My guardian angels were working overtime that year. I had spent a month in the hospital for the accidental drug overdose. Within weeks of that I had spent four months in the mental institution. Then, although reunited with my classmates at Orphanage 51, I had lost Melana’s regular presence in my life. Before the twelve months were over I spent another three months in the juvenile delinquent home. While I soared rather quickly to the height of “spiritual leader” for my fellow orphans, I came crashing down just as quickly. My “religion,” as everything else in my life, had failed me; when I needed it most it wasn’t there for me. No amount of remembering or reflecting upon the rituals could bring a single ounce of comfort or understanding to my heart and mind.
It was, without a doubt, the worst year of my life. I have heard it said that thirteen is the age when most people begin to ask the big questions of life. Whether it was my age, or the culmination of circumstances that I faced that year, or (most likely) both, it was my first real experience with introspection.
For the first time in my life I recognized my need for identity, for purpose, for love, and for hope. And taking full stock of my life at that time, I found myself desperately void of all. Life, I found, was not worth living.
Chapter 8
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
—Romans 10:15
In the midst of all the turmoil in my own life, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Not even fourteen yet, I did not really grasp the significance, but almost immediately my comrades and I began to feel the effects of this historic event. Very soon after the collapse, new orphanages opened. Where Number 51 used to house five hundred to six hundred orphans, there were now only about one hundred fifty of us.
Because of our reputation for being different from most of the other orphans, Ed and I were given our own room. For us, this was heaven. Our life’s purpose became tending to our new home. We would polish the floors every day. With the downsizing of the orphanage, we were able to borrow miscellaneous pieces of now unused furniture. We had our own sofa in our room and even acquired our own television set! We had a cupboard with glass doors that we began to fill with all of our earthly treasures. Our little stuffed animals were relegated to the cupboard, never again to be played with or slept with, but rather, displayed and admired. We even lined our windowsill with plants.
Of course we made our beds every day and washed our linens and clothes with our usual disciplined regularity. If we were going to carry the moniker of “the Aristocrats,” we might as well fulfill that role to the best of our ability.
Vladimir, the alcoholic caretaker, hated us even more because of our obvious elitism. The orphanage director, however, seized the opportunity and capitalized on our efforts. Whenever government officials or foreign guests came to Orphanage Number 51 she would use our room to demonstrate how nice the rooms were in her orphanage. (Of course, the doors to the other kids’ rooms remained under lock and key during those visits and inspections.)
In his fury, Vladimir was eventually able to confiscate our television, but he couldn’t take away our space. Ed and I lived together in our own room from 1992 to 1995. Just as the shattering globe from the chandelier on our first day at Orphanage 51 was an ominous symbol of what was about to happen during the next several years, so this little piece of heaven that Ed and I created in our last years at the orphanage was probably symbolic. We were beginning, in ever so small and seemingly insignificant ways, to make our marks as individuals within the system. For the first time in our lives we had some control over our circumstances.
Not all of the immediate changes after the collapse were improvements for us orphans. About thirty percent of the State sponsorship of the orphanages was dropped. Basic supplies, food, and some clothing were supplied by the State, but it was now up to each orphanage to secure sponsors to help with other expenses and needs. We no longer had free access to the Houses of Culture or free passes to the movie house. We also no longer had “new clothes day” where we were issued our three new sets of uniform clothing for the year. Now, we might be lucky enough to get one new set of state-issued clothing. And since my classmates and I were now fourteen years old and growing every day this was a particular problem for us! We now had to depend on donations of used clothing. (One side benefit to this is that we no longer were able to all dress alike, a welcome change.) We no longer had access to the sanatoriums and our summer camp experiences were devoid of the many recreational programs we used to have.
Some things improved over time. Dental care was a great example. When I was growing up, before the collapse, dental care was almost nonexistent. The only time I ever saw a dentist was when I complained of a toothache. For that cavity the treatment consisted of two people holding me down while a dentist drilled my tooth—without any anesthetic. It was not uncommon that while drilling and trying to hold down the patient the dentist would end up cracking the tooth, at which point they would just pull the tooth—also without anesthetic. I lost four of my permanent teeth in that manner. (Fortunately, since being in the United States I have had excellent care, without which I might be toothless. At age eighteen I got five root canals and seventeen fillings. It took about a year for my initial restoration, followed years later by orthodontic work.) Today, the orphanages have access to very nice dental clinics with money from the West, and many churches send dentists to the orphanages who donate their time and talent on missions trips.
