Tula, Russia, September 7, 2017
During a working visit to the city of Tula on Wednesday, Governor Alexei Dyumin visited the family of Fr. Alexander Kanubrikov, who, along with his wife, has adopted seventeen children. The governor promised to provide the family with a minibus to help transport their children, five of whom have disabilities, reports the press service of the Tula Province government.
Fr. Alexander moved from Kazakhstan to the Tula Province in 2014 as part of a voluntary resettlement program. He now serves in the Church of St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki in the city of Tula. The priest has adopted seventeen children. He is currently raising fourteen of those children who are still underage, including the five with disabilities.
One of the older sons, Maxim, appealed to the Tula governor with a request to help in acquiring a minibus for the large family. Gov. Dyumin decided to personally visit the family in response to the request. He talked with the children during his visit, and promised to provide the necessary assistance:
“I want to wish your wonderful family success, peace, and prosperity, so the sound of children’s laughter would resound in your home, that it would always be warm and welcoming here.”
The Russian Ministry of Labor reported in March that the number of large families in Russia has increased by more than a quarter in the past six years from 1,250,000 in 2010, to 1,566,000 at the beginning of 2017, although families such as the Kanubrikovs remain a rarity. Families with three or more children are officially considered “large families.”
In Russia today there are 1,233,000 families with three children, 233,000 with four children, 95,000 with five-seven children, 5,000 with eight-ten children, and 929 families with eleven or more children. The government is now preparing unified federal criteria for large families and a new package of measures for supporting such families, which should contribute to further increasing their numbers and increasing the general population growth.