Yo, ho, heave ho.
Yo, ho, heave ho.
Something something something something...

And that's all I remember of "The Song of the Volga Boatmen," practically the first song I learned on the piano when I started playing at age 6. I looked up the lyrics of the song to include in this blog, but I think I played a very Americanized version because the translated lyrics did not go along with my memories.

In any case, the Volga river runs right through the Russian oblast of Volgograd so perhaps the song of my childhood started there as well. Volgograd is in southern Russia and is considered one of the regions of the Northern Caucasus.The region has also been known as Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad, the latter name happening when (you guessed it) Stalin came into power in 1925.

There's not a whole heck of a lot of information on the Volgograd region on the Internet. Here's the link to the Wikipedia article on Volgograd, and here's a link to the orphanages. Finally, heres the link to the Vologograd site on russia.com, which has this to say about a visit to the capitol city of the region:

So what would you do if you visited Volgograd, Russia? Well, your trip is not likely to leave you with fun-filled memories.

Whew! Now, the city was completely destroyed during WWII and had to be rebuilt... but come on, now! They need a good PR person!

Luckily, Kim P. contacted me with more personal information about her family's adoption from the Volgograd region. Here's what Kim had to say:

We adopted from the Volgo region in southern Russia in 2002. We stayed in the city of Volgograd and the orphanage was in Kalach a city about 1.5 hrs away from Volgograd. Volgograd was originally Stalingrad before WW II and the city was completely destroyed during the war. Volgograd was a city of approximately 1 million people. It was a very nice city and we stayed at a hotel called the October Hotel. It was a nice hotel but it was furnished like it was the maybe in the 1970’s timeframe.

There was a orphanage in Volgograd, but the MOE picked out our son from the Kalach orphanage. Kalach was very small, but still a very nice town. We did not stay in Kalach only in Volgograd and Moscow. Volgograd was a 20 hr (yes, I said 20) from Moscow. We were told that the weather was too unpredictable to fly in and out of Volgograd from Moscow. We did go to the Volgograd orphanage with another couple who were with us and it was also a very nice place. The orphanage in Volgograd would us interact with all of the children but the Kalach orphanage would only let us see our child.

There were some nice restaurants in Volgograd. The hotel had a café and a restaurant that were both very good. We ate a pizza place that was delicious. They had pizza, pasta and much more. There was an English pub and was also very good. We ate a Chinese place that was not the best, but not the worst either. There was no McDonalds or anything like that in Volgograd, but we did eat at the ones in Moscow.

Overall, we had an excellent experience and got the greatest gift we have ever received.

If you want to contact Kim please email me at adoptrussiablog@adoptionmail.com. She has given permission to post her e-mail address but I'm having technical difficulties so please contact me instead.

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.