After the collapse the borders of Russia were opened for the first time. I remember the very first time we received a shipment from “the outside.” It was a crate of the biggest, sweetest, juiciest apples we had ever seen or tasted. They were from a family in Holland. Later, we received a crate of supplies—including clothes—from a church in Finland. It was the first time we received clothes that were not from Russia. Russian clothes were always drab and in dark colors. We were excited about the “new,” colorful clothing. It didn’t matter a bit to us that they were secondhand.
When one missionary sponsor from the United States sent a huge, forty-ton container of supplies to Orphanage 51 in 1991, an unfortunate practice ensued that continues to this day. There was so much stuff in that shipment that it became a part-time job for the kids to inventory and store the goods. It took about two months to get it all inventoried and put away. Meanwhile, the orphanage workers were hauling out stuff in duffle bags every night. To this day, much of what is donated to the orphanages ends up in the apartments of the workers, rather than in the hands of the orphans.
The most significant change, however, had nothing to do with supplies or clothing; it had to do with people. For the first time, Russia was open to foreign visitors. I remember the very first visitors at Orphanage 51. They were from Finland. They brought with them donations of colorful clothes and food items. They also brought guitars with them, which we had never seen, and they did a whole performance for us, singing and sharing about Jesus. I was not overly impressed with their message of a loving, caring God who had a plan for our lives. I saw no real value to the message when my own experiences had taught me otherwise. Nonetheless, I was thrilled with their visit and the performance and, moreover—for the first time in my life—seeing people filled with joy and purpose. It had a lasting effect on me.
Three of the folks from the group—Leena, the leader, and a married couple named Erkki and Salme—became the first foreigners that I ever met. They asked for special permission to take me out of the orphanage and I joined them as they went to minister to the special needs orphanage—the same one I was almost sent to. I got a glimpse of what my life could have been like had it not been for Melana’s pleading on my behalf. It was extremely depressing, but it was a good experience for me.
I kept in touch with Erkki and Salme after they left. We had a speech pathologist at the orphanage and she translated for me as we exchanged letters. Every time they came back to Russia I got permission to join them on
their mission trips to other orphanages.
My first court hearing with my adoptive parents was when I was thirteen and they failed to show up for the hearing. I was fourteen before the second hearing was scheduled. Again, they did not show. It was almost a year later before the third hearing and this time my parents did appear. What we were all expecting was just a legal dissolution of the parent/child relationship, but the judge first asked each of us to tell what happened.
I did not intend for it to happen, but, with tears streaming down my face, I told the entire story—the abuse, the drinking, the running away, all of it. The judge was appalled. She then stated that this was no longer just a civil case, that she needed to open a criminal investigation. Of course, my parents denied everything. But then, in front of the judge, they also threatened to kill me. The judge wanted to put Kolya in jail for four years. The judge’s attitude was another change brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet time nobody cared—not the police, not the juvenile authorities, not the courts. Now you have officials who really care. This particular judge was not only suggesting jail time for Kolya, but also that my parents pay me child support until I was eighteen.
Even I was surprised when I pleaded mercy for them. But it wasn’t my parents for whom I felt compassion, but their daughter Maria. I did not want her to be fatherless. I also didn’t want anything from them, not even money. I just wanted to be done with them and to have my name back and to have my legal orphan status reinstated. The judge granted my requests. Officially, I had been considered a homeless child for four years and no one had legal responsibility for me, even though I had been back in the orphanage system.
Now, at fifteen, I was once again a legal orphan. That last court appearance marked the end of my relationship with my adoptive parents. It was also through the process of this hearing that all of my records were lost, with the exception of my medical records, which were still held at Orphanage Number 51.
My failed adoption had been a devastating emotional experience for me. Inside I was angry, sad, and broken. More than that, I was afraid. I was not only afraid of all men, I was afraid that I would never again be able to trust anyone. I had several more offers in later years to be adopted by other Russian families, but I refused them all. I was afraid of being abused again. I broke down and cried like a baby in front of the judge on the day of that final hearing. My emotions were still raw from the experience, even four years after leaving my adopted home.
The only adults with whom I felt safe were Melana and Irina. Whether it was guilt after sending me to the mental institution or, more likely, Melana’s influence over the years, Irina came around to being very loving and kind to me and Ed. She would even hug and kiss us, and had us to her home for meals sometimes. I’m sorry we didn’t have that relationship when she was our caretaker and teacher.
That same year, American missionaries also came to the orphanage. It was the first time in my life I had ever met an American. They were Jim and Sherry Oxendine and they came with their church group from Tennessee. They happened to come on my fifteenth birthday, December 6, 1992. Sherry came with a bag of gifts for all the kids and presented an individual gift to each child. I received a wallet. It seemed like the happiest day of my life.
