We All Laughed, and Left

While the whole world is frozen in the expectation of a nuclear exchange between North and South Korea, the United States of America and the Russian Federation are engaging in an exchange of lists. The American list contains those who are considered actors in the “Magnitsky Affair.” On the Russian list are the creators of the American list, as well as several people who worked at the camps in Guantanamo. Both lists contain 18 names.

Furthermore, there are rumors of private lists, on which, for example, the name Ramzan Kadyrov [president of the Chechen Republic] might pop up. When he learned about this, Ramzan Kadyrov said that he had given away his tickets to the United States anyway. Or rather, he joked that he wouldn’t be traveling there regardless, not since they stopped allowing him to bring his horse with him, at any rate. And, in turn, having been put on the Russian list, previous advisor to the United States Department of Justice John Yoo lamented that he will no longer be able to visit his Dacha in Sochi.

Really, everyone had a good laugh and then dispersed. This famous law, which was created in response to the abolition of the Jackson-Vanik amendment — a law for which senators Garry Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov spent years lobbying and in response to which the adoption of Russian children by Americans was prohibited — was greeted with nothing more than laughter. All of a sudden people realized that this law doesn’t change a thing in the lives of the people whose names have appeared on these terrifying lists; that all this hot air inflating the cheeks of United States senators and deputies of the Duma for so many months was, in fact, nothing more than hot air; and that the executive powers in both countries really don’t want to convert those inflated cheeks into real political conflict.

Well, thank God for that, as they say! But after this whole carnival, one unpleasant aftertaste remains: the prohibiting of Americans from adopting Russian children. In truth, it is not even the prohibition itself but rather the fact that, over the last three months, the radical change in the situation of Russian orphans that was promised by the deputies has still not occurred.

So, perhaps now that the nervous pressure regarding these lists has dissipated, now that everyone has relaxed, calmed down and started to make jokes — perhaps now we will finally return to the children. We must draft new legislation, begin a targeted campaign to promote adoption and organize comprehensive assistance for parents who adopt sick children.

Because as for the Americans, they already sorted this problem out for themselves long ago. And now they can have fun drawing up lists.

But it’s still early for us. Our studies are still unfinished.