Sunday, February 3, 2008

Living in and visiting Russia



Andy and Ashey in front of ice sculpture in Izhevsk, Russia created for the New Year.





Ron has been working for BP/Amoco his entire career. Currently he is Well Control Manager for the joint venture of TNK-BP. Ron enjoys his job, but after 30 years in the industry finds himself looking forward to the retirement years.

I have often been asked what I do with my time here in Russia. One of my favorite things is visiting the Children's Cancer Hospital here in Moscow. On a recent visit I got to visit with a family in their room. My Russian is horrible, but I was able to determine the child's name, age and that she was the youngest of three girls in the family. When I shared my name and age the mom giggled and told me her age. Russian women can sometimes be secretive about their age so I thought it special that she shared this with me.

Andy is now married but has visited Russia once. One of my favorite memories of him in Russia was while we were cross country skiing. We have found Russians seldom make eye contact with you on the street, but they were amused by our cross country skiing efforts. While in Izhevsk Andy and Ashley visited a middle school and chatted with the students.

Ashley's most recent trip to Russia was Thanksgiving 2007 at which point she declared she had seen all the tourist sites and wanted to go sledding. I will make a long story short and just say never trust icy ponds in November!!

At any rate, as I have already mentioned this blog site was established as a way of making contacts with adoptive families. Ron and I would like all adoptive families to know our door in Moscow is always open to you. We wish you the best as you go through the adoption process

Paka!

Dinia and Ron

2 comments:

junglemama said...

I just found your blog. What a wonderful gift you are giving to adoptive parents. I met up with a friend who likes to do the same thing and she showed us around when we adopted back in Sept 2005. Now that we are adopting again, I hope I find someone who wants to show us around Ukraine. :)

Tiger & Kar said...

Hi Dinia & Rob!
We are with the same agency as Rob & Dede and Mark & Sinzi. I just read on Sinzi's blog about the great day they shared with you at the market today. We will be making our first trip in 2 weeks and would love to meet you if at all possible. Feel free to visit our blog and email me if you're available for dinner and/or sightseeing.

Thanks for taking such great care of our friends who are currently in Russia!!