In the spring of 2009 we flew half way around the world to adopt a little girl in the city of Petropavlovsk in northern Kazakhstan. This blog chronicles our experiences in bringing her home. We wrote it both to keep those at home up to date on our progress and also to provide help and perspective to those who might follow behind us on the same adventure. Hopefully it accomplishes both goals.
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Petropavlovsk Baby House
Posted on April 2nd, 2009 2 commentsThere 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).
2 responses to “Petropavlovsk Baby House”
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Laurie November 5th, 2009 at 02:42
I must say I have to disagree about the baby house being depressing. The situation is certainly depressing BUT my experience at the baby house was that these children were very loved and cared for. The baby house was so clean that they required that you take your shoes off when you enter and there was NEVER even the slightest hint of a mess. The sick children area, yes, I will give you that as depressing but overall, the house was clean, bright and decorated very much to suit the children. These children (the healthy) all were happy and well adjusted and seemed to be thriving in this enviroment. (I was there in 2006).
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Agreed. The situation is depressing and the outside of the building leaves a lot to be desired but the inside halls were clean. Towards the end of our time there we got to take a look at the renovated sections and they are pretty stunning. Clean, bright and all new furniture and toys. They are definitely trying to improve the facilities. Unfortunately our daughter was in one of the rooms that had not yet been renovated so at the time I wrote this post that was my context.
As far as the care that was received, I’m of a mixed mind on that. The caretakers seem to do their best but it was not abnormal to see the TV in the children’s room tuned to a Russian soap opera or to see 1 year olds spending upwards of 15 minutes sitting on a potty. They also had a habit of putting them in walkers and tying the walkers to the wall with rope so they couldn’t move more than a few feet. The medical care our daughter received was also rather substandard on any scale. They missed a digestive parasite that had been stunting her growth for upwards of a year – they wrote it off to a food allergy (she has none) and they removed two birthmarks via a couple of surgeries that were extremely botched and left nasty scars. The normal western practice is to shrink the birthmark with steroid injections.
So I’d agree they were all cared for to an acceptable level of standard for a second-world country. Loved is a bit of a stretch and they were definitely not well adjusted. Every single child that we know who was adopted had behavioral issues that will take years to work through completely. International adoption is something you need to go into with open eyes. The kids all have issues, some significant, and you need to be ready to handle them. To say anything different sets the wrong expectation for those who are embarking on this path.
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