She is an Honorary Consul General of the Russian Federation in Hawaii, Chair Of The Board of the Children of Russia Foundation, and overall a courageous Russian-American whose calling is to save children's lives by bringing out the best that the people of the two countries have to offer.
The American part of her story started 19 years ago when an American scientist saw a Russian woman who was the simultaneous interpreter at a conference about Mars. Natasha and Toby Owen, the scientist, moved to Hawaii, where he had accepted a position at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. They landed at Oahu in 1989. Although it's an excellent place for scientists, Hawaii didn't offer much for a person with Natasha's skills.
However, she was lucky enough to begin work with the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission that covered the Russian Far East. Participating in the Commission's activities gave Natasha a rare chance to be one of the initiators of a working group on tourism. Kamchatka is probably as exotic as Hawaii—with its geysers and volcanoes. Both landscapes are breathtakingly beautiful and fragile. On one of her trips there her eyes caught a headline in a local newspaper. It was about an orphanage in Koryakia, the land of small exotic tribes of Chukchi, Koryaki, Itelmeni and Eveni in the Russian North.
Upon her return to Hawaii, Natasha kept thinking about that orphanage and was eager to share her concern for those children with friends. Among them was the head of the Russian Desk in the U.S. Pacific Command, Colonel Bill Smith. He helped Natasha to begin a very long and successful collaboration with American military doctors who were about to start an aid program to Vladivostok and its surroundings that would be focused on the children's welfare.
For six happy years Natasha contributed to unprecedented efforts led by the American Air Force Colonel Forrest Sprester to provide humanitarian assistance to the Russian Far East. The official part of this endeavor had many human touches to it. One of them occurred on Christmas Eve of 1999: They had just ended their trip to Vladivostok and, on the way to the airport, stopped at a hospital for children. A little boy from a small fishing village was in critical condition there. A shunt was needed to drain the liquid that had accumulated in his head, but this life-saving device, among others, was not available in Eastern Russia at that time. One of the surgeons in their group, Colonel David Smith, said it would be no problem for him to send a shunt to the Aeroflot office in Seattle once he returned to his hospital in the States. On December 23 the last scheduled flight between Seattle and Vladivostok was about to take place. The local Aeroflot representative gave the shunt to the pilot, who was met in Vladivostok by the Russian surgeon. The operation took place on December 24. The boy was given a new life.
It was a wonderful irony to find the strongest humanitarian support for Russia emerging from many years of isolation and being delivered by members of the U.S. military. The experiences of those extraordinary years of working with disadvantaged Russian children and their families, combined with Sprester's encouragement gave Natasha the idea to start her own foundation, called Children of Russia.
By that time she had already become the Honorary Consul General of the Russian Federation in Hawaii, starting another large chapter in her life. Natasha's work for Russian children now benefited from her position as a consul. The first $50 given to her by friends Jim and Anita Cribley as seed money six years ago started Natasha on a happy journey of service to her motherland. With Jim's outstanding legal assistance, the Hawaii-established non-profit foundation started its active work in the Russian Far East a year later. The main goal of the Foundation was to help children with cancer and blood diseases, and orphans suffering from birth defects of various kinds. Natasha immediately returned to Vladivostok. The Vice-Governor of Primorsky Krai in those days was Vladimir Stegni. He introduced her to two orphanages: in the town of Ussurijsk and in the village of Ekaterinovka near the port of Nakhodka. Could Natasha possibly imagine then how Russia and the United States would unite to build the first Rehabilitation Center for Children with Cancer and Blood Diseases in Vladivostok?
Lists of people who entered the lives of Russian children through the Foundation would fill tens of pages. Here are only a few of these generous supporters, and everyone certainly thanks all the rest: the International Advisory Board of the Foundation has, as Honorary Chairman, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation H.E.Sergey Lavrov; and as Chairman, H.E.Gennady Seleznev, former Speaker of the Russian Duma. Today, the Board whose founding member was H.E.Leonid Slutsky, also includes a former American Ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, and the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Yuri Ushakov. The medical advisors to the Foundation are among the best rehabilitation specialists in both countries: the Chief Pediatric Hematologist of Russia, Dr. Alexander Rumyantsev, the Director of the Center for Children with Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, Dr. Stuart Siegel, and Professor of Pediatrics and Oncology from the Golizano Children's Hospital at Strong, Dr. O.J. Sahler, to name just three. Among the sponsors are well-known American companies including Access Industries, Inc., Boeing, ChevronTexaco, and Hewlett-Packard. The Russian Vnesheconombank, Vneshtorgbank, Sukhoi Aviation Company and ITF GROUP have joined them, among others.
The Foundation has been helped by organizations from other countries, like the Red Crescent of the United Arab Emirates and LG Electronics of South Korea. The Foundation's projects are also helped by thousands of dollars from ordinary citizens in many countries, but especially the U.S. and Russia: a baker from Hawaii, Lennard Rego, and a lawyer from California, Tim Bruinsma; a Russian Orthodox priest, Anatoly Lyovin, and an American priest, Richard Darr. Doug and Phyllis Mohler, a family from Illinois, and Bill and Melora Leiser from Texas; Fred and Laura Davies from Honolulu, and Alexander and Larissa Bazilevsky from Moscow; a manager of the American Mars Orbiter program Arden Albee and his wife Charlene from California, and many others. They are all special people ready to help when their hearts call them.
The work of the Foundation started gaining the support of UNESCO and UNICEF. Russians living abroad are among devoted friends of Children of Russia. For example, a financial advisor, Kira Gnegovskaya, an American who divides her life between New York and London, dedicated her ascent of Kilimanjaro to the Foundation and, as a result, raised a considerable sum of money from her friends and supporters. The biggest "bricks and mortar" achievement to date is the development of the first Russian Rehabilitation Center for Children with Cancer and Blood Diseases, which is being built in Vladivostok. The Foundation raised $1.3 million to build the center and has completed 65 percent of the entire construction phase. Thanks to the help by K.Sh.Iskhakov, Representative of the President in the Russian Far East, the project obtained federal and local financing. This model is already being followed by Novosibirsk and Yakutsk.
The Foundation has just celebrated its first jubilee in Russia: five years of successful performance and accomplishment. The festive event was hosted by Elenora Mitrofanova at her Center for International Cultural and Technical Cooperation. Natasha Owen and her Honolulu and Moscow teams have been enjoying the support of the government, business circles, political leaders and good people from all walks of life who just happen to be called Russians and Americans. Looking still further back in time, Natasha feels especially fortunate to be living in an era when barriers between countries are falling and such amazing and heartfelt cooperation is possible.
By Artem Chirkin
Children of Russia Foundation
434 Hao Street
Honolulu HI 96821
Phone (808) 737-5248 Fax: (808) 737-7806
http://www.childrenofrussia.org and http://www.chidlrenofrussia.ru
e-mail: nowen@lava.net and chidlrenofrussia@list.ru