Soviet era stereotype come true

We had a meeting at 8am this morning to have a notary sign various documents.  It's hard to know exactly what we were there for, but she carefully checked our passports and documents from our dossier.  This was apparently her first time to certify foreign documents, and she was hesitant to do so, but eventually she went ahead and produced her additional document to place on the ever growing pile.  One more thing off the list.

But the best part of the morning was the experience.  We arrived at 7:58 am for our appointment, at an older building.  We entered and climbed the worn, chipped stairway with areas of plaster falling off the walls.  The upstairs hallway had long ago lost any floor covering, and was plain subfloor boards worn down by thousands of feet.  The knots were higher than wood since they are tougher.  A single bulb lit the end of the hallway.  We walked to the end of this hall, turned right into another hallway that had three single bulbs hanging from the ceiling ( one of them burned out while we were there, leaving that end of the hallway very dark, but they came and replaced it while we were there).  There were clusters of people standing near the doorways of the offices they wished to visit.  There about 7-8 people already at our doorway.  Our person showed up at 8:12 am.  There were old, wooden theatre type seats in 3s or 4s along the wall to sit in.  Wires were nailed to the walls on both sides, the linoleum was at least 50 years old and torn in multiple places.  The door across from our seats had been reinforced with some galvanized sheet metal nailed all around the perimeter.  We were finally called in around 9:00, handed over our passports, sat there a few minutes, and then were asked to leave.  Then we sat some more.  After a long wait, Svetlana stepped out, ushered us into the office, explained the document that had been produced, we both signed it, signed the ledger, and then rushed out of the office. ( I had the feeling we were getting out before someone changed their mind about something, but that could be wrong).  We got out around 11:00 am. 

We walked down to the orphanage and met the director.  He was described to us as a stern man, but he seemed pleasant enough to us.  Maybe he portrays a stern appearance to keep all the kids in line.  This meeting was very short, just an introduction, and we were done.  Time for more important things.  Virginia needed to go to the restroom, and Libby needed to find coffee that we had not had time to acquire first thing in the morning.