Orphanage 51 was attached to a Soviet boarding school for linguistics, specializing in teaching English. It was rather an elite school and the children attending the boarding school were not orphans. Their parents chose to send them there for their education. It would have been a great educational opportunity for us but six months after I arrived the State shut down the boarding school. However, it did allow our already overcrowded orphanage to expand into the old school building. Fortunately for me, Ed, Misha, and all of our first grade classmates, we were able to escape to the “new” building. All fifty or sixty of our age group were moved into four rooms in the attached school building.
The building was actually an old palace and the rooms were large and beautiful. There were gorgeous marble fireplaces, ornate light fixtures, big mirrors, and fancy woodwork. We first graders had two rooms for bedrooms, one for a playroom, and one for a classroom, as well as our very own bathroom. I remember lots of locked doors throughout the place so that we could not roam. But even with parts of the building closed off to us we were thrilled to have a space of our own. We called it our “great escape.” While we still had to interact with the older bullies and other boys all during the day, at least at night we felt safe in our own space.
Nighttime was our time. All of the caregivers who worked there during the day left to go home around nine. There was only one night caretaker for the entire floor—about two hundred kids. Orphans or not, kids will be kids, and nighttime became our best playtime. We would take the covers off our beds and pull each other, slipping and sliding, all over the parquet floors. If we got caught I was always the one who got punished because I was always giggling the loudest. The caretaker hated all of us, but hated me most and thought I was a troublemaker. She took every chance she got to make me an example for the others.
We would hear her coming and rush back to our beds and throw ourselves under the covers. She would storm into the room and even though all forty of us were giggling under the covers she would head straight for my bed, rip off the covers, and beat me in the face with her shoe.
Early in my years at Orphanage 51 I had to be taken to the hospital for some kind of treatment for one of my eyes; I don’t remember what, exactly. One of the few male caretakers offered to escort me to the hospital. It promised to be a great adventure—my first “official” time out of the orphanage and into the city. Riding the Metro was certainly a new and thrilling experience.
On the way home from the hospital, the caretaker took me to his apartment to show me around. He then proceeded to beat me and attempted to molest me. I kicked, screamed, and pushed. He could have used force and as a little boy I could not have defended myself. Fortunately, though, my protests were enough for him and he gave up. He grabbed me by the arm and roughly escorted me back to the orphanage. As soon as I could I reported the incident to the orphanage director. I never saw the man working at the orphanage again (today they rarely allow male caregivers in the orphanages in Russia because of all the problems they had with molestation and abuse).
There were no showers in Orphanage 51 and no hot water. We would “bathe” each day by splashing ourselves with cold water at the sink. For six days we would wear the same clothes, including underwear. Once a week we got to wash our clothes. There was a large wooden bench in the bathroom where we would spread our clothes out and then rub them down with a big old bar of soap. Then we would take them to the sink and rinse them out in cold water. We strung rope from the pipes in the bathroom and hung our clothes to dry. You were never assured you were actually getting your own clothes back, and never assured that whatever clothes you did get would be dry or clean! Ed and I would often sneak into the bathroom to wash our socks and underwear throughout the week. None of the other kids cared, but they stunk so bad and the two of us couldn’t stand it.
Once a week we were taken to the public bathhouse. That was always a frightening experience for the young boys. We had soap but no shampoo and we didn’t get showers—just a bucket of hot water with which to bathe. (This might explain why I enjoy taking incredibly long hot showers today!)
In my early years at Orphanage 51 I became sickly again. I had repeated bouts of pneumonia, a hernia, and chronic stomach problems. Four years in a row I was in the hospital for a month each year, with doctors trying to diagnose my stomach ailment. My medical records simply indicate “chronic gastroenteritis/ulcer” repeatedly. I was in almost constant pain for years and I lost a lot of weight. I was sick or hospitalized so much that I had to repeat the first grade because I had missed so much of the school year.
As I think back on my early years in the orphanage system, one of the things that strikes me again and again is the lack of individuality. We were dressed the same, fed the same, treated the same, and had the same schedule. Every morning we were gathered all together, lined up in the foyer, and made to recite stuff. We received pins as we progressed up the different levels of the Communist Party. I remember receiving a red star with a picture of Lenin on it. It was all so “Soviet”! It was easy to feel like a nobody. I was not an individual, just one of thousands upon thousands of Russian orphans. There was no room for privacy or dignity. And there was absolutely no individualized attention or affection.
Yet looking back over those years I can tell that God was marking me for His own, long before I knew Him. To the caretakers I was known as “the troublemaker.” To the bullies I was known as one of “the Aristocrats.” Whether it was out of pride, stubbornness, or God’s hand of protection on me, I don’t know, but I refused to be bullied into drinking or smoking or swearing. I never followed the crowd over the barbed wire fence to steal bread. I refused to beg for money or food, and chose, rather, to wander the streets alone. And God was about to affirm His calling on my life with a very special blessing.
