Trip 2, Day 12: The Road to St. Petersburg

August 1st:

Finally, the day had arrived to leave for St. Petersburg. We were anxious to get going, as we had many exciting adventures planned there. Also, our confinement to two small rooms for 5 days had left us stir crazy. After one final round of souvenir shopping (Alan found a set of Minnesota Vikings nesting dolls), it was off to the train station.

A Brief History of the St. Petersburg Trip
When Alan was in high school, he took a Russian History class in his junior year. He was fascinated by the Romanov family, and especially the history of St. Petersburg. During that year, history was being made as the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Russians revolted against the Soviet Regime, and World Communism took a major blow. Alan swore that if he ever had the chance, he would visit St. Petersburg. Fast forward 19 years, it was time to cross off a bucket list item.

At the train station, we wondered what the train to St. Petersburg would be like. Our experience with the Kirov train was mostly negative, so we were hopeful this trip would be better. To maximize our time in the city, we had chosen to ride the "fast train". We were leaving Moscow at 1pm, and arriving at 5:45. The slow train left at midnight and took 8 hours to arrive.

Once we boarded the train, we were very happy. The seats are very comfortable, and there is plenty of space between you and the seat ahead. All announcements were made in both Russian and English, and there was a digital readout at the front of the train, telling us how fast we were going. Although we never hit the max speed of 250km/h (155 mph), we did stay around 200 most of the trip.

We both enjoyed that the trip was during the day. Much of our Kirov journey was overnight, so we didn't get to see the Russian countryside for very long. We made 4 stops on the way, with people boarding and exiting the train at each stop. We also had an excellent meal while aboard the train. The service was very friendly and efficient, and we both felt that the US airlines could learn a few things from them!

As the clock hit 5:45, our train arrived in St. Petersburg. We were a bit nervous, as the parts of the city we had seen coming in by train were not very impressive. Our driver met us outside the gates, and soon we were making our way to our apartment on Nevsky Prospekt (the main street in the city).


Getting to our apartment was an interesting process. Each "building" was typically the size of a city block, with an interior courtyard for parking. There was a gated entry off the main street, with a guard posted during the day. Inside the courtyard, there were many different businesses, some of which stayed open late. We believe that one of our apartment windows shared an alleyway with a nightclub. Lucky us!

Once we were settled in to the apartment, we decided to go exploring the city. We had tours scheduled each of the next 3 days, but had left ourselves the first night to explore on our own. We left the apartment with a map and a generic plan, and we hit lots of interesting sites.

Our first stop was one of the many canals that run through the city. We noticed that there were lots of canal boat tours, including some that were for English speaking visitors. We decided that if we had time, we would go on one of these tours during our visit.





As we walked along the canal, we came across a very unique doorway.
















Here is the Circus building, much fancier than any big top traveling circus that we are used to.







Soon we arrived at the Engineer's Castle. Emperor Paul I had this castle built, because he was paranoid that there was a conspiracy to kill him and take the throne. 41 days after he moved in, he was assassinated. Guess he had the right idea, but the wrong implementation.


On our way back to the apartment, we decided to try a Georgian restaurant that Kathy noticed. Unfortunately, we couldn't read the sign posted on the door that said "Closed, Private Party". So we walked in on a birthday party, "oops!", and quickly made our way back out.

After returning to the apartment, we decided to go to a nearby traditional Russian restaurant that our driver had suggested. It was very, very good. Alan had lamb skewers that were incredibly tasty, Kathy had Stewed Beef that was also very good. The best part of the restaurant was that they served Baltika beer by the liter - pitchers of beer are typically not available. So Kathy was very happy (both before and after we drank 2L of beer).

We were eager to do some more exploring the next day, including our first tour, City Tour (with Peter & Paul Fortress). See you tomorrow!

Trip 2, Days 6-11: After Court, In the Heat of Moscow

July 26th:

We were now officially the parents of Aleksander. There is no way to express how happy we were. After all of the paperwork, all of the stress and traveling, we could finally say that we were parents. From that point on, we would be counting down the 10 day waiting period, so we could go back and get our little Aleks. It was both exciting and frustrating.

After leaving the courthouse, we went to the pizza place we had ordered lunch from the past two days. There’s nothing wrong with pizza, and theirs was actually pretty good. But we were really hoping for something different.

After lunch, we returned to the hotel to change clothes and pack everything up. We went back to the orphanage for the afternoon, this time as a family. We decided to try the Baby Bjorn for the first time, worried about whether he would like sitting in it. Packing for three weeks left us with tough decisions to make, one of them being that we could not bring a stroller.

