For kids and country

Putin’s plot to save Mother Russia – one baby at a time. By Marcel Theroux

Surrounded by her brood of 18 children, Nadezhda Osyak winces as she recalls the pain of child birth :‘ It doesn’t get any easier. It’s called labour for a reason.’ Nadezhda is a youthful brunette in her early 50s whose trim figure belies her astonishing maternal accomplishments .‘ I gave birth to 15 naturally,’ she says, ‘and three by caesarean. Those three were like a holiday.’

She and her husband, Ioann, a priest in Russia’s Orthodox Church, had their first child in 1984, just before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, and their 18th in 2009, by which time communism and the USSR were already distant memories. Their motive for having such a big family ?‘ Love ,’ says Father Ioann, patting his wife’s hand and gazing moistly at her while she blushes. A stout patriarch of 53 with a big grizzled beard, he’s someone for whom the word ‘uxorious’ might have been invented.

The Osyaks are clearly exceptional by any standard. Anyone who is familiar with the parental treadmill of nappies, teething, Calpol and broken nights, who’s sat through Tikkabilla at 5am with a colicky child or coaxed a finicky infant into trying a spoonful of puréed sweet potato, will marvel at their achievements. But in Russia today, families like the Osyaks have an additional significance.

It’s been clear to Russian policymakers for a while that their country is facing a demographic crisis. After the break up of the Soviet Union, the

‘Putin is like a father, like my father; he takes care of every person in the country. He takes care of big families’

population of Russia shrank by up to 700,000 a year. Between 1992 and 2009, the country lost about six million people, or four per cent of its population. Suddenly, the endgame of Russian histor y seemed worr yingly imminent – and it wasn’t a nuclear Armageddon. With too few live births to offset the death rate, the Russian population was simply slipping down the plughole of histor y. During the presidential-election campaign in 2012, Vladimir Putin sounded the alarm. ‘We are facing the risk of turning into an “empty space”,’ he war ned, ‘ whose fate wil l not be decided by us.’

It’s a dark and fascinating problem, with roots that go back at least to the terrible wounds of the Second World War, and the purges and manmade famine of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. But the government has suggested one simple potential solution: Russian parents need to make like the Osyaks and reproduce more.

So far the government’s choice of aphrodisiac has been a combination of cash and propaganda. Since 2007, extra money has been given to parents on the birth of their second and third children. A special prize – the Order of Parental Glory – was established in 2008. Parents with seven or more children (biological or adopted) are invited

to the Kremlin and receive the medal from the president himself. The Osyaks were among the f irst to get it. Nadezhda has fond memories of the ceremony. She was awarded her medal by President Dmitr y Medvedev, during t he four years when he occupied the Kremlin between episodes of Putin.

People with long memories will recall a similar award being handed out in Soviet times to proli f ic pa rent s. In fact, Fat her Ioa nn’s own mot her wa s one re c ipient : he c omes f r om a family of 18. But while t he older Mrs Osyak was lauded for her fecundity, her relig ion was f rowned upon in t he zealously at heist at mosphere of t he USSR. Fat her Ioa nn ha s many memories of rel ig ious i ntolera nce. One t hat rankles especially is of his mother trying to buy some building materials for the family home and being turned away from a shop empty-handed. ‘God will help you,’ jeered t he sales assistant.

How times have changed. Today, the Osyaks live in an enormous house on the outskir ts of the southern port city of Rostov-on-don, handsomely appointed thanks to generous donations from some of the country’s richest people. The family ’s change in for tunes has mirrored t he nationwide resurgence of relig ion. Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s government seem almost as enamoured of each other a s Nadezhda a nd Ioa nn. Pat r ia rch Ki r i ll, t he Church’s head, has cooed over Putin’s leadership, calling it ‘a miracle of God’.

Despite Putin’s past as a member of the KGB – an organisation that persecuted priest sand believers–Father Io ann also over flows with enthusiasm for the president. ‘This man is like a father, like my father; he takes care of every person in the country. He takes care of big families.’

The admiration is mutual: Putin is banking on big families to secure Russia’s future.

So far the government’s choice of aphrodisiac has been a combination of cash and propaganda

Photographs by Mikhail Mordasov Vladimir Putin may only have two children of his own but, with Russia facing a population crisis, he’s bribing other parents to have, and adopt, as many as possible. Marcel Theroux visits the country’s super-families.