Sherry became a special friend. She promised me that she would come back, and she did, three times a year. On each visit she would spend special time with me. Since her birthday was near mine, we would celebrate our birthdays together. She would take me to restaurants—a new experience for me—and take me on tours around St. Petersburg, a far cry from when I wandered the streets alone as a child.
But Sherry had a more important motivation than just giving me good memories. She shared the good news of God’s love for me through Christ. She told me how much God loved me and that He was waiting for me to give my heart to Him and follow Him. She caused me to really think about this more carefully and seriously.
At one point she and Jim talked to me about adopting me. I was thrilled; not just because I really liked them, but because they were Americans. The talk and the process went on for over a year. When I was sixteen I found out that it wasn’t going to happen. I never did find out what caused the Oxendines to change their minds. They had become financial sponsors of the orphanage and I know that the orphanage director did not want the adoption to go through. She was afraid they would lose their biggest sponsor if they adopted a Russian orphan and went home.
I broke down when I got the news. I did not take it well. My dreams of America and a family were crushed in one blow. Along with sharing her faith with me, Sherry had also been instrumental in beginning to teach me English. She encouraged me to continue learning and to come to the United States one day. She also challenged me to think about my future and to set goals over the years. These were new concepts to me.
The Oxendines moved to Moscow in 1997 to continue their work with Russian orphanages and I have kept in touch with them. In 1999, a few years after I had been on my own, Sherry brought a team of young people from America to Orphanage 51 to do a renovation project. I was able to help them for two weeks of very hard labor, a very rewarding and meaningful project for me.
The Lord definitely used Sherry to sew some new seeds in my heart and, maybe, for the first time, to begin to look to the future instead of the past.
Chapter 9
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.”
—Mark 16:15
The influx of foreigners into Russia, and specifically into the orphanage, was a huge change for us. It literally changed my life. Almost immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a delegation from the Ministry of Education and Science flew to the United States and gave personal invitations to eighty different Christian organizations to come to Russia to help lead a spiritual revival. After seventy-five years of Christianity being officially forbidden, this was a big deal. One of those ministries was The Navigators, an evangelistic ministry with an emphasis on discipleship.
All of us orphans enjoyed the visitors, especially those bearing gifts. More than any of my peers, however, I was intrigued by the foreigners, and most of all, the Americans. Like most Russians, I was fascinated by all things American. We had been told all of our lives that the United States was bad, and only bad stuff came from it. But regardless of what the Soviet system fed us in school, we also knew that it was the land of opportunity—much better than Russia or any of the former Soviet republics. In those early days I admit that my attraction to Americans was purely selfish. I was sure that somehow they could do something for me to improve my life, to better my circumstances. Therefore, I took every chance I was given to speak with the Americans, to seek them out and get to know them.
I found out that there were four Americans living in an apartment near Number 51. I just had to meet them. Speaking no English, and only fourteen years old at the time, I mustered up my courage and knocked on the door of the apartment.
Speaking no Russian, they still welcomed me into their home. I really connected with one of the men, Lloyd. Over the next three months or so, I would visit with Lloyd two or three times a week. Through translators, I learned that they were part of a preparation team for The Navigators. The Colorado Springs-based ministry was planning a larger effort in St. Petersburg, called a Co-Mission, and they were getting things ready for it.
When the time came for Lloyd and the team to go back to the States I knew that I would never see him again. I was very sad. It felt like another betrayal. But Lloyd said, “I promise that when the first Co-Mission team comes to St. Petersburg, I will make sure that they come to Orphanage Number 51 to meet you.”
True to his promise, a few months later a huge group of Americans came to Orphanage 51 for a tour. As they were about to leave, one of them asked, “Where is Alex Krutov?”
Through a translator, they explained that they were part of the team from The Navigators. The Navigator team, in turn, was part of a larg
er group of some fifty or sixty missionaries with more than twenty translators. A lot of the missionaries settled into apartments in the downtown area of St. Petersburg, close to the orphanage.
Once again, I took it upon myself to seek out the Americans. Something—or Someone—was drawing me to spend time with these people. There were three new Americans living in the apartment where Lloyd had lived, including a man named Doug Jester. I not only had a new American friend, Doug, but also a translator, Constantine, who was from the Russian military and did translating on the side. (How much had things changed in so little time! A Russian military man translating for an American Christian ministry in St. Petersburg would have been a treasonous activity only a few years earlier. But Russia was changing fast.) With Constantine’s help, I was really able to communicate with my new friend.
I began going to Doug’s apartment three or four times a week during my free time. We talked for hours about my life and the pain I had experienced. We read Scripture together. It was the first time I had ever opened God’s Word for myself. This went on for about six months, and it was during this catharsis that I first began to understand the concept of a God who loved and cared for me.
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