Moskovsky Komsomolets
“They’ll Be in America While We’ll Be Left to Deal with the Authorities”
Moskovsky Komsomolets has learned how the local authorities hold children already adopted by Americans.
Problems continue to arise for US citizens who have adopted Russian children, American reports indicate. Adoptive parents are not being issued birth certificates or passports for their new children. Many experience delays in receiving court rulings on adoptions that have been approved and are already in progress.
An adoption is considered valid when the court issues a positive ruling on a specific child for a specific family. These children must be released, says presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. But the actual situation is not so clear.
“I know of several cases where the paperwork for a court ruling is not forwarded to the parents,” Mikhail Viktorovich, a US adoption agency spokesman told Moskovsky Komsomolets. “So the parents cannot obtain new birth certificates or passports for their children because the registry office can only issue the documents when a court decision has been handed down. I believe the local authorities are protecting themselves just in case. A mother whose court ruling entered into force a few days ago, who should get all her documents to take her son was told she would be given the paperwork after the Supreme Court gives instructions how to proceed. But what instructions are needed here?”
A spokeswoman for another agency said that when a court clerk was asked why no ruling had been issued, she said blankly: “They’ll be in America while we’ll be left to deal with the authorities.”
Nevertheless, the plaintiffs in the trials have hope that all the obstacles will be overcome and that their children will be released – after all, the Russian president cannot go back on his word.
The fate of children whose adoption is nearing completion but who have not received a court decision is more disturbing. The authorities have decided to keep them in Russia. But these adoptive parents are taking hope from Peskov’s words that there will be no formal approach, that each case will be considered separately.
The US continues to press Russia for explanations on how the new law will be implemented and on what can be done by Americans who are already in the final stages of adoption.
Meanwhile Russia’s Education and Science Ministry plans to simplify the adoption procedure within the next two weeks. They suggest that the requirements for potential adoptive parents will be reduced, that the number of documents required from Russian citizens will be cut and that tax benefits will be offered to the adoptive parents.
Some experts, however, have expressed doubts about these measures. They believe that less rigid demands combined with material benefits will result in children being adopted without proper screening or for profit.
In Russia today, according to the Deputy Prime Minister for Social Policy, Olga Golodets, there are almost 130,000 orphaned children in need of a family, while families wanting to adopt number less than 20,000.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russians Have Faith in Real Estate
Evidently Russians believe firmly in real estate investment. Polls show that investing in real property appears to be the most reliable and attractive investment – despite the stagnant market and the availability of other more profitable investments such as bank deposits or gold. People are used to relying only on themselves without making long-term estimates. They feel secure with their own property, something they can use or rent out.
Some 30 percent of Russians maintain savings and that figure has not changed much over the past two years, surveys suggest. Russians save to either buy an apartment or a house (29 percent), or “just in case” (24 percent), “for a rainy day” (24 percent) or for potential medical treatment (23 percent). Other purposes include education (15 percent), vacation (13 percent) and cars (12 percent).
Real property remains the most reliable investment for 55 percent of respondents (a 3 percent increase over 2010). Less popular options include cash savings in foreign currency (9 percent), stocks (7 percent), pension fund deposits (6 percent), savings accounts (5 percent) and mutual funds (5 percent).
Meanwhile, the real estate market has stalled, and with an increasing number of mortgages, investors can expect the ‘housing bubble’ to burst this year, which would drag prices down even further down. There are many expected circumstances that could result in a shakeup of the market.
Investcafe analyst Yury Kochetkov says that for the average investor, property offers stability, unlike gold or cash that are constantly in flux or losing purchasing power.
“Last year was quite lucrative for Moscow investors who saw up to a 20 percent increase in the value of their property. This was, however, only true for new housing with its long-term construction risks. Pre-owned property values inched up only 6 percent, which is significantly lower than a bank deposit rate.”
Investing in property and bank deposits are two very different personal investment strategies,” Home Credit Bank analyst Stanislav Duzhinsky says. “First, the amounts invested are considerably different. The average deposit is under 400,000 rubles while the purchase of real property requires at least several million. Market conditions provide for housing prices going both up and down. For example, during the 2009 recession, standard pre-owned apartments lost 12.5 percent of their value. Values increased 3.3 percent in 2010 and 6.8 percent in 2011. No data are available for the previous year so far but it can be assumed there was a positive trend.” Thus, it took over two years to compensate for the purchase of housing in 2008 after the price drop of 2009.
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