NEWS FEATURE: U.S. ministry aids Russian orphans make transition to adulthood

c. 1999 Religion News Service ANDREYEVSKOYE, Russia _ Dima Himenkov is smiling. A broad grin covers the 16-year-old’s freckled face as he slides his queen deep into his foster father’s territory on the chess board. Nikolai Mironovich groans and throws up his hands. “Dima always wins,” he said. Across the room, over the televised din […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

ANDREYEVSKOYE, Russia _ Dima Himenkov is smiling.

A broad grin covers the 16-year-old’s freckled face as he slides his queen deep into his foster father’s territory on the chess board.


Nikolai Mironovich groans and throws up his hands. “Dima always wins,” he said.

Across the room, over the televised din of a game show, 16-year-old Alyosha Bezrodnov tries to sweet-talk his foster mother into letting him watch “Red Heat,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that airs from 9 until 11:30.

But Tatiana Mironovich is firm. It’s a weeknight, and bedtime is 10:30.

It’s a typical night at Russia’s first Transitional Family Center for orphanage graduates. You won’t see the center, in this village about 90 miles northeast of Moscow, on the hidden cameras of ABC’s “20/20” or splashed across the pages of Newsweek. That’s because this Russian-American endeavor is a ray of hope for the youngsters most affected by the dark abyss that is Russia’s economic crisis.

Six boys from five orphanages live at the center. Dima, from Omoforovo, and Alyosha, from Lakinsk, had not met before it opened on Sept. 8, 1998, but now say they are “like brothers.” So are Sergei Naidyenov, 19, of Mstyora, and Artem Panin, 16, of Omoforovo, who sit cross-legged on the floor of the next room and paint fir trees on sketch pads.

“Some Americans might think of this as a drop in a pail,” said George Steiner, executive director of Children’s HopeChest, the Colorado Springs, Colo., ministry that bought and converted two flats into the seven-room, two-bathroom family center and pays $1,200 a month in salaries and support. “But to the Russians we serve, it is like a drop in a thimble.”

That’s because the outlook for orphanage graduates in this country is bleak. More than 500,000 children live in Russia’s underfunded, overburdened orphanages. Upon graduation, usually at age 16, a child receives a room (if one is available) and free public transportation, but no direct financial support from the government. An estimated two-thirds of orphanage graduates will turn to prostitution or petty crime, and up to 15 percent will kill themselves.

“Our long-term goal is to help these boys acquire a skill so they’re able to survive,” said Steiner, whose organization provides humanitarian and medical aid, emotional support and spiritual training to children in 35 orphanages and technical schools in the Vladimir and Kostroma regions. “We also want to help them know what it means to be a responsible adult.”

Five of the boys attend nearby technical schools, studying carpentry or cooking. As students, they each receive 430 rubles (about $25) a month from their orphanages, which pays for breakfast and half of lunch each day, said Tatiana Mironovich. The sixth teen, Sergei, graduated from technical school in May and works 48 hours a week at the Boldino Children’s Sanitarium. He makes 220 rubles (about $13) a month.

Valera Vlasov, of Pokrov, walks into the TV room, holding his parka. He has turned off his Aiwa boombox _ a gift for his 16th birthday two days before _ that was playing the theme from “Titanic” and now he wants to search for Murka, the center’s black-and-white cat, who has slipped outside into the 10-degree cold.


Asking permission to take a walk is the fourth of seven rules posted at the center’s entrance. Others include “Please speak politely and smile often,” “Follow the rules of personal hygiene,” “Keep your room tidy” and “Be industrious when on duty in the kitchen.”

The teens have daily chores, such as helping to prepare a meal or cleaning up afterward, and fetching milk and other items from the corner store. Tatiana Mironovich, 47, a teacher and the mother of two grown sons, said she often helps them. It was during recent dish-drying sessions that she learned about Sergei’s “special girl acquaintance” and about Dima and Artem’s reluctance to attend a new art group at the Lakinsk Orphanage (she and her husband sat in on the first class for moral support).

“When they first came here, they were very reserved,” she said. “Then they started opening up and telling me everything. Some even call me `Mama.”’

Nikolai Mironovich, 49, a laid-off furniture maker, helped the teens make night stands for their bedrooms. He and Alyosha care for Masha and Galya, their long-horned milking goats, and Galya’s baby, Jacob, that live in a donated stall nearby. In the spring, Nikolai Mironovich hopes to add 10 chickens and two pigs to the mini-farm, as well as dig a large garden for cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots.

“I don’t consider this a job,” he said. “This is my home.”

The couple’s caring, respectful relationship is a big reason for the family center’s success, said Vera Borisova, the social worker at the Lakinsk Orphanage about 20 miles south of the center. She supervises the 55 children at the orphanage plus graduates, including the boys at the center.

“Children in orphanages have no clue about relationships,” said Borisova, adding that 80 percent of marriages between orphans end in divorce.


Recently a boy at Borisova’s orphanage became angry with a girl and tried to choke her. When asked why he did it, the boy said, “My dad did it to my mom when they had a fight.”

“That’s why the family center is so good,” Borisova said. “Here they see Tatiana and Nikolai cope with each other, share duties, all these things.”

On Jan. 6, a second family center _ a 2,500-foot, two-story log cabin for eight female orphanage graduates _ opened behind the Lakinsk Orphanage. Four girls are living there.

“They couldn’t wait (for the center to open),” Borisova said. “They kept asking, “When will it be done? When will it be done?’

“What Russia needs is not more orphanages,” she added. “What Russia needs is more family centers.”

DEA END FILLMORE

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