While he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first, Aleks seemed to like riding on our chest. He would kick his feet while we were walking, and his head kept swiveling to see what was going on. We realized 19 lbs would quickly get heavy, and we should practice ab crunches to strengthen our back muscles.

Leaving Aleks that night was not nearly as stressful as at the end of our first trip. Our parting was a celebration, knowing that we would return in just ten days. Unfortunately, the train ride back to Moscow sapped our strength quickly. The temperature had risen dramatically over the course of the day, so we were once again sweating profusely. We ate an unappetizing dinner in our room, and went to bed early, anticipating more heat in the days ahead.

July 27th:

As we awoke on the train, we were a bit unnerved by the fog outside our train. We should have felt the humidity for it to be that overcast, but all we felt was the heat. As we disembarked in Moscow, we could tell something wasn't right. There was a woody, smoky smell in the air. Alan asked our driver what the burning smell was, and he said "there are fires underground."

As our little train of 3 families, 1 driver, and a lot of luggage wound its way through the train station, we wondered how we were going to get to our destinations. This was answered as we saw another of the Frank Foundation drivers, Constantin, making his way towards us through the crowd. One family went with him directly to the airport, while the others piled into Ilya's car.

Ilya proved his worth that morning, getting us to our apartment located off of Old Arbat Street. It was only a few hundred yards off of the main road, but the pathway to get there was a literal maze. Cars were parked so unevenly that traffic could only go one way. Which way that was depended on A) how many cars were going in a specific direction and B) How determined the driver going the opposite way was to get through. Ilya was a very determined driver.

The apartment on Old Arbat was quite different from our previous apartments. It was on the ground floor, so the windows had security bars across them. We wanted to open them, but the heat prevented us. The living room and bedroom were a separate area, which was kept cool by the air conditioning unit. This meant that the kitchen and bathroom were stifling hot throughout our stay.

July 28th - 30th:

Unfortunately, there is very little story to our 5 days in the Old Arbat apartment. The previous all time record high in Moscow (with records dating back 130 years) was 93 Fahrenheit. Our first day there it reached 97. The next, 99. While we were out walking one evening, Alan saw a digital readout that said 41 (celsius), which is 106 F. The official temp that day was only 101, but it certainly felt hot.

In addition to the heat, the smoke grew progressively worse. Spending time outside quickly started to irritate our nostrils and throats, and we began seeing people wearing masks. They looked just as miserable as everyone else, so we didn't think they were doing much good.

The highlight of our time spent in Old Arbat was visiting with Cara & Gene. We met them on our first Russia trip, while the 4 of us were in Kirov. They were about one week behind us in schedule for the 2nd trip, so we were only in the same city for one night. We went to a very nice Ukrainian restaurant, eating and drinking for many hours. The tab was high, but it was well worth it.

We caught Cara & Gene up with our adventures of the previous days, and told them what they could expect going to court. It felt very odd to be the "experienced" couple. We were sad to part ways once again, but we promised that once our families had settled in, we would make sure to get together in either Houston or Minneapolis to celebrate completing our journey.

Coming up next: St. Petersburg, baby!

Trip 2, Day 6: Court Day

Monday, July 26th

We awoke early that morning, well before the alarm went off. We were both nervous and excited; today we would be going to court. We got dressed in our fancy clothes, and re-packed most of our stuff. Today we would be leaving Kirov.

As we walked outside, we were very happy to discover that it was 15-20 degrees cooler than the day before. What a relief! It took at least 40 minutes to break a sweat (instead of the 2 minutes it took the day before). All of the parents loaded into the little white van, and our driver Sasha drove us to the courthouse. Nervously, we went inside the building. We had to stifle our giggles as we went through the Russian metal detectors. They would chirp like a bird, chirping faster if there was more metal. Very odd.

Once we were through security, we all settled into an unused courtroom. It took a few minutes to realize that we would be taken from this room one family at a time, to the official courtroom. First up was the German couple. Apparently, the judges will usually pick German couples to go first, if there are different nationalities. Not sure why. A German interpreter (whom we had not previously met) went to the courtroom with them.

While they were gone, our interpreter Lena explained some of the peculiarities of the Russian court system. Each session could last anywhere between 20-60 minutes, depending on how many questions the judge wanted to ask. Generally the husband would answer most questions, with only a few questions directed to the wife. If we didn’t know how to answer a question, we were supposed to start making something up quickly. Lena would “interpret” what we said so that it was what the judge wanted and expected to hear. She also explained that normally the judge will ask fewer questions as lunchtime gets closer.

Next up was the Irish couple. We would be the last ones to go. While the Irish couple were gone, the Germans returned. Success! We congratulated them on their adoption, and nervously awaited our turn. They had been in court for 40 minutes, with a lot of questions about their ability to stay home with the child.

