposition by the US Congress of sanctions against Russian officials who were found guilty of the death in prison of lawyer and anti-corruption fighter Sergei Magnitsky."
“Most likely, the new tightening of the rules for international adoption is due to the fact that 23 American families applied to the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights with a request to provide information about the children they were supposed to adopt. The Russian side refused to provide such information, saying that all children were adopted Russian families, but local media claims otherwise: they were children who were seriously ill, many of whom could not be treated in Russia, and one of them, who suffered from severe heart disease, died. "As a rule, Russians do not adopt sick children and children with developmental delays, and almost never adopt children older than 4-5 years. Now, for such children, the only hope is the Italians."