Chapter 4
I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1–2
During my first year at Orphanage 51 I had many different caretakers, but just one teacher, Irina. She was our teacher from first grade all the way through fifth. She had taught at the boarding school until it closed; when she taught our first grade class it was her first year teaching at the orphanage.
Irina made it very clear to us what her role was to be. “I am not your mother,” she warned us. “I am your teacher. Do not hug me. Do not kiss me. Do not slobber on me, and do not ever call me ‘Momma.’ I am here because I am being paid to teach you.”
Not surprisingly, she was a very strict teacher and she scared all of us. She was a stickler about our posture and insisted we sit up straight in our chairs at all times. She would smack us with her pointer if she caught us slouching. She would also smack our hands if she caught us talking in class.
Irina would take us on field trips to the “Houses of Culture,” education centers around St. Petersburg. They were open and free to the public. There were some for dance, some for photography, some for sports, and even some for sewing. Because the orphanage had minimal education supplies these should have been great opportunities for us to learn. If we had really understood the opportunity back then—if someone had really motivated us to learn—we might have appreciated them. But all we could think was, Why do we need or want to learn photography when we will never use it? We would rather use our free time hunting for money for ice cream.
In September of 1986, just before I turned nine, a woman named Melana Kozeeva became caretaker for twenty-six of us boys and girls at Orphanage 51. To this day I remember the first time I met her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. You could feel the love she had in her heart. She told us, “You may call me ‘Momma’ if you like, as long as no other adults are around. I will love you and care for you and I promise you this: I will protect you from harm.” Those were easily the most comforting words I had ever heard in my whole life.
Looking back on that day, Melana says, “My heart was washed
with a warm wave of joy and thanks to God for this opportunity to work with all these dear children.” She says she remembered me as a tall, skinny child with curly dark hair. “You seemed so alive,” she recalled. “As I got to know you, I realized there was no balance to your emotions. If you were happy then everyone knew it from your hyperactivity, joyful screams, and contagious laughter. Yet from time to time you were very angry or very sad and your responses were as pronounced as when you were happy. You clearly needed strong leadership and I felt you needed a person whom you could trust.”
At 7:30 each morning Melana would wake us up and help us get ready for the day. She would then take us down to breakfast and walk us to our classroom. We were in class every day from 9:00 to about 2:30, at which time Melana would come back for us.
As is common with orphans, pictures of my childhood are scarce amd the quality is poor. This was taken at the sanatorium. That’s me on the right in the light shirt. Also in the picture are Melana (seated in the center). Maria is sitting next to her. Edik is the little boy with the dark hair on the left
The big kids still bullied us, of course. With so many kids to watch over, Melana couldn’t be everywhere at once, but if she did catch the bullies picking on one of her boys she chased after them waving a broomstick. The older boys soon learned not to mess with her.
In the orphanage only ten to fifteen percent of us were “true” orphans—those who had been abandoned by our parents and signed over to the State. The rest were known as “social orphans.” They had at least one parent but they were taken away from their parents by the State because of abuse, alcoholism, or crime, and placed in the orphanage system. Because these parents never had their parental rights terminated, that meant almost all of my classmates would go home for weekends and holidays. Initially, that made those of us who remained sad. But we soon realized what an advantage we had: Melana began taking turns taking us home with her on weekends.
My friend Misha was a social orphan and often went home on weekends, but Edik and I spent many a weekend with Melana and her family. Ed and I got to know her daughters and sons-in-law, her husband, and even her parents (we always called them dedulya and babulya, Russian for grandpa and grandma). They lived about thirty miles outside of town in a dacha. While they had electricity they did not have any running water or heat. As a result, their dacha was where I learned to do physical work.
I had never seen a well before but I soon learned to draw water from theirs, as well as to cut firewood to heat the house. Melana’s family made Ed and me feel welcome and told us they wanted us to come as often as possible, but, of course, Melana had to take turns with all of the kids.
Melana loved all of us and didn’t show favoritism. We all knew, though, that she had a deeper love for Ed. He became like her son. She never legally adopted him, but we all knew. We didn’t question that or resent it because she was so loving and protective of all of us. She was the closest thing to a mother I had ever known.
I did not consciously long for love or family; those were foreign words and concepts to me at that time. I had never experienced them. In the Soviet days adoption was very rare: there were no foreign adoptions, and not many Russians were looking to adopt. Once in the orphanage system most of us “true orphans” remained in it until we turned seventeen or eighteen. While I may not have realized my basic emotional needs, I knew, when Melana came into my life, that I was experiencing feelings I had never had. For the first time I felt loved and protected.
