Olya A. is 1.5 years old. She is from an orphanage in Urzhum [a town in the Vyatka region]. Olya has already received treatment in our Department of Otolaryngology for throat problems. Owing to lack of money, the Urzhum orphanage could not provide the medical nurse accompanying Olya with money required to buy food and other necessary things. Only your help has made it possible to buy everything for this kid. The administration of the orphanage also asked for our help in paying for the return ticket.
16.11.2005 After completion of her treatment, Olya went home.

Vanya B., 6 y.o., is a patient of the Department of Abdominal Surgery. He has come from Tatarstan [a republic in the Volga region]. The boy has a congenital pathology of abdominal organs and needs surgical treatment.
The orphanage could not provide a person who would accompany the boy to Moscow, and we invited a nurse, who stays with Vanya day and night. The boy also needs warm clothes and boots for going out, additional food, and games for intellectual development.
2.11.2005 After a surgery, Vanya has returned to his department.
Tatiana and her colleagues have brought all the necessary medications, clothes, and food for Vanya. They have also provided him with suitable food, toys, fruit, juices, and gave money to buy additional food for all orphan children who are currently under treatment at the RCCH.
Vanya is a very serious and reasonable young man. He likes discussing various things or telling stories about his life at the orphanage. He also likes listening when somebody reads to him, and his nurse takes many books from our hospital library.
Also, Vanya likes visiting our church. We gave a prayer book to his nurse, and Vanya asks her to read prayers to him. He says that it helps.
11.11.2005 During these months of Vanya's stay at hospital, we have made friends not only with this interesting kid but also with his wonderful nurse, who has become a good companion for all little kids at the Department of Coloproctology. Vanya's ward has become a kind of a club: the children gather there after dinner and do not go away till night. Vanya's nurse reads their favorite books to them, teaches them to create various things of modeling wax, to build something with construction sets, to play table games. She says that the children are bored because their mothers are sometimes too lazy to distract them.
By the end of next week, Vanya will be discharged from hospital. Everybody at his department is sad about this.
21.11.2005 Vanya is still at hospital. His nurse teaches him to read all by himself. Also, he has learned a lot of verse to recite them by heart during the New Year holidays. The only trouble is that he just doesn't want to go home without his favorite nanny Klava.
9.12.2005 Vanya was discharged from hospital. The whole department saw him off. He took many presents with him: games, good warm clothes for the winter, home clothes. The doctors say that he should come for a check in June. Shortly before his departure, Vanya celebrated his 7th birthday. All the department had a real holiday, largely thanks to clown Kostya. Vanya also visited the Durov animal theater and was surprised to see such clever animals. "Well, things happen," he resumed at last.
25.09.2006 Vanya is at the RCCH again.
26.10.2006 Vanya has been discharged from hospital. The doctors decided that the surgery is not necessary so far, but the boy will come back to the hospital in several months, and then they will decide on further treatment tactics. This affectionate and friendly boy was reluctant to leave the hospital and especially his favorite nurse Tatiana.
30.09.2008 Vanya has come for a check-up.
8.10.2008 Vanya is more or less all right. He has been allowed to leave hospital tell the next year. The doctors are still controlling the boy's condition.

Maxim M. is 12 years old, but he looks like a nine-year-old at the most. This boy from the Vladimir region [central Russia] receives treatment at the Department of Coloproctology. He has a congenital intestinal disorder, and the doctors are discussing the prospects of surgical treatment. This boy is alone at the hospital. He needs somebody's attention and support.
26.11.2005 Maxim had a cold, and so the surgery had to be postponed. The boy went home and will return to the hospital in a month or so.
2.12.2005 Maxim has recovered from his illness. He returned to the RCCH yesterday. This time, he is accompanied by a nurse from his orphanage.
15.12.2005 Maxim has already had two surgeries, with one week between them. The second surgery took place on December 13. The boy is already back at his ward. He cries and says that the pain is terrible, in spite of the drugs. It is such a pity: this lively and active boy is just unlike himself now, and nothing distracts or consoles him.
20.12.2005 Maxim is gradually recovering after the surgery. The representative of his boarding school who came to take care of him had many sleepless nights in his post-surgical period: the boy felt really miserable. Now the worst is over, but sitting will yet long be forbidden for Maxim. So now he watches TV in the hospital hall lying on a couch. He has become much happier during the last days: reads books, plays battleship. Many volunteers visit him, and he likes these visits, because he is generally sociable. Volunteers have bought him a small radio receiver with earphones, and he often listens to it. If everything goes right, he will be discharged from hospital in the nearest few days.
20.12.2005 Maxim has been discharged from hospital. He went home with a present that had been given to him for the forthcoming holidays: an MP3 player. He will have to lie in bed for another month, and so the boy will not return to his boarding school now: he will be at hospital but in his native town, where the teachers from this school will be able to visit him.

Kolya P. is 14 years old. He has come from the city of Kirov (Vyatka). He is a patient of the Department of Otolaryngology. He is suffering from the consequences of grave otitis, which was inadequately treated in his orphanage. Kolya is grown-up enough to stay at hospital alone, but he is lonely and therefore sad.
Volunteers teach Kolya to use the computer, and he is really interested.
11.11.2005 Kolya had a surgery in the beginning of November. Now he will have some therapeutic procedures. After them, he will be discharged in the beginning of next week.
17.11.2005 Kolya has been discharged from hospital. In all probability, he will come to the RCCH for treatment once more.

