by Tina Traster
There we were, on our winter break vacation, driving to our hotel after a day of skiing in the Canadian Laurentians.
“I miss my violin,” Julia sighed, dreamily gazing out at the frozen tundra, not really talking to either my husband nor I. Just thinking out loud.
“Really?” I said, whipping my head around to the back seat.
“Yeah, I should have brought it with me,” she lamented. “I miss it.”
by Tina Traster
A few weeks ago, a filmmaker for Radio Free Europe spent the day with my family at our home in upstate New York documenting our “ordinary” moments. Olga Loginova, the filmmaker, promised to produce the six-minute documentary within a week. She said it was urgent to show the world there are “successful Russian adoptions.”
Why? Because Americans’ ability to parent Russian orphans has become a flashpoint in a complicated political struggle that began when Americans took aim at Russia’s handling of human rights by passing the Magnitsky Act. The conflict escalated after Russia retaliated by shutting down adoptions to Americans after more than two decades. […]