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Trip to the motherland: Russian adoptees to return to birthplace
Submitted Photo -- McKinney residents Cathy and Paul Heleski hold their adopted sons Alex and Grant the day they brought them home from an orphanage in Kemerovo in western Siberia, where director Ludmilla (far left) cared for them as infants. The boys will return to the orphanage in July during their first trip back to their birth country.
By Chris Beattie, cbeattie@starlocalnews.com
It's not every day that international adoptees grace their birth country, much less the orphanage where they shed their first tears, breathed their first breaths.
But that day is fast approaching for McKinney residents Alex and Grant Heleski, adopted from Russia a decade ago. On July 11, they'll travel to Kemerovo in western Siberia, and return to their roots.
"It gives them a sense of identity," said Cathy Heleski, the boys' adoptive mother. "This is where they're from; it's not just some abstract, other-side-of-the-world kind of thing. It's real."
They contacted an international adoption agency, worked with social workers and adoption representatives and filled out paperwork -- loads of it.
"It's almost overwhelming," Cathy said. "You need to have financial statements, references, letters from employers, copy of your house deed -- you need everything because they want to make sure the kids are going to a good place."
At 18 months old and eight months old, Alexander and Mikhail (now Grant's middle name) needed to go somewhere. They were severely malnourished, living under lots of care but with little food.
Alex weighed 16 pounds just before he turned 2, when the Heleskis brought them to America.
They cleared U.S. Customs in Detroit, where their family greeted its newest members. On to DFW, where family and friends awaited in American attire.
"We've had such a support network here in state and out of state that we've always been very open about where they come from," Cathy said of her sons' awareness of their Russian ties. "Every family's created differently, and each one has its own story."
Others in the area share their story. Becoming active in the Dallas chapter of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (FRUA), the Heleskis grew close to parents with similar adoptive paths.
At least five other families have Russian-adoptee children just at Glen Oaks Elementary School where the Heleski boys attend, Cathy said.
Annual social worker visits and Alex's amateur Russian vocabulary are long past, but the family's international interest remains.
And it will soon peak, thanks to The Ties Program, which coordinates adoptive family travel from the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Europe and Australia to 16 different countries around the world.
Adoptive parent Becca Piper founded the program almost 20 years ago, and co-director Bea Evans joined shortly thereafter.
They envisioned a way for adoptees to remember their beginnings, to take in vaguely familiar breaths.
"It gives kids an opportunity to go back and connect to their heritage," Evans said. "Until they actually have a chance to see with their own eyes, they don't have quite the same ownership of who they are."
Ties Program families travel to countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia and Latin America, with each trip prepped and planned. The program provides such trips to those who adopted from countries with few, if any, post-adoption services.
Along with 12 other adoptive families, Ties group leaders, adoption professionals and social workers, the Heleskis next month will fly to Moscow for an 11-day trip. They'll learn Russian traditions and customs amidst the Kremlin, Red Square and St. Basil's Cathedral.
Then the families will disperse to their children's birth region, for Alex and Grant about 1,500 miles east of Moscow, in the middle of Third World poverty.
"It's going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it's going to be a hard trip, physically and emotionally," Cathy said. "It's very much a different culture, but to be able to show our kids where they come from and what things are like is priceless."
The trip isn't actually cheap, though. The Ties Program lines up the itinerary -- rides, hotels, tours and visits -- but doesn't pay the way. It guides families toward the "centerpiece" of their "adoptive homeland journey."
Alex and Grant will meet Ludmilla, still their orphanage's director and the lady with whom Cathy connected across language and cultural barriers more than 10 years ago. She cared the boys into their American mother's arms.
"Some people are still there who are very near and dear to our family's adoption story," Cathy said. "My mommy strings will be pulled going back there, for sure."
Though the Heleskis try to "always keep up with some of the cultural ties" through FRUA, she said, holidays and traditions fall far short of an actual visit. The boys' earliest memories may be of U.S. flags and knit sweatshirts at the airport, but they first cried and breathed a world away.
A world they'll soon know.
"They may go back later on in adulthood," Cathy said, "but this first trip is going to be special."
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