- 2/13/2008 10:00:00 PMMoscow Trip - Day 3We pulled into the Cheboksary train station around 8:30 AM Wednesday morning. Marina (head of Lighthouse adoptions on the Russian side) and two drivers (Sergi and ?) were waiting for us and boarded the train when it stopped and came to our sleeper compartment. The other family had gotten off the train at 5:00 AM at an earlier stop and we had their luggage. Sergi and the other driver quickly unloaded our luggage and brought it to their waiting cars.
Marina explained that we would be heading to the flat of "Peter and Luda". They are a local couple who frequently host adopting families. We would have time to eat and clean up before we headed over to the orphanage to get Yuri. This is a slightly different plan than what Katya had explained to us last night, but that was fine. I had heard good things about Peter and Luda and I knew we would be well taken care of.
According to Luda, the city of Cheboksary has around 600,000 people. It is the capitol of the Chuvashia region. It is a beautiful location that is covered in snow - deep snow. The temperature is warmer here than at home and there is an ever present light snow fall. That would explain the large snow banks.
Sergi the driver brought us through town to the flat. Sergi also drives a Volga-Bona mobile. I think it must have all-wheel drive. The roads here have a significant amount of snow on them and I am certain I would have trouble driving in it with my front-wheel drive Saturn. The city also has many hills. I can hear the sound of tires spinning on the roads as drivers attempt to climb up hill.
Peter and Luda live in a large apartment building in town. Their flat is quite large and has four bedrooms, a dining-living room, a small kitchen, a toilet room and a bathing room. We ate some breakfast that Luda had prepared and I showered up. Luda's bathing room is an interesting place. It is quite small. The sink is located next to the head of the tub. Both the sink and tub share a common faucet with a very long neck. It swings back and forth between the two. Just like in Tatyana's flat, the shower is a hand-held model with a long hose that attaches to the the faucet. When you want to shower, you pull or turn the faucet knob and then hang the shower handle on the wall.
There is no need to bother setting the water temperature while taking a shower because it has a mind of it's own. When I got into the shower, one of the first things I thought about was if I was going to use up all the hot water. I don't think that is a problem here because I think the entire building has some kind of massive boiler system and there is a virtual endless supply of scalding water. Either way, I set the water temperature to comfortably warm - not hot. Within a minute or so, the water temperature went from warm to ice to warm to scalding and back again. Of course my immediate reaction was to arch my back and cry out in pain - with my mouth closed of course. I quickly reached for the hot and cold water knobs to try to adjust them. This is another interesting thing - they are very sensitive. Turning either of the two handles more than 1 degree in either direction will completely alter the temperature of the water. Extreme caution is required.
Also in the bathing room is a small front loading washing machine. After the cloths are washed, there is a very ingenious cloths line that hangs from the ceiling. The cloths themselves are hung on fiberglass rods. The rods are raised and lowered by a series of pulleys on the wall. It is pretty cool.
After my shower, Peggy and I went into our room and began to organize our suitcases. We would be bringing one suit case with orphanage gifts with us when we go to get Yuri. It was not long and Marina arrived and said that it was time to go. This would be the moment we had been waiting for - for nearly a year. We piled into Sergi's Volga-Bona mobile and off we went. As I had mentioned before, there is a fairly significant amount of snow on the roads. The closer we got to the orphanage, the deeper it seemed to be.
There is a part of town near the center that is called something like, "the old settlement". It also looks a lot like Anatevka. Small cabin like shacks - some of which are very ornate and decrorative on the front and very rough on the other 3 sides. We drove through and on to the orphanage. When we arrived, I noticed that it was not a single building but rather a series of buildings - perhaps a dozen or more. We pulled into what seemed like an alley way and drove ahead. The snow that Sergi was plowing through was nearly 8 to 10 inches deep and the alley itself was only slightly wider than the car itself. The snow banks on each side were also very high. It is like they just don't know what to do about all the snow so they keep piling it up as best they can - which by the way - is by using a hand shovel.
We pulled up in front of a building that is baby-blue-ish in color. It shares a common court yard with another building. Marina quickly pointed out that Yuri was across the court yard from our car. From what she had shared earlier, Yuri was only notified that we were coming for him and in the region - just this morning. She said, "You can see how much pain he is in by how he walks". Yuri did not move quickly but slid and shuffeled his feet slowly. I'm sure some of it was from pain, while perhaps he was also doing it as a safety precaution due to all of the snow and ice under his feet.
Peggy moved towards him as quickly as she could and when she met him, she gave him the hug of a life time. After hogging Yuri for a while, Peggy let me hug him too :-)
We went into the blue building and spoke with some of the orphanage officials there. We dropped off the gifts and got a very short look around. Then we had to go. We all piled into the car and headed back to Peter and Luda's. Unlike the other adopting family who has their court date tomorrow (Thursday), we would have an extra day of downtime and bonding before our court appearance.
When we got back to Peter and Luda's, we got Yuri all settled in. Today was Peter and Luda's 33 wedding anniversary and they were going to have a cake to celebrate it. Also, their older son would come over with his wife and 2 year old daughter. While we waited the afternoon away, I noticed that Yuri was singing quietly to himself. I don't remember him singing when he stayed with us but I do remember some other other children singing what sounded like a national or patriotic song. I asked Luda what he was singing. She said, "He says, 'Today my parents have come for me and I'm so happy'".
When dinner time came, we ate another fine meal prepared by Luda. As I mentioned before, she has a very small kitchen but she makes wonderful and amazingly delicious things there. After dinner, Luda brought out a cake. It looked as if it was made of pieces that were meant to pull apart. Each piece was a slightly different color - some white cake - some brown cake. All of them were stuffed with a light cream filling. It had white and chocolate cream frosting with sprinkles on it. This is the type of cake that makes you say, "WOW is that ever good!". But then you realize how rich it was and you avoid a second piece.
After the cake, Peter brought out a large bottle of champagne. Peter popped the cork on the bottle. POP! The little girl at the table was scared to death at the sound and started screaming. A tall stream of foam shot out from the bottle and Peter pointed it at his daughter-in-law and it went all over her hair and pants. I watched her face to see her reaction. She was very calm and polite considering what just happened. Peter poured the remainder of the bottle's contents into our glasses and made a lengthy toast to his wife. Luda translated: "He loves me... we've had 33 years of marriage... we have 3 wonderful children... we live very well... I hope we live as well in the life to come". 33 years is a long time, especially here.
Marina stopped by later and informed us that two other women would be coming over this evening to prepare us for court. One of them is a lady named Valentina. She is the regional Orphanage Inspector. She has a big heart for children and they are always on her mind. The other women - Elaina - is the court translator. She has been present in many many other adoption court hearings and would help us know what to expect. This turned into a long evening. We were still so wiped out from the plane and train that it was hard to think straight and concentrate on what they were saying. Marina kept telling me, "blah blah blah don't fall asleep! blah blah blah". That is about all I can remember. I'm glad Peggy was taking notes.
