Since former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and his entire government resigned last week, there's been a lot of buzz on Russian adoption chat boards and blogs about what exactly is going on over there.

Some of the confusion is quite understandable. We in America are used to have a White House official or cabinet member resign from time to time. But we only have a complete housecleaning when a new presidential term begins. Having an entire cabinet resign mid-stream isn't quite such a foreign idea in other parts of the world.

But when a government official leaves--even when all the top-level people go-- government usually rolls along quite nicely. In Russia as in the U.S., there are tens of thousands of government employees to keep the paperwork moving and see that the laws of the land are being followed.

Tuesday's edition of The Moscow Times (which, thanks to the time difference, has already hit the newsstands) has an interesting peek behind the curtain of government in Russia right now.

Here's how the story began:

Ministers rushed between their usual meetings Monday as they waited for word about whether they would keep their jobs in the next Cabinet.

If they were anxious, they didn't show it. Some of their aides said it wasn't worth speculating on what changes might be in store under new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov.

"[Only] one person in the country knows," said one ministry official, referring to President Vladimir Putin.

Putin is in Sochi, the Krasnodar krai city that will be home to the 2012 Winter Olympics, until the end of this month. Zubkov has reportedly been down there for a confab, and he'll be putting the thoughts gathered there to good use this week: He's got until Friday to name his government.

Who will be on his list? This is where the article gets a little amusing, unintentionally perhaps. It runs through the cabinet members of greatest interest to the business community--the paper's readership--and seems to have found as many sources convinced these ministers will be around in the Zubkov government as sources convinced that they will be replaced. The three writers credited on the story read tea leaves like the fact that the staff of Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref hasn't cancelled Gref's planned October visit to Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

This being a business newspaper, there's unfortunately no mention, pro or con, of the fate of our key man, Minister of Education Andrei Aleksandrovich Fursenko. The paper does, however, cite one Russian government observer as saying that Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov would likely not be returning. That would be a shame, if true, because Zurabov has been setting an example for domestic adoption by making his status as an adoptive father public.

I'll keep watching the papers and Russian political blogs, but until all the cards are down on Zubkov's table, it's anybody's guess.

Image credit: inkjetprinter

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