A daytrip to Lera's hometown, and pre-court

First, official business: we had pre-court this a.m. and it went well. We basically just confirmed our names and paperwork, and they informed us that our formal court date will be 5/21 at 3pm. We'll see if this date actually 'sticks.'

Next, a brief report on our adventure to Temirtau, where (we believe) Valeria was born. It is an industrial town of 200,000 people, about 25 miles north of Karaganda. While we'd read in our Kazakhstan guidebook that it wouldn't be much to "write home about," we jumped at the chance when Natasha, our adoption coordinator, offered to take us there. We enjoyed our first view of the steppe (vast, mostly flat grasslands) and knew we were close when we saw the skyline filled with smokestacks in the distance. Temirtau (which translates to iron mountain) is the center of the steel industry in Kazakhstan, home to the one of the largest "single-site integrated steel plants" in the world.

One of the city's welcome signs still has the hammer & sickle shield of the CCCP (USSR). We drove by: the city stadium (home of the "Steel Workers"), a large & impressive Monument to the Metalworkers, the expansive Mittal steel plant, the Steel Hotel, down a main corridor called Respublika Avenue (formerly known as Lenina), and then - yes - Steel Worker Avenue, en route to old town, where we believe Lera was from.

We saw the regional maternity hospital (where she was likely born) and the children's hospital nearby. Natasha was also kind enough to drive through a bumpy gravel "road" narrowly lined with pipes (in her newer Lexus 300) to take us to the block of apartment buildings where Lera was picked up at 18 months old, then taken to the children's hospital and on to the baby house in Karaganda. We were interested to learn that Natasha does all of the "private investigation" work to track down the birth mothers (when she can) and confirm the availability of the children. What a sad, yet rewarding, task.

How the Soviets managed to construct buildings that appear ancient after only 50 years is hard to figure. It was a dreary part of town, and the tough economic situation was evident, but it wasn't as bad as we'd expected - with trees and a few playgrounds. While there, we found ourselves wondering about Lera's mother, and how a young woman could possibly provide for a child in such a depressed (and depressing!) place.