The countdown has begun to the start of Russia's Lent, which begins this year on February 17.

Last year I wrote about the food served in the week immediately preceding Lent, the holiday known as Maslenitsa, or butter week. By making blini, and piling them high with things like herring and sour cream, Russian households purge their larders of the last rich foods and get body and soul ready for Lent.

But being an unabashed foodie, I would give some time in the... more

Russia's effort to promote a demographic revival may be working. Tatyana Golikova, Russia's minister of health and social development minister said Friday that 1.6 million babies were born in the country last year in 2007, the highest number of births since 1991. According to the McClatchy-Tribune news service, the birth total for 2007 was up by 122,750 from 2006. Last January, Russian legislators approved incentives to encourage Russians to have more children.

And maybe some good news for those of... more

February starts off with a bang for those of you in the San Francisco Bay area. Today and tomorrow, the Russian Center of San Francisco is hosting its 20th annual celebration of Russian art, dance and music. This is a big shindig, and the event that inspired me to start a Russian cultural calendar for adoptive families last year. There is a great lineup, and even a large screen TV dedicated to the Super Bowl. Tickets are $10 for adults, but kids under 12 are free.

Also, today and tomorrow, a... more

When I started writing for Adoption.com last January, one of the first blogs about Russian adoption that I was lucky enough to read was "Three Sons And A Princess". It was the tale of a military family with three boys who were trying to adopt a little girl, affectionately dubbed the "Pineapple Princess".

Jennefer, or Jeneflower as she sometimes styles herself, is the mom of the clan and its chief memory officer. Her writing captured the ups and downs of her family's adoption journey and featured so many smart tips about surviving... more

This is a very nice way to end the month of January: Seven more adoption agencies have been accredited by the Russian government. The decrees, all dated January 28, cover three agencies from the United States, and one each from France, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

Here's who they are and a little bit about what they do:

The agencies accredited from the U.S. are ABC Adoption Services of Roanoke, Virginia, Beacon House Adoption Services of Pensacola, Florida, and... more

OK, I'm going to confess to a bit of cultural prejudice today. If I were going to be stranded on a deserted island and I could take along my three favorite desserts, they would all be French. So it's probably no surprise that my favorite Russian dessert is one that was created by a French pastry chef.

The dessert is Charlotte Russe, and it was whipped up by Marie-Antoine Carême for Russia's Tsar Alexander I in the early 1800s. Wikipedia, citing a 2004 feature on Carême by National Public Radio, calls Carême the "first celebrity chef". That's... more

Russia continued to come out of its winter holiday slumber this week, but unfortunately not with more accreditations.

On Friday, Russia signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Serbia to make the Balkan nation a key transit point for the natural gas pipeline that Russia is building to supply Europe. In addition, Gazprom announced that it is taking a controlling stake in Serbia's government-owned oil company. According to the Associated Press, the Russian government-controlled... more

Today is a rather quirky holiday in Russia, called Tatiana's Day. Though it does fall on the name day of Saint Tatiana, an early Christian martyr, it is not in the traditional sense a name or a saint's day holiday, which I've written about before. And it's not in honor of the in-country rep who helped me with my first adoption in Vladivostok, in 1999--though some sort of lasting recognition for that would certainly be in order.

A clue to the day's reason for being is pretty plain when you... more

We passed a bit of a milestone the other day: It's been six months since my little guy has had an episode of night terrors.

Once every two to three weeks or so after coming home to America, he would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and shaking. He wasn't really awake, though he would get up out of bed and race for my room--or even down the stairs. When I got to him, his heart would be racing and his eyes would be wide open but not focusing on anything. And even if my Russian or his English had been better, I got the sense that there wasn't anything... more

Russia signed a $15 billion agreement with Bulgaria on Friday to build a natural gas pipeline under the Black Sea. The deal will allow Russia to ship gas to Europe but bypass Turkey. According to The New York Times, analysts are worried that it could also make Europe more dependent on energy from Russia: The European Union has been trying to pull together its own pipeline project through Tukey, which... more