LIFE IS GOOD!!

I am happy to report that last night we picked up the kids, and they are now with us!!   Life is Good!! 

We are staying in Stavropol tonight, and leave for Moscow first thing in the morning.  From there we meet with the embassy and get their visas.  We will be on a plane home on Saturday.  Unbelieveable!

Things we have learned so far:

When you have new clothes, you should try them on and change outfits at least 10 times day.  Very fun!   And your new bathing suit is the best pajamas you could have. (from Anna)

If you are a growing boy and there is food in the room, it must be eaten.  (Ruslan)

If you are out of your mind excited, it is ok to go to sleep at 11 pm and wake up at dawn's first light.  It's all exciting you see.

Your first escaltor ride is both exciting and a bit scary.

Toothbrushes that light up are the best!  (Thanks Joyce)

If the mama says no, you should ask the papa, and visa versa.   Thank goodness the mama and papa talk to each other.

Ok, nap time, no sleeping while the mama types -- so good bye (paka) for now.

Russian Spa Camp

As we finish up our last few hours here in Russian Spa Camp, I would be remiss if I did not journal our experience while here.

For the last 10 days, we wake up in the morning in our two room suite and look out the window to see what the weather will look like.  Because we are on Mashuk Mountain, some mornings, we wake up to being in a cloud, which we can watch pass by.

Looking out our window

We then go down at 8:00 and have breakfast.   Breakfast consists of tea, and bread and cheese.  Then there is some combination of cucumbers, cabbage, and/or carrots.  As well, we get a tiny bit of caviar and a wee bit of butter.  They then serve some sort of meat or fish with a bit of potato and/or noodles.  What can I say, the food is very healthy.  I can however, say that the staff is lovely and they are always stopping by to see if we are ok, or if we need anything.   This makes me feel as though I should not say anything bad about the food.  I will say, I am not going to miss it.

Then we head down to our foam bath.  This is a couple buildings away.   Many mornings we were greated by the "guard" dog, who was very happy to have a pet and belly scratch.

After presenting our treatment book (which must go with us everywhere) we are called in to take our foam bath.  It  is like sitting in a chia latte.  You climb in and the foam rises and is filled with some sort of herbs.  It makes your skin quite soft.

After that we head back to the main building for our oxygen cocktail.  I believe this is the same type of liquid that we were just soaking in, but I do not know that for sure.   They fill the glass with foamy liquid in what looks like a ice cream dish.  The girl who serves us, giggles everytime we see her.

After that, I go in for my breathing thing.  One is called quartz and one is oxygen.  I did not take pictures, as there were generally others in the room at the same time.  Dave waits patiently in a chair for me to finish.   One floor waiting room offers Russian music videos, which he has grown quite fond of.

Then we head down for our massage bath.  This is nice.  You go into a nice warm bath, and the attendant works on your muscles with a type of pulsing power hose.   It is quite relaxing, and helps with the back after sleeping on the thin, hard beds here.

After that we go to lunch and then we are free for the day.

In the end was it worth the extra few dollars a day?  Most definitely!  It was a chance to see a very unique aspect of Russian culture.   The people were really nice.   It was in a very quite and peaceful surrounding, and we were able to take nice long hikes (up and down hill).   Glad that we did it.

Kislovodsk May 27

A bit behind on the blogs.  We are now trying to get everything we possibly can into our last few hours here in Pyatigorsk.

On Friday, Nonna (one of our interpreter's) and her son, Roman, took us to the city of Kislovodsk.   So, we are told that Kislovodsk is the Sun City, even says that on the sign coming into town.  Evidentally they have 330 days of sunshine a year.  We did not pick one of those days.

It was quite foggy when we left.   And while it would have been nice to have seen more of the mountains, the fog did make for some mystical looking places.

The first stop that we made was at a women's monastery.   The church was beautiful, and the inside was amazing.  I was not allowed to take any photos inside, but the Icons were incredible.

Walking up to the Monastery

Roman, Dave and Nonna

Looking back at the Monastery.

Sure enough when we arrived, the city sign did indeed proclaim it was a Sun City.  In the picture below you can see the symbol for the sun on the top of the sign.

