Many families struggle with finding photos for their child's LifeBook. They may have problems like:

• they took a picture of their thumb rather than the orphanage


• their camera was stolen


• there aren't any photos of the child before 8 years of age


• they were enjoying watching their child and forgot to take a photo

I really wish that I had taken a picture of Natasha eating her first meal at McDonald's in Kharkiv. It was very entertaining. First she looked at it. Then she smelled it. Then she pulled it completely apart until she was just looking at the pieces. At that point she recognized the pickles and tomatoes which she promptly ate. She refused to eat the meat and bread. And then she was done.


If you adopted an older child ask them for stories of their earlier life and write them into the LifeBook. Ask them to draw or paint pictures for you. After my daughter's cross eye surgery I asked her to paint, "Life with crossed eyes" and "Life without crossed eyes".



And you can also search for photos. I know 10 different families who were able to find their child in another families' photos.


You could start with the various Ukrainian email lists. You may find Oblast specific photos on the various regional lists.


Welcome to Ukraine has some beautiful photos of Kyiv, Crimea, Carpathians, Odesa, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Khmelntsky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Volyns'ka (Volyn).

Independent Ukrainian Adoption has photos from Simferopol.


You can try going through other people's blogs. Cristin who adopted from Ukraine in 2004 keeps a blog of blogs located here. Her family's story is interesting. They are Americans and adopted while living in the Netherlands.


Cristin doesn't have all the blogs listed. Here is one on Sun Orphanage in Priluki that I found via google.


I use google's image search. I look for the Russian and Ukrainian spellings. For example, I will look for Kharkov and Kharkiv.


Look at charity web sites like Life2Orphans. They have photos for many different orphanages.


His Kids, Too! has many orphanage photos.


Heart to Heart Ukraine has photos for Kharkiv, Poltava and Zaporizhia orphanages.


Children of Ukraine has a gallery of photos. They work in Vinnitsa. There are 32 orphanages in this Oblast.


Svieta's Friends (a Swiss charity) has fewer orphanage photos (Nikolaiev, Ochakov, Pervomaysk, Sachnovshyna and Zeleniy Gay), but they
are interesting.


Again it is helpful if you know alternative names. My daughter's orphanage is Zeleniy Gay or Green Forest. And Nikolaiev is also known as Mykolayiv Oblast.


Adoption agency web sites sometimes have orphanage photos or other photos of interest.


And some orphanages have a web site.

Orphanage No.12 in Kiev


Odessa Boarding School and Orphanage Number Four


Orphanage 90 km south of Chernobyl.


Orphanages of Zaporozhye