Fifteen years ago, two professors from the University of Pittsburgh were invited to go to Russia by city government officials in St. Petersburg. The Soviet Union had dissolved, and with it, a lot of government support for child welfare initiatives. What policies, what services should we put in place, the city fathers asked the academics?

But while Robert McCall and Christina Groark, respectively a professor... more

You know I've been pretty tough on USCIS about its fee increases and the technology problems that cause our adoption fingerprints to expire. But now, some of you will have a reason to cheer the technology at the agency.

On July 5, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, as the agency is formally known, launched a test of a Web-based information management tool... more

Recently, somebody I know asked me if I would talk to somebody they knew about adopting an older child from Russia, a child this person had found on an adoption photolisting site.

I hesitated.

Not because I don't like talking about adoption. I love talking about adoption from Russia and I will talk with anyone about it anytime. Heck, I write the equivalent of a book about it every month on this Web site.

Not because the person was considering an older child. The younger of my two sons was nearly five when he came home from... more

It seems as if more accreditations are on the horizon.

European Adoption Consultants has a note on its Russia program page dated July 11, 2007 that says that it is expecting its accreditation "in the next few days". This would be quite interesting because EAC says on its Web site that it only submitted its accreditation papers to the Ministry of Education on March 6 of this year, well after some of the other agencies that are waiting for accreditation decrees.

There is nothing yet on EAC's accreditation on either the Web site that the Ministry... more

The big media outlets slowly woke up to the accreditation news this week. There was this story in USA Today and another in the Chicago Tribune, and even a brief notice in the Moscow Times. The New York Times didn't weigh in, but it did have a nice... more

Now that larger numbers of people are going to be traveling again, I thought I'd better circle back to the practical stuff. I've given you my tips for trip one and my thoughts on what to do when you meet your child for the first time. Your second trip will have its own challenges, though, so I thought it might help to pass on what I did then as well.

First up: How... more

It's summertime and that, to me, means it's time for a cooling, refreshing beverage. To many Russians, that beverage is kvas.

The first time I ever set foot in Russia, back when it was still the Soviet Union, it was summer. I can remember seeing these funny little tank trucks marked with the letters KBAC (the Russian spelling of kvas) parked near street corners and parks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. People would go up to them and, with their own glass or a communal cup, get some sort of murky-looking liquid. Being ever the intrepid sort,... more

Five years. By some measures, that's not a very long time. It took 185 years to build Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, for example.

But right now, in the context of adoption from Russia, five years looks almost like eternity. That's because the new accreditations that were announced last week --the first of what will hopefully be several dozen before long--are good for five years.

Five years.

What an enormous weight that is lifted off the agencies' shoulders. They can program and plan, and give parents a timeline for their adoption... more

I wrote last week that eight American agencies had been accredited by the Russian government to handle adoptions. I was wrong--and right.

Let me explain.

As you can now see at the top of the Web site for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, seven agencies were accredited. They are Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Charlotte, Children's Home Society & Family Services, ... more

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a front-page piece on Nashi, a Russian youth movement that supports President Vladimir Putin.

It's not the first Western news organization to take a look at the group. Newsweek had a profile less than a month ago. The BBC had a story last summer, and both the text and an accompanying video are still available on its Web site. Blogs... more