Events of the Day:

Court Date!

The day started very early with our driver (Sasha) picking us up at 6 AM for the 2.5 hour ride to Gorodnya. The van ride was filled with anticipation. We arrived early (~08:30 for our 9:00 Appointment). Court was a little late starting because we had to wait for a representative from the Board of Trustee's (Social Services). Normally, this function is filled by Oleg & Katherine's friend Olga, who is now in Va as chaperone on the Frontier Horizons trip. The judge appeared stern, but asked very few questions. The "trial" was a bit anti-climactic as magistrate court hearings usually are and the judge gave his decision immediately.

We almost could not believe what the judge was saying via our translator (Yulia). Yes it was true - the judge decided upon "Immediate Execution of the Decision on the basis of Travel". After only about 15-20 minutes in the courtroom, we had crossed the pinnacle on our mountain of paperwork, travel, & heartbreak. Now it was a matter of dotting the I's (and whatever other Cyrillic letters required dots) to get the documents together for our trip home.

We ate lunch in a local Kafe where in classic rural fashion, the power went out right after we ordered. Luckily they cooked on gas stoves and had candles to light our tables. After that we visited Alyona's boarding school to thank the Director for giving us such a fine young woman and to allow Alyona to say here good-byes. Since the school was more-or-less closed there were few people there other than some staff and a handful of workers making repairs while the children were off to their respective summer-camps or foreign retreats. We walked the grounds with Alyona, but she was not very nostalgic - she just wanted to GO!

We spent the remainder of the day in Gorodnya waiting for the judge to return from some sort of important meeting at the police station (or local tavern) to sign the second set of originals we would need for the final process. By 4 PM we decided to leave Katherine behind to collect the signatures while the rest of us moved on to Chernigiv to finalize additional papers - passport applications, etc. Katherine collected the finalized court decision and joined us in Chernigiv. The trip back to Kiev was very joyful and didn't seem nearly as long as the trip up to Gorodnya even though it was actually longer due to the end of day traffic.

Now the question was - when do we fly? This would be determined on Friday.

We snapped many photos around Chernigiv & Gorodnya. Today's slide show is short but hits the high points - the Magistrate Court, the Board of Trustee's Office, and Alyona's with her School Director. The final photo was the school gate as we were departing down the dirt road headed back to Kiev.?