Three quarters of a million children in Russia are orphaned or abandoned. Some find homes with relatives, while around a third live in state institutions. But perhaps the luckiest are those who find new homes with loving families willing to give them a fr

Although state children's homes can care for children's physical needs, they are no replacement for a family.  And a staggering number of children in Russia face the prospect of growing up without one.

Adoption Charity Director Mikhail Pimenov says that of the 750,000 orphaned or abandoned children across the country, only 10 per cent are true orphans whose parents have died.  About 90 per cent have parents who are still alive. 

Pimenov estimates that about 200,000-250,000 orphaned or abandoned children live in state institutions.

Parents who feel they can offer a home to an orphaned or abandoned child can attend special groups to prepare them for the needs of a child who has had a poor start in life. 

Adoption Support Group worker Galina Kuznetsova says her first job is to “get rid of certain myths and prejudices” surrounding children who have lost their parents either through bereavement or abandonment. 

She says there's a view in Russia that “children who are deprived of parental care will become alcoholics if their parents were addicted to alcohol, or that a promiscuous mother will always have a promiscuous child”.

“Children don’t inherit all of their parents’ qualities, and a lot in a child’s future depends on his or her new family,”  Galina Kuznetsova said.   

Lyola is one of Russia's adoption success stories.  Her new mother Veronika Korbytova said she bonded with the baby as soon as she laid eyes on her.   

“We loved each other at first sight. She was just a tiny girl of two months old, with blonde hair, and I just came to love her immediately,” Veronika said.  “She is fully our own child and we are incredibly happy to have such a ray of sunshine in our lives,” she added.

But thousands of children in Russia are not so lucky.  Many will never know the warmth and security of a loving family.