From Russia with love

Hythem and Lisa Salem watched their children, Joe and Sophia, grow and thrive.  But always with a secret that gnawed away in the back of their minds: It was something they had heard here, in the orphanage, in 1999, when they adopted the twins.

That it was the third birth and the third couple of twins. Third set of twins? Their new babies, they discovered, were not the only children in their Russian family. And, remarkably, they weren’t the only twins either.

Joe and Sophia had four older siblings,  twin sisters, and twin brothers.

Lisa Salem: But we knew at the time they were still living with the birth parents.

As years went by, Lisa decided that she wanted her children to know more about their biological family, and maybe even make contact with the siblings they had never met.

So in November, 2003, almost 5 years after they adopted Joe and Sophia a Russian contact went to Moreno, a rural village in the northwest part of Russia, where the birth parents lived. 

And there the contact made a disturbing discovery.  The parents were still there all right.  But the four older children, Joe and Sophia’s siblings... were gone.

Lisa: And that’s when I found out that the kids had been in orphanages.

Orphanages? Plural? In fact, the Salems discovered, the parents had fallen deeper into poverty, the children taken away from them for neglect. 

They had become just four more added to almost 300,000 children in Russia without parents to care for them, lives headed nowhere good, consigned to institutions, anonymous faces somewhere here in the crowd..

And more disturbing still was when they finally found out where those children were, they discovered that the brothers and sisters had been separated; the boys sent here, the girls to an orphanage far away.

Lisa: When I saw the first pictures of them, I saw my own children’s eyes.

And before long, the Salems began to learn what the children had endured.

Lisa: The neglect they suffered was horrific. It’s painful to think about.

Sergei and Nicolai, now 10 and Vera and Nadia, 11 had been living in a derelict apartment after their home burned down.

Their parents, unemployed, alcoholic, often abandoned them for weeks at a time and left them here without heat, or food in abject squalor.

Lisa:  They lived through really really horrific cirmcunstances. No food in the house.

Hythem: They were like half dressed.  They hardly went to school.

At first, when authorities took them, they were placed in a single orphanage.

And then these four children, who’d survived by sticking together, found themselves torn apart.

And now they lived separate lives, 100 miles apart.

The boys were sent to a boarding school, a grim, decrepit place, barely standing, lacking even running water.

The news hit like a bombshell at the Salem family home.

Hythem:  She looked me in the eye, I looked at her—I said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”  and said, “yes.”

Lisa: And we immediately made that decision to adopt them.

Keith: But these are four more kids.

Hythem: But they are their siblings that’s their brother and sister.

By April, 2004 the Salems had a plan. They would take Sophia and Joe to meet their siblings in Russia, hoping to begin another adoption process. 

And as they set off on their long journey, they were excited, but had fears, as well.

Lisa:  Fear about the future, fear about the state of the children. Fear if they wanted to be adopted.

Morrison: Afraid they might not want to come with you?

Lisa: Uh-huh.

So circumstances were precarious, to say the least, as the Salems arrived stomachs churning at the girls’ orphanage.

Russian authorities would not permit our cameras to accompany the family.

We gave the Salems a video camera, and asked them to tape as much as they could.

Lisa: They were already a part of my heart when i met them.

The girls were friendly, affectionate, but missed their brothers desperately.

And then, something they’d been afraid to hope for… Joe and Sophia, of course, had never seen these sisters before—couldn’t speak their language, perfect strangers but who, in a matter of minutes, were behaving as if they’d lived together all their lives. 

Lisa: For me as a parent, to be able to watch that.  How much better does it get? 

The day was extraordinary, dizzy. 

Lisa: We don’t want to leave you but we’ll come as soon as we can.

But the Salems had been warned it would be different with the boys—Sergei and Nicolai were still traumatized by all they’d been through.

At the age of 6, Joe and Sophia were about to meet their brothers for the first time in their lives.

And it was frankly strange. Awkward.

Sergei and Nicolai didn’t quite know what to do, around these strangers.

And then, out of the blue, little Joe began to cry as he approached his brother Nicolai and hugged him.  Sophia followed, hugging Sergei.

And just like that, the ice was broken.

Lisa: That was an amazing sight to see the emotional that existed from just the fact that you know that that’s your brother.

LINKS For more information on adoption: National Council for Adoption U.S. Department of State: International Adoption Joint Council on Internation Children's Services Families for Russian and Ukranian adoption Fund to help orphanages in Russia: Pskov Orphan Lifeline Fund c/o Commerce Bank 325 Main Street Harleysville, PA 19438 Phone: 888-751-9000

As the hours passed, little by little, the boys allowed themselves to smile and laugh, and open up a little bit.

When it was time to leave the Salems promised the boys they’d be back to adopt them. But would they be allowed to...and, if so, when?

Lisa:  It’s excruciating.  Not knowing when and not knowing many things.

The Russian courts are strict about international adoptions, experts say, and certainly not all are in favor of them. 

The court would evaluate every part of the Salems’s lives—their backgrounds, finances, their home, jobs, medical reports.

Then the children themselves would have to tell  the judge that they wanted to be adopted.

And Lisa and Hythem were terrified that the birth parents or someone in the children’s family might come forward and stop the adoption.

Hythem: You’re already hurting about the kids sitting there. You’re worried about their  well being. And if you don’t get granted that decision, it’ll be devastating.

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