Orphanage #14

Photos

(Moscow Court House, Orphanage #14 Entrance, Play Yard, Valadimir & Valentina)

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Reviews

Posted 10/2002

"We adopted our son from #14 at the end of February this year. His day caregivers were Irena (or Rena as my son called her) and Ludmilla (or Lude as he called her). We too met our son in the room with the little pond - he first cried and was very scared and leary of us - in general he was very stiff. Our coordinator, (we used International Family Services), Alla, took us into their 'play' room. Our son played a little with us, but still was pretty standoff-ish. There were several other children in the room (younger and all girls, maybe one boy too). When a group of older boys (around age 3) came in from playing outside, our son started speaking (for the first time that we heard him) - we joke that he was asking 'why am I stuck with these big dummies and my buddies are out having fun!'. Both caregivers took the children who were outside into the bathroom and left my hubby and me alone with our son and the 4-5 younger children. At the point there were no caregivers in the room, it became pure chaos - toys were being thrown everywhere by the kids! We just ducked! And when the caregivers came back out, everyone returned to their quiet behavior. One of the older boys came up to us to try to play. At that point, our son took us by our hands and led us to a puzzle with cats and dogs on it and started playing with us. I guess at that point, he was laying claim to us!"

Posted 4/16/2003

My husband and I finalized the adoption of our 23-month-old daughter, Anna Marie, recently. We arrived in Moscow on 3/26/03, had our court date on 3/28/03, and arrived home early in the morning on 4/13/03. Although the facilities at #14 are old and quite run-down, the positive attitudes of the staff and caretakers was a pleasant surprise. No one at the orphanage spoke English, but everyone communicated their interest in us and in our family. They loved looking at the small photo book of our home and family. Most looked through it several times. The director of the orphanage, Dr. Valentina, was open with all the information she had about our daughter, and was openly appreciative of the gifts and donations we brought with us. The physician was very honest about the rough start our daughter had; she had been at another orphanage for the first 9 months of her life and had been moved to #14 2/02 when #3 was closed. Anna is delayed in psychomotor and preverbal skills, and the doctor spoke honestly about these delays. She (the doctor) was very popular with the children in Anna's play group; when she went into the room, the children all surrounded her wanting hugs. The caretakers laughed with the children, chased them until they giggled loudly and encouraged them to interact with us. It was important to them for us
to be able to see Anna in a social setting as they wanted us to see she wasn't always as quiet and withdrawn as she appeared in our first 2 meetings. If your referral comes from Orphanage #14, you can be assured that s/he is receiving the best care they can possibly provide with the resources that they have. Is it the quality of care that you expect here in America? Probably not, but all in all, it is a very positive place, and the people try extremely hard to act in the best interest of the children. Please feel free to email me with specific questions about our experiences.

Susan Hibbett (jhibbett@aol.com)

Posted 01/2003

"We adopted our son from #14 in Feb 2002. He was 23 months at the time. From the outside, the bldg looks fairly run down (white, kind of dirty, has fence around it - but it does have an outdoor playground and the kids go outside daily - at least our son's group did). The inside was clean and appeared to be well run. I was pleasantly surprised at all the toys the kids had in the play room. The director, Valentina, seemed very caring and on top of things. We also met 3 of our son's caregivers, Ludmilla, Irena and Hannah - they seemed very caring. We took pictures of our son with Ludmilla and Irena and our son still points them out and tells us who they are. We also met his music teacher who actually cried when she said good-bye to our son. The 2 staff doctors also seemed very caring."

For more information:
Moscow Adopt
Email: eckman@icserv.net