OR EDU

This story is about four orphan boys from boarding school for disabled children who try to make their independent living.

The actual state of things is that normally after turning 18 they are sent either to a psycho-neurological dispensary or a rest home. Meanwhile they can normally live on their own. That's why the "Rostok" foundation from the Pskov region launched a special rehabilitation and social adaptation program for older children.

I often work for non-commercial organizations and social foundations, but this story turned out to be the most difficult and most essential for me. I've known these boys for some years and delivering my experience and understanding in a few images was not an easy task.

I guess this could be a story of growing up too fast, but the more I follow it the more I get a feeling this is a story of belated childhood.

As a rule it takes one or two years to arrange the process of foreign adoption to Europe from the moment when all the necessary documents and certificates for adoption are collected. During this time candidates have the choice to put a tick against only one point of two: "with minor physical defects" or "with serious physical defects (invalid)".

Russia does not allow adoption of absolutely healthy children.

Such thing as overdiagnosis widespread in the Russian system saves the situation. It means that some children are diagnosticated "in advance" and the diagnoses happlily are not confirmed afterwards. Meanwhile the majority of these children living in Russia are sent to the boarding schools for children with delays in the development.

After visiting Russian institutions many of the foreigners have to undergo a course of psychological rehabilitation. They feel guilty against the other children they see in the group. At the same time most of the foreign adopters want their foster children to know the Russian language and keep in touch with their homeland. Three families of the seven have Russian-speaking nannies who teach children Russian.

Many families could take more children but they are not ready to go through this long and complicated process once again.

Russian politicians whose false patriotism is above the real interests of children have formed a negative attitude to foreign adoption. This photography has been a try to see the real situation.

This story is about the senior group at the orphanage where mentally retarded teenagers coexist with the 'good to go' guys, i.e. those who are capable of leading normal life among regular people. Many of them had been sent here from ordinary orphanages in the late 1990s for continuos runaways and bad behavior. An extensive program for rehabilitation and adaptation of such children has been introduced recently (with features such as the family house for the boarding school graduates), however most of the orphaned students do not fall under this program. Years spent in the orphanage had done their deed: they don't want to study or work and consider it more convenient to remain 'fools' and continue to stay in the state care.

There is a mixture of reality and fantasy in their twilight consciousness. Most of these kids do not know how to write and read. They can be extremely cruel with their fellows and especially weak ones, but still secretly love their parents, some of whom are already dead.
They can masterfully put the others to use, they steal constantly, but will give away the last bit to their own people. One of them got to Magadan during the winter on his own on his second try (the first one got him as far as Vladivostok where he was caught), without money or documents.

They are all convinced that after turning 18 they will go home and will live by themselves. They believe it even though their relatives are drunks or detainees, and their shut down houses have been stripped even of the heaters (for the metal).