Wanting to get us away from the orphanage and the bad influence of the older boys, Melana managed to give us the most wonderful year in our young lives. When we were nine, she convinced the State to pay for her to take our class to a sanatorium for a whole year. It was a cross between a medical facility and a spa, though not nearly as nice and luxurious as American spas. This was a state-owned campus of concrete buildings, set in a remote resort area about twenty-five miles north of St. Petersburg. It had more park-like yard area than we had ever seen. Melana and Irina both went with us for the year, as our caretakers and teachers. The two women rotated weeks, so one week Irina would be both caretaker and teacher, and the next week she would leave and Melana would take her place.
The women justified this experiment to the State by telling them it would improve our health. We had physical therapy sessions, massage therapy, and chamomile and eucalyptus baths. We had nurses on duty who took turns for twenty-four-hour shifts. We could walk to the beach and play in the sand. We could hike in the woods. Melana took us berry picking and taught us to make pies. Obviously, this was a glorious existence for a bunch of nine-year-olds, and the happiest time of my life. (The only one downside was nap time. They still made us take naps at age nine, and I hated nap time!)
At the sanatorium we had television for the first time. We watched soap operas sometimes, then out in the woods we raked the leaves and pine needles and made little houses for ourselves and we would enact the soap operas, making up our own story lines. We had never in our lives had that kind of imaginative play at the orphanage.
At night there was a cartoon, “Spokoinoiy Nochi Maliyshiy” (“Good Night, Children”). Like a soap opera, the story line continued from day to day. It was the first kids show we had ever seen. We loved it and would never miss a night.
I couldn’t have known at the time, of course, but as wonderful as all of it was—the time with Melana and her family, and the year at the sanatorium—it was only the calm before the storm. The circumstances of my life were about to change, and change drastically. This wonderful year was only a respite that would usher in one of the worst years of my young life.
Our group at the first sanatorium. Melana is on the far left. The little girl next to her is Sveta; the second boy from her is Edik. That’s me at the top of the photo with the tilted head and black hair
Chapter 5
At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.
—Job 14:7
Melana’s name derives from the Russian word mela, which means soft, kind, gentle. And that she was. The weeks with Melana at the sanatorium were like night and day from the weeks with Irina. We counted down the days until Melana would return.
All of the kids called her “Momma” except for me. I loved her, but I was never raised with maternal names in my vocabulary and even at that young age the word seemed too powerful, too meaningful, to use as a pretend word. After all, she was not my real mother. Still, because I loved her, I called her other endearing names I reserved just for her, like “Musik,” or “Mima.”
There was a beer stand just off the grounds of the sanatorium. Vacationers and townspeople often cut through the park on the sanatorium grounds to get from the beach to the beer stand. One day as we kids played in the park area a couple, Kolya and Larisa Proturnov, walked through. They saw all of us, but singled out me and a girl in my class named Maria to talk to. They wanted to know who we all were and why we were there. After talking with us they immediately went into the building and spoke with Melana, expressing an interest in adopting the two of us!
Kolya, the husband, was in his late thirties and an engineer at the telephone company. Larisa, the wife, was in her mid-thirties and worked at the post office.
There were few adoptions back then. None of us kids even talked about it. We didn’t truly understand what it meant. Melana was a bit taken aback by Kolya and Larisa’s desire. She asked how long they had been married and how many children of their own they had. She learned they were childless. She was caught off guard to hear them request to adopt not just one, but two children, especially since Melana knew how different our personalities were.
Because Maria was ten years old, a year older than I was, they would need written permission from Maria to adopt her. With me, only nine, that would not be necessary. Melana explained to the couple that adopting kids who were nine and ten years old was not the same as adopting babies, that it might be a difficult process for us t
o adapt. Nonetheless, the couple started the paperwork and the adoption process began.
Over the next few months as the paperwork made its way through the Soviet bureaucracy, the couple was given permission to take Maria and me for weekend visits to their home, about five minutes from the sanatorium.
Everything went well on those weekend visits. Maria gave her written permission and, for my part, I was very excited about the opportunity. So, just before I turned ten, I was legally adopted by Kolya and Larisa. (At the last minute they changed their mind and chose not to adopt Maria; I never learned why.) I went right from the sanatorium—and the only “family” I had ever known—to my new home.
Because I wasn’t ten yet they did not even have to go to court to make it official. The couple asked me if I would be willing to change my name. I did not want my first name to change—that was the only identity I had ever known—but I did agree to change my middle name. With the official adoption papers I became Alexander Nickolay Proturnov. They also changed my birth date. I would have to go to public school now and they did not feel I was ready for the fourth grade, so they made me a year younger and enrolled me in the third grade, telling me they had no choice.
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