Day 3

The day started off with great news. We received the ID numbers from the tax department at 10am and proceeded to the notary to finalize the paperwork for the passports. Now we are off to the orphanage to pick up the girls. Upon arrival the girls are dressed in there Sunday best (see pictures) and look adorable. They only found out this morning 8am that we were coming to pick them up. Are original schedule was not to arrive in the Ukraine until 8/9, so they were totally surprised and very excited.

No time to waste off to the notary to pick up the documents, We wait for what seems like hours, actually 45 minutes for the notarized documents. The “NOTARY” or “HOTAPIYC “ as it is spelled in Russian , is the busiest place in Odessa. All documents must be notarized to be considered legal (drivers license, marriage license, bill of sale, birth certificates, contracts, etc) Notaries go to school for two years to learn how to handle and manual record all types of documents, very serious business.

Arriving at the Passport office we find the inspectors are leaving for lunch and ask us to return at 2PM. So off to lunch we got…borsch soup and varyneki (dumplings with meat. The girls eat like we’ve been on a several day journey.. followed by a kids cocktail (cream soda).

After hiking back to the passport office we find ourselves in a group of ten to fifteen waiting for the inspectors at 2PM. The building is a typical government structure, no AC - hot and many doors with very little information. Everyone who enters asks “Where is the passport office”. At 3PM the inspector moves us to the front of the line. This almost starts a riot, some people were waiting from this morning are arguing with the inspector to no avail. We enter the office under the stares of the small crowd and hope this will be over shortly. The inspector takes one look at the paperwork, two rather large piles (judgment from the court, birth certificates, adoption certificates, power of attorney, tax ID numbers and everything in doubled sided notary speak) and says this is no good.

The office will need to confirm that everything is order before we can proceed; she marches into another office speaking loudly about all the paperwork and comes back with a superior officer. They discuss the situation for a while and she again goes off about the paperwork. We are now back at the end of the line to the smiles of the angry crowd. Christina (our translator) is now negotiating the superior officer behind closed doors, she emerges after some time and says OK they will start the process today, take the pictures and fill out the passport request, but someone will need to confirm that all the paperwork is correct and has been processed correctly by the other offices (tax office, courthouse, records for birth certificates, etc,) So we wait again.

We enter the inspectors office to another tirade of loud complaints about the paperwork, she enters two or three lines into the computer and again starts to question the paperwork, she again brings the superior officer back to her desk and complains about the piles of paperwork and states the she can’t process the passports and will not take the pictures.

It’s now 4:00 and we are again at the end of the line. We wait to speak to the superior officer (she’s in a meeting upstairs with other employees). When she returns at 5pm Christina again pleads our case and the officer agrees to send us to a different inspector, so to the back of the line we go. But this time we enter to a smiling face, she notes the beautiful girls and how cute they look. She processes the paperwork in 15 minutes, takes the photos and wishes us the best of luck. They even convince someone to stay late to process the paperwork while we wait.


At this point we must look quite the site..only one last never, sweaty and pounding headaches all around. But we stayed fast and pull victory from the jaws or at least the desk of defeat. The only set back is that we must go back to the birth city to un-register the girls from their flat before we can receive the passports. The girls have been very good in a very bad situation, so we stop at the market for two ice creams and two larger watermelons for tomorrow.

The director of the orphanage has requested we return the girls back to the children’s house for one last night. I leave the girls we a little regret, but this has been their family for sevens years and they need to properly say goodbye. I think they are having a little party tomorrow to celebrate the children’s new births, the teachers and care takers look happy and sad to see the girls go.

Now we wait for the passports. I believe they are going to be printed in Kiev and shipped down to Odessa. All the information was entered into the computer, photo’s and signatures were scanned in the document. Stacks of the documents line the passport office walls, so I’m assuming the files are transmitted electronically and processed in Kiev.

My payers tonight will be for a swift delivery of the beautiful new blue passports.