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TO RUSSIA WITH LAUGHTER
by Barbara Brewster
... MARIA AND THE ORPHANS ...
In Moscow an extraordinary woman and a special group of children became part of our clown troupe. Every day Maria, her husband, Ilya, and four children drove an hour from their flat to join us clowning. In the orphanages and hospitals, at the hotel dinners, on the bus, there was Maria, fully costumed in colorful jacket and baggy pants--the backside of which was expanded by twin balloons for performing--a serene smile on her pale face, surrounded by clusters of children, and holding her two-month-old baby at her breast. Nearby was Ilya who, when Maria wasn't holding the baby, cradled her in a chest harness, gently caressing and rocking her amidst the chaos of clowns and children.
Maria runs a studio where she brings a dozen orphans, aged 10 to 13, to draw and paint. She embraces them as her own, including them in her family and taking charge of them on outings. The day we visited the orphanage, we inhaled its putrid smell, saw the bare, army-green walls, the plain rooms, the carpetless floors, and how all the children clung to us.
Each clown had his or her own way of connecting with the children. Melanie, a doctor from Maine, juggled. Laura, from a small town in Massachusetts, undulated. Rocky from Ireland, in a wild-haired wig and doctor's white coat, walked into doors or atop chairs and tables brandishing a stethoscope. Others painted faces of patients and staff and flourished balloon animals. Gina, from San Francisco, carried a pad of paper and paints and left each child with a picture.
I made a game of practicing Russian through the persona of a rabbit puppet. The children loved correcting my Russian and giggled over my inept pronunciation. Eleven-year old Denis (pronounced Denees), with sparkling eyes and red hair, had a natural talent for teaching. He patiently pronounced, wrote down, or repeated words, guessing what I was trying to say, clapping his hands and laughing gleefully when I finally got a new phrase or understood his miming.
The following day, Denis and the eleven other orphans, dressed in home-made clown costumes and with painted faces, accompanied us on our hospital visits. In the cancer wards, we met children who were often bald, many with face masks covering their mouths. Despite their shyness, they were mightily intrigued by our colorful brigade. When it was time to leave, moist-eyed parents reached out to us, saying over and over, "Spaseeba. Spaseeba." Thank you. Thank you.
Throughout the day, the orphans were bright-eyed and well-behaved. Sponging up affection, they clustered around each clown, beaming up as they hung around our necks, clinging and clutching our hands. Whenever Patch sat still, he wound up cradling a flock of children, quietly content to snuggle into his big lap and the circle of his wide arms.
Not one orphan seized or begged for the treasures we carried for giving away. Instead, Denis and the others eagerly offered to distribute toys to the sick children. Once a clown gave Denis three pins for himself. Beaming, he pinned one on his shirt and promptly turned to pin the other two on me. On the day we said goodbye, he presented me with a plastic sports medal--very likely one of his only treasures.
Like the other children who Maria mothers, Denis is bright and clever, capable of growing up to do almost any kind of work. But he probably won't have the chance. Almost no funds are allotted for educating Russia's orphans. In crowded orphanages, children are commonly classified as retarded, so the state can house them in mental institutions. By the time they leave the orphanage at 15 or 16, they'll have received a minimal education and no training. Denis and the other children will be allotted rooms in unsavory areas amidst hostile neighbors, and expected to survive somehow. Many, in the course of their stay at the orphanage, will have been sexually abused as well as beaten, and at this point they have few options but to become prostitutes or thieves.
One evening Maria and Ilya invited the clowns to dinner. Our troupe filed up the dark cement stairs to the second-story flat. Savory smells issued from a cramped kitchen where Ilya hovered over a tiny gas stove cooking pelmeni, a kind of Russian ravioli. Four Russian women bent over a small table, grating carrots and beets and stuffing eggs. We took turns squeezing in at the table helping out, then rotated ourselves around the crowded living room on laps, cushions, couch backs and chair arms, while the spill-over chattered and leaned on the twin bunk beds in the one other room.
Here, for the first time we ate food that was spicy and savory. And we saw color. In our bussing across Moscow's endless cement suburbs, we most noticed the monotony. Birches stood winter-bare. Concrete apartment blocks displayed no hue beyond the uniform tan or gray. Not a banner or curtain, not a window trim, plant or door knocker distinguished one building from another. Even the stop signs were gray and black, and postal signs were so nondescript as to be invisible. Only as we passed monasteries and churches or drove through the old, central district, did we catch grainy glimpses of gray-shrouded buildings hinting at the Russia of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy--structures with onion domes, vaulted roofs and gingerbread facades.
In Maria's flat, two murals were tacked on the walls. Magical landscapes sparkled in greens and blues, fuchsias, reds and yellows. Whimsical buildings with golden spires and onion domes rose amidst fields of flowers and butterflies. Rainbows arced, rivers curled and figures danced. The murals seemed to say: See! Color blooms in the hearts of the Russian people. The orphans had painted the murals.
One clown decided to buy a mural and take it home to Portland, Maine. I bought one to bring back to Portland, Oregon. From that small start, Project for a Perfect World was born. Through showing ours and other murals and selling card reproductions the clowns are sharing the story of how one woman is nurturing the hearts and spirits of Russia's orphans.
Mural by Russian Orphans 4' x 6'
(Click to Enlarge)
Above is the amazing mural I acquired in 1995 when touring Russia as a clown with Patch Adams. It resided Portland, Oregon, for five years, but now has a new home in Australia at the English language Department of the Sunshine Coast University. The plaque which accompanies the mural reads:
THE MURAL YOU ARE VIEWING is the collaborative effort of a group of Russian orphans, ages 10-13, and is one of a series of paintings depicting their idea of a perfect world. These orphans have been "adopted" by doctor/clown Patch Adams and the clowns he annually brings to spread cheer in Russian orphanages, hospitals and old people's homes. Proceeds from the sale of the murals and note card reproductions have become a means for Project for A Perfect World, a non-profit organization, to fund building a safe, loving home for these children.
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