Just before U.S. Route 93 crosses over into Canada, it bisects Eureka, Montana, a ranching town that sees few visitors apart from the handful of hikers and fishermen who trek to the area each summer. On a mild day in June 2012, a caravan of vehicles with tinted windows sped a few miles past the town center and turned off onto a winding road leading up into the mountains. The cars reached a cluster of modest clapboard houses in a vast green pasture, and several Russian government officials climbed out. They wore dark suits and sunglasses that shielded their eyes from the warm western sun.
The group was led by Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. He had come to inspect the Ranch for Kids, an unlicensed care facility for children adopted from abroad. Many of the ranch’s wards had trouble adjusting to life with their new families in the United States, often because of the lasting effects of abuse, neglect, and prenatal alcohol exposure. Almost all of them are from Eastern Europe, though there are also children from other parts of the world.
Joyce Sterkel, the ranch’s owner, had turned down Astakhov’s request for an official visit. He came anyway, and brought along a television crew to document the expedition for the state-owned news stations Channel One and RT. Astakhov was also narrating the events of the day on Twitter: “Here live 23 Russian children, ‘returned’ by American parents who adopted them.” In another post, he tweeted, “They are basically abandoned and betrayed.”
Astakhov is a tall, fit man of forty-seven, with combed-back light-brown hair and a confident stride. In Russia he is something of a celebrity. In addition to his position within the Kremlin, he is a prominent attorney and the host of Chas Suda (“Hour of Judgment”), a mock-courtroom TV show modeled after Judge Judy. He is also the author of a series of novels whose hero is a fearless renegade lawyer who triumphs over his corrupt enemies and punishes them ruthlessly.
In Eureka, Astakhov paced energetically at the end of the ranch’s driveway, his perfectly shined shoes collecting dust — a bull eager to charge. In his hand was a red folder, embossed in gold with the Russian Federation’s coat of arms, that he claimed contained files on children who were supposed to be living in their American homes but who in fact had been deposited at the ranch. “There are so many lies in regard to the well-being of our children,” Astakhov told the cameras, “that we cannot say if our children lead a normal life, if they are in need of anything.”