Zhanna S., a girl of three, has come from Vologda with a nurse. She is a patient of the Department of Endocrinology. This girl is very sociable, merry, and active; she also has very good speech development. She is to have a serious surgery.
22.12.2005 Zhanna is having her medical examination. Everybody loves her for her merry and sincere attitude to things. She has received pretty and bright clothes, and now she is just flourishing. She walks along the passages of the department as if along a catwalk. The surgery has not yet taken place.
28.12.2005 After the examination, the doctors have sent Zhanna home till summer. The girl should receive some treatment on her lungs and become generally stronger before the difficult surgery.
14.12.2006 Zhanna returned to the Department of Endocrinology for follow-up treatment after a year's break. Now she is a lovely long-haired four-year-old girl. She has already had her surgery.
19.12.2006 Zhanna has recovered after the surgery and left the hospital. The follow-up surgery is to take place three years later. Zhanna is a very smart girl, with excellent speech development. She often has fantasies about her mother: as if she has a mother but this mother has just gone away, but soon she will come back and bring a little dog... The girl was happy to receive a Barbie doll as a New Year present.

Sasha A., aged 3.5, is from an orphanage in Kaluga. Presently he is at the Department of Thoracic Surgery. The administration of the orphanage has officially asked us to find a nurse who would take care of Sasha at the hospital. Our wonderful nurse Klava, who has already provided such care for four children, is just free now. So she will be with Sasha. The child is extremely gravely ill: in addition to the surgical diagnosis, the boy has got very serious neurological disorders. He cannot even sit without support; at night, he cries and tosses about in his bed. Also, he has a terrible diathesis, and his whole body is covered with cracks and scabs. It is terrible even to think about the life that awaits this kid...
22.12.2005 Sasha had his surgery yesterday. His condition is stable. His nurse Klava is giving him a lot of attention and love, reads simple folk verse to him, teaches him to play. The boy started smiling and became somewhat more lively.
12.01.2005 After recovering from his surgery, Sasha has been discharged from hospital. Now he will be able to eat normally. His digestion and the condition of his skin have also improved. Unfortunately, a medical examination performed by our neurosurgeons has shown that it is too late for a radical operation on the boy's brain, and so it is impossible to improve the boy's neurological status to any significant extent. It is always very painful to learn such things. If the child had normal parents or at least good doctors at his orphanage, who would ask for qualified neurosurgical help in time, a surgery could lead to complete rehabilitation of the boy...
But, in any case, good care and adequate nutrition have lead to notable improvement even here, at hospital. And the surgical restoration of the gastrointestinal functioning gives the boy a chance for at least partial rehabilitation.
If you, our readers, are thinking of adopting a child, we want to tell you: dear friends, when you are choosing some boy or girl, please do not avert your eyes from weak and ill kids even if the staff of the orphanage tell you that they will never be healthy. Believe us, a loving mother can do miracles. We know families who have adopted such "hopelessly ill" children with genetic disorders or mental retardation (as diagnosed by doctors at their orphanages)... Sometimes even doctors from our hospital, meeting some of their former patients after several years in a family, just cannot believe that this student of a college or advanced school is the very child they knew years ago.
Probably it is too late to help Sasha A. But there are so many babies under one year, with birth traumas or curable congenital functional and organic cerebral disorders, who are lying in identical beds in their orphanages without movement, staring at the white ceiling of their wards...
17.04.2006 The administration of the Kaluga orphanage have sent us a letter of gratitude for helping Sasha A. at the RCCH. The staff of the orphanage note that the boy's condition has improved after the operation. He is gaining weight.

Roma P., aged five, has been admitted to the Department of Dermatoallergology. He is from an asylum working at the Marfo-Mariinskaya convent (Moscow). Some people from there visit him from time to time, but there nobody to take constant care of the boy.
Roma will have a surgery (removal of papillomas and condylomas) and leave hospital before the New Year. We got acquainted with him a little: the boy is active, sociable, and independent, loves toy construction sets and books. He also likes sweets, but sometimes the doctors forbid him to eat them. He is not greedy at all: when somebody brings candy to him, he is ready to share it with all other kids from his department.
29.12.2005 Roma has been discharged from hospital. The doctors have decided to postpone the surgery for several months and recommended some preparatory conservative treatment, which is to be performed out of the hospital.
15.02.2006 Roma has returned to the hospital after some treatment. He is getting prepared for the surgery.
20.03.2006 After a successful surgery, Roma has recovered and left the hospital. He has had a good rest at the hospital and now looks happier and fatter. Unfortunately, his disease is recurrent, and he will have to visit our hospital regularly.
20.06.2006 Roma has been admitted to the RCCH again for follow-up treatment.
1.07.2006 Roma has left hospital after a course of treatment. We have good news: this time, Roma's future mother and father were his visitors at the hospital! Now they are preparing all the documents for adoption, and we hope that Roma will soon live in a family. They have told us a little about Roma's story. Before getting to the Marfo-Mariinskaya asylum, he lived in the street with homeless drunkards...

These girls live at an orphanage in Peredelkino, a settlement near Moscow. All four are social orphans: their mothers have been deprived of parental rights.
Kristina M. is 17 years old. She is studying to be a hairdresser and dreaming of becoming a real professional. Also, she can do various kinds of handiwork, including embroidery, and has very good taste. She is a very grown-up and reliable person, and her friends often ask for her advice and support.
Katya B. is 17 years old. This good-looking and fashionably dressed girl loves dancing.
Vera O. is a charming girl of 13. She also loves music and dancing and knows a lot about all contemporary trends in fashion. Her dream is to become a model.
Nastya P. is 15 years old. Just as Katya and Vera, she is interested in dancing and modern music.
The first two girls will soon leave their orphanage and start independent life. They are very much concerned about this, because they just cannot imagine how they will live alone. Of course, they need our friendship and support.
27.04.2006 These nice girls have been discharged from hospital after the medical examination and necessary treatment. They have become our real friends, and we hope that they will have good luck in their future life.

Orphans at the RCCH:
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Presently undergoing treatment