The city is a lovely mountain village.  There are lots of little shops and restaurants.  In the city center, there are artists with their paintings, and normally many other little vendors selling their goods.  As it was raining pretty good when we got there, not as many artists were out as usual. 


Kislovodsk has traditionally been where many famous people have come for rest, relaxation, spa treatments, and to get away.  It has hosted many authors, musicians, politicians, and ballerinas over the years.

This city is also in the mineral springs area, so they have a place where you can drink their special spring water, with an option of hot or cold.  

Monument to Lermentov



Demon in the cave under the Lermentov monument



Drinking the mineral water.

Fountain in front of the mineral water house

Lenin watching over the town square

After exploring town, we drove up to the castle of Love and Betrayal.  Nonna, in her humerous, straight forward fashion, tells the story of the castle.  In seems there was a young maiden who lived in the castle.  Her father wanted to marry her off to a very rich, but also very old man.  She, as young maidens are oft to do, fell in love with a poor but handsome sheep herder.   Her father refused to let them be together, and so they planned to jump to their deaths to be together for eternity.

When they got to the top of the hill, the young man jumped first.  When the maiden saw that he did indeed die after jumping, she decided that was pretty stupid, and so went down the hill, married the old man, and was rich for the rest of her life.  The end.  

I am still laughing as I write this story.

The hill they were to have jumped from.

One the way back to town.  We stopped by a mineral water spring, and had Nonna's world famous Lavash bread sandwhiches.  They were amazing!  She also brewed tea from fresh herbs, honey and other secret ingrediants.   It was a fantastic lunch.

Nearing the end of Purgatory

I have been thinking of this mandatory 10 day waiting period mandated by Russian law as purgatory.
An overly dramatic metaphor perhaps but not easy to live through either.

Great lunch at noon with Lynne and Marina at the Hermitage in downtown Pyatigorsk.

Fantastic day in Rosovka. We were picked up at what is now the standard 2:00pm and then we spent 2 hours at the orphanage. We brought some small fancy cakes for all of the kids in the orphanage as a celebration for Anna and Ruslan leaving on Monday.

We spent some time on the orphanage soccer field and then a nice long walk. A new fun game is to run into the tall grass in a meadows and hide from Papa. Papa (me) pretends to have great difficulty in finding the children and feigning complete bafflement as to where could these sneaky little children are.

How do you get a 6 year old to not pick up the ball?

Rusik is good to his sister.

Madam butterfly

Papa, Papa, look what we can do!

Later this evening we had date night at a nice restaurant with a veranda overlooking the mountains.  We had a great meal and watched the sunset over the city.  A perfect ending to a perfect day. 

Mountain Biking in Zheleznovodsk May 26th

We were not able to see the kids today, so our lovely interpreter Marina and her friend Helen took us to the town of  Zheleznovodsk which is in the North Caucasus mountains near Beshtau and Iron Mountain.

The sign with the city name and date the city was founded.

Zheleznovodsk is a lovely town.   Very pretty - smaller than where we are staying - and a bit more quiet.




The stairs up to the walking/biking paths through Iron Mountain.

When we got there we rented mountain bikes and headed up the side of Iron Mountain.  It was quite fun to be on a bike again.  It's been awhile.   We road on the path for a while, and then we went off road and up to an incredible overlook.

At the start of our mountain bike ride in Zheleznovodsk

While we were biking we were told to look for various tree carvings that would tell us when to turn.   The carvings have been around for a long time to mark the way.

 As we got closer to the top, we went further and further into the woods.  It was really beautiful, although I have to say that I thought MN had a lot of mosquitoes, well, they may just have us beat here.

We got to a point, where we had to walk the bikes a short way, and then we climbed up to the overlook.  All I can say is Wow!  It was an incredible view and so peaceful!

While we were on the overlook we could hear thunder in the distance, but thankfully the rain held off until after dinner, and we remained dry during our ride.

Helen, Lynne and Marina



Mount Beshtau in the distance.

Dave and Marina climbed a big higher to get an additional view of the area.

