Petropavlovsk Baby House

There are three orphanages in Petropavlovsk that serve all of northern Kazakhstan. They are divided up by age and the one for the youngest kids (up to approximately 4 years of age) is called the Baby House. At any time there are up to 80 kids in residence although not all of them are up for adoption. Right now they are not full fortunately.

In all it is a pretty depressing place even though they are in the process of renovating it and bring it up to something that can be called modern standards. The older sections are definitely falling apart although I bet you could find a number of retirement homes in the US that looks pretty much identical. So it is more a statement on how societies care for their less fortunate than anything specific to Kazakhstan.

I’ve posted some pictures in this gallery to give you an idea. Most of them are of the outside. I’ll try and snag a few of the inside at some point. They are best viewed in full screen mode (click the little square in the bottom right of the picture when you roll over it with your mouse).

Decent bakery near the Hotel Skif

Our translator took us by a decent bakery (at least by the standards of Petropavlovsk). I grabbed some beef and potato filled pastries for lunch and they were not bad. Apparently the pastries are decent as well although we didn’t sample them this trip.

Bakery in Petropavlovsk

For those that care, this is where it was:

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Decent pizza in Petropavlovsk

We were getting tired of the food in the hotel so on the advice of another couple who are also adopting we headed out to look for a pizza place they had tried and liked.

The food was decent and although they didn’t have English menus it was cafeteria style so pointing and grunting was sufficient to get what you wanted to eat.

In addition to pizza they served salads, ribs, rice and a range of other sides. It was a pleasant change to what we had been eating for dinner and we’ll be back. I will snag some pictures of the outside of the building and the restaurant itself the next time we go and post them but the highlight of the trek for our daughter Samantha was the attached playground.

For the map deprived (in other words pretty much everyone), here is where the restaurant is located:

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Hotel Skif – Location

I took a GPS fix outside the Hotel Skif this morning as I could never find a map of Petropavlovsk anywhere on the Internet. So here it is courtesy of Google maps.

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Introducing Darya

We’ve been visiting the baby house for a few days doing our “bonding” with our to-be new daughter. So here is the first picture of Darya (we are still discussing a name change when we file the official paperwork with the court next week…more to come on that front).

She is 14 months old and has been at the baby house for about a year.

The process from this point forward for those who are not familiar with how Kazakstan adoptions work is that we spend 2 hours a day with her for 14 days and then our dossier is submitted to the court. Approximately 10 days later we get a court date and the judge makes a final decision on the adoption. Assuming it is granted, there is then a two week waiting period for any final objections to be raised and five days for paperwork with the Kazakstan government and the US government. Then she can come home.

It is a long, involved and rather frustrating process but you just need to suffer through it.

I’ll post a gallery of photos in a couple of days.