Finally, it was our turn. We went up a flight of stairs, into a very small courtroom. There was a judge in front of us, three other court officials, and our interpreter Lena. We answered each of the questions in turn, with very few follow ups. The only topic where the judge seemed to have any concerns was the amount of time we would stay at home. After assuring him that we would be able to take additional time off (if needed), he seemed satisfied.

The next speaker was a representative from the Ministry of Education. She testified that we had met our Aleksander, and that we had bonded with him. She stated that the ministry had no objections to this adoption being completed. There was also a prosecutor for the state, who spoke for (maybe) 10 seconds. She had no objections, and appeared to really want to go to lunch. Kathy saw her checking for cell phone for text messages multiple times during the proceedings. The judge left the courtroom and went to his chambers. About 2 minutes later, he came back out.

“On July 26th, 2010, at 11:40am, this court decrees that Carda Alanrichard, and Carda Kathyann, have met all qualifications from the state of Kirov, Russian Federation. A new birth certificate shall be given to ‘A’, granting him the name Carda, Aleksander Joseph. His birthplace shall remain the same, as shall his birthdate. Congratulations.”

Our relief and joy was so great that we both began crying. We had made it through the Russian legal system, and were now (in the eyes of the court) parents. As we collected our stuff and left the courtroom, it felt like the best day in the world. In a few hours, when we would return to the orphanage, we could officially call Aleks our son!


Here is a picture of the two other couples that adopted with us, along with our coordinator Andre (2nd from left).

Trip 2, Day 5: Passport Photos and more Pizza

Sunday, July 25th

After getting a good night’s rest, we left the air-conditioning in our hotel room for the jungle-like atmosphere of the orphanage. The day was another scorcher, with highs again reaching 97 - 98 degrees Fahrenheit (converting from Celsius isn’t an exact science). Even before we reached the orphanage, we were soaked in sweat. Although we wearing shorts and lightweight shirts, it was hot hot HOT!

Our first activity of the day was getting ‘A’ his passport photos. After sweating on our way to the orphanage, we collected the children and got back into the van. The photo shop we went to was (almost) all the way back at the hotel. Ugh. One of the children (not ‘A’) was very scared of in the van, crying and shaking most of the time. The only other times he had ridden in vehicles was if they were taking him to the doctor’s office.

‘A’ was not scared by the trip. He spent the entire journey looking around, trying to see what was going on in the world around him. We are really hoping that the curiosity holds when he is traveling for 14 hours by train, and 22 hours by plane.

Inside the photo shop, Alan used the belly bubble trick to get ‘A’ giggling right before the picture was taken. Score one for dad! Soon we were heading back to the orphanage for another day full of playtime. Once again, we took care of our little guy for the whole day, including nap time. Here, we ran into our first problem with ‘A’.

Although the caregivers told us that ‘A’ was easy to get down for naptime, he proved to be extremely stubborn during one on one time with us. On the first day, he completely skipped the first naptime session, and tried to play though the second one also. He got very fussy, but anytime we tried to lay him down, he would just roll over and start crawling away. Finally, momma Kathy scooped him up, started walking around with him, and singing him a lullaby. Zonk! He was out within seconds.

On the second day, he again tried to skip naptime. Again, he got more and more fussy, until finally poppa Alan had enough. He picked up ‘A’, laid him down on a fuzzy blanket, and laid still with the little guy. He fought to stay awake, but eventually the Jedi mind tricks that Alan was using worked. Kathy thought it was very cute the way her boys laid together, and took lots of photos.

For lunch, we were looking forward to going somewhere for lunch. No luck, delivery pizza again. While the pizza was good, there were just so many other options we would have preferred. We still didn’t know the exact reason for this, as our interpreter told us it was “too hot in the restaurant for digestion”.

In the afternoon, our coordinator stopped into the room to discuss the “3rd trip”.

For those who don’t know, normally Russian adoptions require 3 trips. The first is to meet the child, and to formally request a court date. The 2nd trip is for the court date, at which time a 10 day waiting period starts. Most families leave Russia during this time, returning for a 3rd trip 10 days later. Because the cost of airline travel to Russia and the jetlag, we decided to make only two trip, staying in Russia between our 2nd and 3rd trips to Kirov.

As our coordinator was laying out the 3rd trip information, we realized that he expected us back in Kirov two days earlier than we had been told by our agency. Kathy had asked many times about this, because according to her calculations, we should have been able to complete our Russia trip earlier than we were told. Now, we were being told that instead of coming back to Kirov overnight on a Sunday, we would come back on a Thursday night.

