vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #590 / Social life / Reading article...

The Lisenkov couple from the town of Nakhodka did not plan to fulfill Vladimir Putin’s recent instructions for Russian citizens to increase the country’s birth rate but unexpectedly hit the task 300 percent by giving life to triplets.

Tatyana Lisenkova shared that her first reaction to the news about future triplets was shock. “I asked the doctor whether she might be mistaken. Responding to me she calculated aloud: one, two, three,” Tatyana remembers. Tatyana’s husband, Oleg, was also surprised, but it was pleasant revelation.

The triplets were born safe and sound in July, and since then the Lisenkov couple’s life has changed utterly. With no parents living close, Tatyana feels she lacks a helping hand with three babies asking for attention, food and care simultaneously. Oleg works hard to feed the family but his one salary will soon not be enough for growing needs in food and clothing.



What about Putin’s program of support for families raising babies? According to it, the Lisenkovs have rights to so-called maternity capital, some 250,000 rubles ($9,600) but only in three years and not in cash. The capital can be used for improving housing conditions or payment for university education or serve as an addition to a pension. The family received the one-time federal subsidy of 9,600 rubles ($370) for the birth of each child in July, and they get a monthly subsidy per child, which is slightly over 1,800 rubles ($70).

Meanwhile the babies, Vladislav, Maxim and Ylyana, do not care for presidential programs and economic struggles but for filled milk bottles and their parents’ faces looking at them with adoration.