Apologies. A host of reasons--personal, professional and most of all technical--kept me from getting this news to you as fast as I should have: There has been a new round of accreditations issued in Russia. The accreditations apparently were signed on November 22 or 23, but word of them did not get out until last week.

The list includes nine agencies, four of which are American, and the rest from Belgium, Canada, Israel and Italy. That was somewhat disappointing news to those of us who have been waiting for a large group of American agency re-accreditations. But given... more

It's December, which means, in the world of Russian art, dance and music in America, that it's time for The Nutcracker.

There are performances of the ballet set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's music all over the United States. I turned up 10 performances in Florida alone, at the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College, the Emma Parish Theater in Titusville, the Van... more

It's nice to see some good finally coming of the mess that was Yunona USA.

If you've been in the world of adoptions from Russia for a long time, the last two words of that first sentence probably have you spitting fire by now. Of all the scammers that have decided to try their hand at adoptions, Napa, Calif,-based Yunona was undoubtedly the worst. California prosecutors last year determined that it ripped off over $1.1 million from more than 100 couples and families across the United States trying to adopt from Russia before it was shut down in 2005. The new accreditation... more

Two years ago, as I was completing my second adoption from Russia, there was talk that Russia would soon begin requiring some sort of psychological test to determine parental fitness. Remember that, two years ago, Russian adoptions were being roiled by three high-profile cases of Russian-born children murdered by their American adoptive parents. An independent test of someone's suitability to be a parent didn't seem at all out of place.

Russia still hasn't passed a law mandating a psychological examination. But, speaking at the recent Adoptive Parents Committee conference,... more

When I was still working in big media and a bizarre story would cross the wires, someone would invariably shake his head and mutter, "You just can't make this stuff up". So it is with a story that appeared in The New York Times yesterday.

Apparently, nostalgia for the Soviet Union is so strong in Russia that fashion designers there are incorporating its iconography into their clothing lines. The New York Times... more

This is the hardest time of the year for me to accept that my little guy is color blind.

Thanks to some sharp-eyed observations from one of his teachers, I suspected pretty soon after he came home from Sakhalin Island in October 2005 that he wasn't seeing colors the way the rest of us did. He was overtly fond of yellow--had to have yellow sneakers, yellow boots, a yellow Polartec--but lots of little kids love yellow. Subsequent testing by the two most fabulous pediatric ophthalmologists on the planet has confirmed that he is red-green color blind, the form of color blindness... more

I don't know how Russians do it, but I can only cook Russian food when the temperature dips. I've been in Russia during some of the warmer months, and I've eaten at some of the surf-side restaurants in New York City's Brighton Beach neighborhood during summer trips to the beach. But try as I might to eat those lovely beet and cucumber salads, and crisp plates of smoked fish, warm-weather dining means a Mediterranean menu to me.

Winter is what Russian cooking was made for.

And so, beginning today, I'm going to crack open the recipe box every Monday to give... more

You might remember that, last month, I told you about a special issue of American Express Publishing's Departures magazine, devoted solely to the luxuries of modern Moscow.

Moscow has had luxuries before. But under the Soviets, the baubles and beluga were pretty much limited to Communist Party favorites, and the luxuries might not have seemed terribly luxurious on Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive or Avenue Georges V.

The clothiers, restaurateurs... more

Still no news on the news we all most want to see, the next round of accreditations, but plenty of other news in Russian business and politics this past week.

Let's start with the latter. On Friday, Russian prosecutors charged one of the country's deputy finance ministers with planning to embezzle $43.4 million. Sergei Storchak, described in news reports as one of Russia's leading liberals, had been arrested the week before. According... more

If you have been around the world of Russian adoption for any amount of time, you have heard or read bleak assessments of what happens to the children who age out of its orphanages. Never having found a forever family in Russia or abroad, these young people often go out into the world ill-prepared for life on their own.

But last week, I was reminded in stark terms of the challenges they face. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released a study that was conducted to learn how many of the street youth in St. Petersburg were... more