Hiking back to our bikes

The cold caves area.

Next we rode to an area where the ground is very cold.  There were little openings in the ground that emitted very cold air.   Marina was telling us that in times past this area was used as a natural refrigeration area.   It was strange to be so hot, and then suddenly walk a few steps and feel the temperature drop 10-15 degrees.

There was also a monument here.  In the picture below we are standing inside a concrete monument that has natural cold air coming up through the ground.

Cool cave-like air at the farthest-most point on our ride.

The Mineral Waters area that we are in is known for both hot and cold water.  These mineral waters are believed to have healing powers.  Each area has water that is a bit different, as so the various waters are numbered, and each is believed to have a bit different healing power.   So, the next stop on our tour was to see try the mineral water from this area.   This water was pretty good.  Not to minerally.  Some that we have tried has had a lot of sulpher in it.  This water does come out pretty warm. 

The building where we are drinking this water, also had a nice fountain by it.  The belief is that if you throw a coin in the water, you will return to the area.  So, of course we had to do that.  To make things a bit fun, we used American coins, in the hopes that this would have the added benefit of getting Marina and Helen to the US to visit!



The travel wishing well



Hot sputtering mineral water after a hot bike ride! Yum!

In front of the water house.



So, found out today that the Lenin Statue marks the town center of any town you are in,



We finished the day with a dinner in a sushi restaurant.  The food was great and the company even better.  A big СПАСИБО! to Marina and Helen for providing us with such a lovely day!!!

A great day

Tonight Dave is doing the all of the blogging. It has been purely a collaborative effort until now.
We are getting used to Russia. We are now fully in the rhythm of the day to day routine at Sanatorium Rodnik. We are no longer surprised by Russian food and we just love the welcoming and accepting atmosphere here. I am starting to figure out the Cyrillic alphabet and can make out signs and written words.

We got to go to see our kids today. Never have we been more relaxed about being at the Golden Key Orphanage.

Today was try on all of the clothes day with Ruslan and Anna. (attentive readers of this blog may notice the new spelling of Anna.) Turns out Anya is a diminutive of Anna. Ahh-na is her real Russian name Ahh-nya is the diminutive. I know, I know, it is no shoter but thats just the way it works. So our daughter's name will be Anna, rather than Anya from here on. 

We have been lugging around a suitcase filled with clothes for our two extremely skinny Russian kids. Today, it was try on all the clothes day. Very fun. We only had about 15%-20% of the things we bought be revealed as much too large. These things have been left behind for the other kids at the orphanage. Nothing we brought was too small. Lynne should do a victory lap as to guessing sizes for the kids. So should my mother, Joyce. She kept sending smaller things and advising us to go a little smaller than we were estimating. Kudos mom; you were right. The director of the orphanage said it would be alright to let the kids keep one outfit each today. Boy were they pumped up to wear an outfit we had brought them. Anna tried on many things 2-3 times because she was really getting into the spirit of the thing. I predict a new clothes horse has been born. (Hey cousin Kristin, recognize the shorts on Anna? - Big Hit!)



Anna and Ruslan in new American clothes of their choice.

 We only had about 2 hours in Rosovka today. Our adoption coordinator sent Yuri, who drove us in his white Circa-1978 Moskvitch taxicab from Pyatogorsk round trip today. On the way back, Yuri, who spoke only Russian the whole trip, maneuvers to straddle an enormous pothole with his tiny car, looks at me and says: "Russian Highway!"  We all broke up. Very Funny guy.

Yuri's Lada Taxicab waiting for us at the gate at the end of our visit.

We go back on Saturday an then pick up our kids on Monday. It is very fun to type "the kids" and then edit it to "our kids". Feels good.

We had a fanastic end to the day shopping in Pyatigorsk with the help of our expert interpreter, Marina Almaeva. She is a senior at Pyatigorsk State Linguistics University, with her last final and oral exams in a few days. She has done a fantastic job for us as interpreter, tour guide and helper. 

We took her to dinner tonight as a thank you and had a blast.

Dave, Interpreter-extraordinaire Marina, Lynne