[pahlsm]

Hello everyone. Still don't have our travel dates for tirp one and it has been almost 4 weeks. I was just wondering how many of you that are already home or have referrals have a Eurasian child. Our referral is and what I was really wanting to know was about court. I talked to a lady that used our agency and adopted a Eurasian boy and said that court was very hard as the Russians look down on the Eurasian children almost to say they aren't Russian. I was just curious if anyone has been down that road and had any advice. Let me tell you she is wonderful. I am going nuts waiting for our travel dates though. DH is really helping me get through it though. Been finishing her room and trying to stay super busy. If anyone has any helpful tips please share. Thanks so much. Hugs and Hope, Kathleen

[Ktates]

Kathleen-
I don't have any tips regarding your referral but I hope it all works out as it's meant to - best wishes for those travel dates to come soon!
Karen

[waitinginnj]

There are biases. I am surprised that she found court harder. You would think that it would be considered more acceptable that the particular child was being adopted internationally - it would be highly unlikely that a Russian family would adopt a Eurasian child. There are other children that are treated similarly, such as the Roma (gypsy) children. I had a Russian person at work tell me that my daughter wasn't really Russian. I responded back, "You're right - she is an American." He was working through the citizenship process and I think that it got his goat.

[marmarcam]

Kathleen,

Our son is Eurasian. We adopted him from Moscow over 6 years ago.

He was the only one in his orphanage. All the other children were blonde hair/blue eyed. The workers appeared to be very attentive and loving with him.

There was never any mention of it during court either. The judge was very sweet and even laughed when she couldn't pronounce his given name. (Thank goodness our interpeter had practiced it with me or I would have never been able to say it!) Although from all that I have been reading in these forums lately, it appears that the judges are much harder in general these days.

We didn't have any trouble in the general public either. Course, Moscow might be a little more diversed (sp?) than some of the other regions.

I will say that I have had some comments here in the states. Most of them come from Asian or Hispanics. I think that they just notice the difference more readily. Most of the comments are very sweet and well intended. Generally it is "Is he your son?". There's a great book, "Are Those Your Kids?" if you are interested.

Congratulations on your referral! Course I'm a little prejudice myself when I say that Eurasian child are beautiful, smart and sweet children!

Hope your trip comes soon,
Martha

[slm_tbm]

I think Eurasian is the same as the Tartar's or people with a strong Mongolian/Asian influence. When we were in Russia there were so many people who had this heritage in their appearance. I didn't see anyone treated any differently because of their appearance. From what my history teaches me (I may be wrong, my husbands a big history buff) Genhaus Kahn invaded the back of Russia (Siberia I think) and was there for a while before he was driven out. The Asian culture he brought with him is almost gone, but the features are very strong and have continued over the past years to become more prominent in Russia. I think the features are beautiful and all people in Russia are very proud. The children are beautiful. :-)

Shana

[DET62]

In my daughter's orphanage in Topolevo, just outside Khabarovsk, there are several children who look purely Asian. One of them, Oxana, is the same age as my daughter [12] and lives in the same room. She is just an adorable, sweet, child. I wish I could afford to adopt her. She appeared to be treated just the same as all the other children when I was there.

Of course, I wasn't surprised to see Asian children there, since Khabarovsk is in the Far East, on the edge of Siberia, and only 20 miles from the China border.

I wish you luck in your adoption, and I hope things go swiftly and easily. I will say a prayer for you.

Dee Thompson
Atlanta

[LindaBel]

Our son's birthmom was from Uzbekistan (although she lived in St. Petersburg) and he has dark brown hair and very dark brown eyes. ST. Petersburg is a pretty cosmopolitan city so you see a lot of different ethnic groups there. We didn't see that he was treated any differently at the orphange - if anything a couple of the staff seemed to have a soft spot for him. We were told (off the record) that the likelihood of being adopted by a Russian family was much less because of his ethnicity.