The list of the actual ministerial orders permitting have been posted to the MOE site. Here is the correct list of agencies with their corresponding orders (thanks Jim from FRUA).

Order Number / Agency Name
No. 183 - L'Agence Francaise d'Adoption (French Adoption Agency)
No. 184 - Children's Home Society and Family Services
No. 185 - Frank Adoption Center, North Carolina
No. 186 - Cradle of Hope Adoption Center, Inc.
No. 187 - Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 188 - International Assistance Group (IAG)
No. 189 - Cradle Society
No. 190 - Family and Children's Agency, Inc.

While adoptions continued without accreditations, it was at a far slower pace. Here's to hoping the new accreditations (and ones that will surely follow) will mean more kids will be coming home soon!
--Lisa
www.arkangels.org
360.yahoo.com/lisamikeplus3

Virgina, Where did you get your list? I am wondering why it is different than what yorkiemom posted. The lack of a particular organization on yorkiemom's list is concerning verses what you posted. It will affect me. What does MOE site mean and who is Jim from FRUA?

I'm trying to resolve the discrepancies myself right now. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow seems to have shut down for the whole week because its list has not been updated at all, neither has the list on the Web site of the Ministry of Education, which oversees adoptions in Russia. So I have been working from a variety of sources and making lots of calls to lots of agencies for confirmation. Jim is a long-standing poster at FRUA and one of the most knowledgeable people in the adoption community. I appreciate all the legwork he's doing to resolve these inconsistencies.

Perhaps I can help out here, as well. I realized about a year ago that there is a lot of first-hand information posted by the Russian authorities on their public websites. Nearly all of it is in the Russian language, so it doesn't show up with an English-language Google search. Most of the information about you can find in the English language is second-hand information, filtered through an agency, the U.S. Embassy, an advocacy organization, or a press report. Some of it contains errors or is flat-out-wrong. So, I started regularly digging out the first-hand stuff directly from the Russian authorities (in the Russian language) and posting it, with translations and links to the source, on the FRUA chat website. It allowed me to build a body of knowledge that permits me to answer a great many questions directly, with proof from the primary sources in the Russian government. When I can prove something, I will post it as fact. When I am guessing about something, I will write that I am guessing.

So, why is Yorkiemom's list different from what Virginia originally posted? Simply put, although Virginia probably diligently confirmed her list with the U.S.-based agencies, it is not using only the data from the root source, which in this case is the Russian Ministry of Education & Science (MoE) itself. The list Yorkiemom posted, however, is copied from my list on FRUA chat, which was taken directly from a set of accreditation orders posted by the MoE in their main website's document database. It is built only from first-hand, root source information, regardless of any claims made by the agencies themselves.

The Russian MoE has more than one website. Their primary adoption-related site at http://www.usynovite.ru has not yet been updated with the current accreditation list. However, the ministerial orders granting accreditation to these 8 agencies have been published within the MoE's document database on the Ministry's main website at:

http://edu.ru/mon/index.php?page_id=240&page_num=00&action=search&form_rasdels%5B%5D=-1&form_types%5B%5D=2&form_organs%5B%5D=10&form_num=&form_text=&form_name=&date1=01.01.2007&date2=31.12.2007&sort=date_desc

That link shows all of the MoE's ministerial orders granted thus far in 2007, including the recent orders to accredit the foreign adoption agencies (orders 183-190). You can run it through a translator, such as the Google language tools translator, and see for yourself.

takinghteplunge - The director of the agency I believe you are asking about, Adoption Options, made an announcement claiming accreditation on his blog. Yet, the official MoE database, which you can see for yourself at the link above, does not include an accreditation order naming Adoption Options as accredited. My suggestion would be to call them directly and ask why they are claiming accreditation when the Russian MoE itself has not published an accreditation order with the Adoption Options name on it.

By the way, I think Virginia is doing a great job on her blog. It's nice to have someone writing who is both pleasant to read and careful with the facts, with a strong desire to educate. Thank you, Virginia.

Ugh. The link to the MoE's documents didn't post well. So, go to this link instead and then click on "2007."

http://mon.gov.ru/dok/prik/