We had booked our plane tickets and our other activities based on the original information. It now appeared that our St. Petersburg trip was in jeopardy, as our St. Petersburg to Moscow train we would not arrive until 90 minutes before our Moscow to Kirov train left! In addition, we had to decide whether we wanted to stay in Moscow an extra two days with ‘A’, or try to change our flight home from Friday to Wednesday.

The night ended on both high and low notes. We were frustrated that there had been so many changes to the itinerary, both for this trip and our previous one. Each change meant more money spent / wasted on ticket changes, apartment changes & cancellations. On the other hand, we would get to become the parents of our little guy two days earlier than we previously expected. That made the changes worthwhile.

Trip 2, Day 4: Hope you like Pizza

Saturday, July 24th

When we arrived in Kirov the next morning, we realized that we were in for another hot, humid day. Morning temperatures were already in the 80’s, and going up quickly. While we were excited to see our little guy, we were dreading the heat inside the orphanage. After unloading our stuff from the train, we again got to do dash madly up a steep hill, to keep up with our coordinator Andre. Between the heat, the speed, and the number of bags we were lugging, we were rather crabby by the time we reached our driver Sasha's little white van.

Our first stop was the hotel, where we dropped off our baggage, got the gifts ready, and then left for the orphanage. On the way to the hotel, our interpreter informed us that we would need 10 gifts – 4 VIP gifts and 6 other gifts. On our first trip, she had told us we would need 4-6 gifts, so we were 4 short. Not good. Alan frantically began putting together gift bags while Kathy ran to the grocery store to buy some additional bottles of wine to use as gifts.

With everything bagged up, we went down to the lobby. We still felt like we were overloaded, since we now had many bottles of alcohol, boxes of chocolates, and a large bag of orphanage donations. All three couples piled back into the dreadfully hot van, and off we went to the orphanage.

As we arrived, we saw the children (who were old enough to walk) playing outside. It was so hot, that they were all running around in only their nappies, hats, and footwear. No pants, no shirts. It was very cute, but we decided not to take a picture of them. Inside, we were brought to the director’s office, where we were asked to make piles of the gifts that we had brought. Andre sorted them into what he felt were appropriate gifts for the different officials. In that way, we found out that the gift bags we had brought were unnecessary.

Note to any prospective parents: Be prepared to acquire more gifts, and don’t worry about any type of packaging. Also, if you go to Kirov, there’s a grocery store up the hill from the hotel, which has nice bottles of wine for under $15.

After the dumping of the gifts, we went back to the section of the orphanage we had spent so many hours in during trip 1. Eventually they brought in our little guy, who was just waking up from a nap. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, and did not seem to recognize us.

After a few minutes, he started warming up to us. Alan decided to play his Ace card, lifting ‘A’ into the air. As he came down, Alan made farting noises on his belly. 'A's face instantly lit up, and we could tell from his expression that he now remembered us. In seconds, he had gone from tired and cranky, to giggling and ready to play.

So we played. And played. And then played some more. In total, we spent eight hours with our little guy that Saturday. On the first trip, they kept the visits fairly short, and took the children back for feeding and nap times. This time, we were instructed to keep him with us. When it was feeding time, we brought him up to the room, and Kathy fed him his meal. He got a treat after the meal, a cup of tea.

When I say cup of tea, I don’t mean in a bottle or a sippy cup. This was a regular size porcelain tea cup. The caregiver held her hand under his chin, slid the cup in, and ‘A’ drank. During the trip, we also learned that the children are trained very early to use the potty. They wear diapers, but are taught to use the potty every two hours, or after meals. This was much more advanced developmental behavior than we were expecting from an 11 month old.

We were told that we would be eating lunch inside the orphanage, and so we ordered pizza from a local restaurant. We had been looking forward to getting some air, but it was not to be. We wouldn’t learn why until 2 days later.

The German and Irish couples informed us that there was a small market just outside the gates of the orphanage. We hadn’t known about this our first trip; being able to buy supplies during the day made things much easier.

Finally, it was time to leave the orphanage, and head back to the hotel. We ate a quick dinner at the restaurant upstairs, and then went to bed. We knew we would have another long day on Sunday.

{News Flash} - Quick Update

Hello to all of you who have been patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for the next blog entry.

I will label this section {spoilers}, since it tells how the story ends:








As of 2:45am CDT on Monday, July 26th, per the decree of the high court of Kirov, Russian Federation, we were granted parental rights to the boy now named Aleksander Joseph Carda.

We returned to the United States on Wednesday, August 11th. We were met at the airport by family and friends, and have been home nearly a week now. We are learning many things about parenting that we didn't know before, and Aleks is learning about having a family that loves him very much.

Grandma and Grandpa are working hard to spoil him rotten, and appear to be making headway.

We will be posting more trip information soon.

Alan, Kathy, and Aleks Carda