As we head into 2022, we are hearing stories of cancelled flights, bursted pipes, and hospital strife. Some folks have managed the pandemic better than others. Today I wish to speak about Anastasia. This is Anastasia’s story.
I recite her story from her own account. It is a lucid story despite her addiction to crystal meth.
Anastasia came to the U.S. at nine years old from Russia adopted by a U.S. family during the collapse of communism. Anastasia had never come to know her birth parents. Apparently, there was a tax benefit afforded to U.S. adoptive parents during this time for those willing to adopt Russian foster children. It didn’t work out. Anastasia claims that the adoptive parents were mostly interested in the tax benefit and the showmanship of philanthropy. One can imagine that if there was sincerity in intentions on behalf of these adoptive parents that they may have not been equipped in handling a child who had never experienced love and arrived from what had been characterized allegedly as a filthy corrupt orphanage.
Despite not knowing English at all upon arriving in an eastern U.S. state, sustaining childhood abuse within the foster care systems of both Russia and the U.S. and being bullied and ostracized during school, Anastasia went on to graduate from high school at sixteen while in foster care and was awarded a basketball and volleyball scholarship. Unfortunately after sustaining a knee injury…her financial supports collapsed along with her college pursuit.
Upon hitting 18, Anastasia had nowhere to turn and she ended up on the street. She ran into trouble with the law for dealing drugs (today she is a crystal meth addict) and decided to leave California for Arizona. Prostitution became her livelihood ever since. Today she lives out of a tent in skid row L.A. and is attempting to affirm her U.S. citizenship and necessary I.D. in order to improve her life. Anastasia claims that U.S. authorities had made errors in paper work during her arrival from Russia and subsequent release of custody from her adoptive parents resulting in two names within U.S. government records. Follow up work has been initiated by the U.S. government on Anastasia’s behalf but astonishingly the orphanage where she resided from birth to 9 years old had been determined to be unrecognized by Russia. Furthermore, her U.S. adoptive parents would not vouch for her all these years later. To compound matters, despite limited leads, the U.S. had learned from their research that Anastasia’s blood lines had been linked to Russian spies. Her situation today is unresolved as per her interview with Soft White Underbelly on this New Year’s Day of 2022.
There may easily be flaws in the story. For example, it’s perplexing that she found her way to college if there was an issue with her government identification. However; after watching her recital of her troubled life, on balance it’s not difficult to envisage that this woman fell through the cracks of government support systems and now deserves legitimate help.