I am sending you an article about your visit to Minusinsk.  An edited version of this article was published in the local newspaper "Vlast Truda" on March 31^st.

The overall objective of the publication was to show that the adopted children are doing very well in the US, since there is a lot of gossip lately about the selling of adopted children by "new parents".

I admire your kind heart!

Tell Mary and Tanyusha that I said “Hi”!

Respectfully,
Galina Kankeyeva

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The reunion of the staff of the Minusinsk orphanage with their former orphan-girl Tanechka took place after 10 years.

It was almost the same spring day in March of 1994.  A couple from the USA - Henri Amini, a businessman, and Mary Kay, an artist-designer, arrived in Minusinsk to adopt a girl whom they knew only by a photo on the Internet.

Aleksandra Vasilevna Zarubenko, who worked at the orphanage as a teacher back then recalls:

All of us loved Tanyusha.  She was one of many abandoned children.  Her mom "lost" this little one on the streets, then someone found her and took her to the police station, and from there to a children's hospital, where doctors rescued and took care of the girl.  The baby girl’s mother appeared after about ten days and then wrote the "application for refusal".  Because of this "meeting" with the baby girl's mother, medical workers learned the age and the name of the girl.

Tanyusha had very beautiful eyes.  That day, when Americans arrived, little Tanya did not feel well and cried all the time.  I brought the baby out to them, but Tanya did not want to go neither to her future daddy, nor to her future mommy.  Mary Kay burst into tears, because she was afraid that Tanya would not like her, the translator explained.  Henri kept his composure, probably because he already had children from his first marriage - a daughter and a son.  I remember that Henri was smiling all the time.  He took Tanya in his hands and began to walk fast around the table, singing  "Ah-na-na-na...".  Tanya was crying, but Henri  started to sing louder and louder until the girl calmed down.   They brought with them toys, binkies, and clothing.  They completed all documentation very quickly.  After two months they sent us a letter with details and some pictures of Tanechka.  Conditions sharply differed from ours - Tanya had her own big room with everything that is necessary for the development of a child: toys, games, slides, etc.  It was felt that they love our girl very much, and we were sincerely happy for Tanya.

 Natalia Pavlovna Salomatova, the head physician of the orphanage, said:

- We constantly corresponded with the adoptive parents.  In 1997 I, under the invitation of the agency on adoption of children by foreigners, visited Amini's family.  What I saw exceeded all of my expectations - a magnificent palace with fountains and a pool.  It was excellent!  An absolutely different life style!  Probably, that's why Tanya was so shy when she was here.  Last year Tanya, together with her present mom - that she considers to be her real mom, came to St. Petersburg to meet the mom that gave birth to her.

 Henri Amini:

- Once we saw a picture of the young woman that looked very much like Tanya.  We decided to find Tanya's relatives.  We were looking for Tanya's mother for about a year using the Internet, and then we hired a detective from a private agency.  Tanya was very nervous before the reunion with her birth mother.  Her stomach was upset all the time.

 A.V.Zarubenko:

 - Five months after our Tanyusha was taken away, her birth mom appeared again.  But we have no right to give anyone the address of a baby's new parents.  Then the birth mom did not appear any more.

To all of our questions about whether it was difficult sometimes to deal with Tanya, Henri answered with humor, saying that he only has problems with his son, but that both daughters are just wonderful!  …and he hugged and kissed his second daughter.  At first glance it was noticeable how much the American father and his Tanyusha love and trust each other and can't imagine their lives without each other.  Constantly Henri was opening his notebook to show proudly a photo of his wife - Tanya's mother.

I have to admit, that I don't see many Russian fathers with the similar attitude.  We are considered an emotional nation, but often we express only negative emotions:  we don't like a child’s bad behavior, school grades, sometimes we're mean to them without any particular reasons, only because we aren't in a good mood.  Sometimes we don’t even know how to love our birth-children, but we don't forget to repeat always that they are our only reason to live.

Tanya is almost 12 now and she has become a real American.  Unfortunately, Tanya almost does not speak any Russian, the translator was helping with all conversations.  But Henri told us that Tanya studies Russian with a tutor.  Tanya's first "moms" - doctors and nannies - said that Tanya’s eyes are still just as beautiful.

During the "tour" of the orphanage, we showed to Tanya the room and cradle where she "lived" for about two years, but there was no wonder that Tanya did not remember any of it.  Her father remembers how they got here the very first time 10 years ago and first saw Tanya...

Tanya's birth mom was waiting in a car outside by the entrance of the orphanage for almost two hours.  The woman is about 35-40 years old with a one-year-old child.  Now she lives in a small village near Abakan. Henri and Tanyusha stayed at her place.  It was very difficult for us to understand this relationship.  We had help from the translator but still had this language barrier.  I think that Tanya probably received a truthful impression about her homeland.  We all are very different.  I know that most Russian women in this kind of situation would not begin to search for a birth-mother that had left her child.  Even if they knew for sure about her existence, they would avoid the reunion with the birth-mother in every possible way.  That's how we are, but they are different.

The car took away the American visitors.  Henri promised to come back - he loved our snow very much.  In the state of Arizona where they live March is fairly warm - about 70F.

Galina Kankeeva