A couple of weeks ago someone wrote me an e-mail to tell me she was going to give me lots of information about their recent trip to Murmansk, but I think in the excitement of bringing their child home as well as summer vacation for the other children in the house her travelogue was pushed to the side.

No matter. I will tell you what I've found out about Murmansk and if she finds any time I'm sure she'll chime in later.

Here's what wikipedia says about Murmansk:

Murmansk (Russian: Му́рманск)... more

I've looked at a bunch of websites about Ivanovo and they've all said the same thing: "it's the city of textiles" and also "the city of brides," since apparently most of the textile workers are women. Makes me imagine huge industrial complexes and smokestacks and Rosie the Riveter types wearing white veils...but I don't know if that's accurate or not since there seems to be very little of actual substance (that's not written in Russian) about Ivanovo on the web.

Here's the Wikipedia article on Ivanovo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanovo

Here's... more

When I took Russian, about a million years ago, one of my favorite things to say was Saint Petersburg. You say it something like this (apologies in advance to people who actually speak Russian): Sankt Pyotersburgeeya. When I say it while frowning I can imagine that I can actually speak the language. It is very satisfying! It was also Saint Petersburg, rather than Moscow, that I really wanted to visit when we were in Russia. The Hermitage alone makes me long to go there -- and maybe we will, when the kids are older and we somehow become wealthy...

But enough silliness. On to the regional profile.

Here are some good websites about St. Petersburg: A travel-oriented site:... more

The region of Tver is about a 3-hour drive from Moscow, and has a wonderful website for English speaking visitors: http://tver-russia.com/ The website is so good, in fact, that I don't see the need to repeat everything here! I found a couple more websites that reference Tver: Konstantin Kylagin's pictures of Tver: http://thekonst.net/en/photohunt/album/92 Encyclopedia.com's article on Tver: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/T/Tver.asp... more

This is the first post about the regions of Russia that people commonly visit to adopt. It's my hope that this blog can become a database of sorts for regional information. Please feel free to add to this blog entry by posting in the comments section or by e-mailing me at adoptrussiablog@adoptionmail.com. I'm also looking for information about the other regions in Russia, so please feel free to e-mail me information or experiences about the region you visited as well.

We adopted Little J from the region of Voronezh. Specifically, his orphanage... more

Hey folks! I am starting a new category on this blog: regional profiles. When we were in the process of adopting Little J I always wished that there was a place I could find out more about the different regions (from the adoptive parents' point of view, I mean).

Most regions have different yahoo groups devoted to them (just log in to yahoogroups.com and do a search on your region) but some of these groups are more active than others. Our region, Voronezh, has a yahoogroup but it's pretty inactive. Not sure why, but it's probably because once people have their kids they get really busy and... more

When I went to my bank way back when we were in the process of adopting Little J, and told them I would need about $6000 in twenties, all "new," unmarked, and uncreased bills, they just looked at me blankly. "We can't do that," they said. This, from one of the biggest banks in the Southeast.

So I went to the smaller, local bank I use for my business. They were more cooperative when I told them we were adopting from Russia and needed new money. "We can try, sugar," they said. And they did. For months and... more