Over the past ten years, due to unfavorable socio-economic conditions and the crisis in society, the homelessness and neglect of children has reached catastrophic proportions. The estimates run from 150,000 to five million (N.A. Shakhina). According to data from the research team of Academician N.M. Rimashevskaya, Russia has about 2.8 million homeless and neglected children. In effect, these children are social outcasts, deprived of both childhood and a future.

Each summer, especially such a hot one as we are now experiencing throughout Europe, becomes a real headache for many women (and men too). Where to send the children so they will be out of the city? How to find a possibility for relaxation themselves – some place that is comfortable and not so expensive? How to create a vacation for the whole family? The last is the hardest to fulfill.

By Emily Merz Without defining it as therapy, in my teenage years I focused on art. As an art major in college I became aware of my growing need for art as a means of staying balanced emotionally. Most of my art projects focused on my family, and more specifically on my brothers who were adopted internationally from Paraguay and Russia, and domestically from Puerto Rico.

We/My congratulates our colleagues, friends and comrades-in-arms and wish them success and inspirations, as well as continued collaboration. Women’s Innovative Projects (full name—“East-West: Women’s Innovative Projects”) and its leaders—Galina Grishina, Natalia Babicha, Alla Denisova, and the Editor-in Chief of their journal Woman, Irina Ryl’nikova, are very well known in Russia.

By Natalya Rimashevskay Academician, Russian Academy of Sciences With the development of the information society, the importance of the population as the bearer of intellectual potential is growing by multiples in post-industrial countries. The nation’s intellect becomes the real engine and determining factor of progress. Globalization, enveloping the whole planet, shows that there is no substitution for intellectual potential as the distinctive resource of a society.

Dear Editors, Thanks a lot for publishing materials on the problem of violence against women, and especially for the invaluable addresses of crisis centers and support services. This is genuine practical assistance. We made copies of the articles conceptually defining violence and telling women what their rights are, and what are the rules of behavior when violence has occurred. We posted this material in our library on the exhibit board.

by Oksana Ivanina Svetlyi, Kaliningrad Region America! There is probably no one who has not, even if only for an instant, dreamed of going to America—a land so far away that it is almost unreal to us. A land that we know from its sparkling Hollywood smiles, improbably tall skyscrapers, countless melodramas, adventure yarns, and comedies, the universally impressive Oscar awards ceremony, and, of course, the tales told by our own favorite stand-up comedian, Mikhail Zadornov.

by Tatyana Fedyaeva The greatest danger is the one that is not immediately noticed and, like radiation, does its damage unbeknownst to anyone. And the longer society is exposed to the unseen threat, the more unpredictable and severe the results are likely to be. But not all is hopeless.

By T.N. Shtein and T. Iu. Klimeshova EDITOR’S SUMMARY In the 1990’s, the early post-Soviet years, the leadership of Sarama region decided to focus attention and resources on the problems of homeless children, invalid children, reproductive health, infant mortality, and providing services to families and children.