Yes, it is a hard life there. Inconveniences, hardships, very low pay, brutal weather. I suppose that's why so many kids are left at the orphanages.....there's no way to take care of them and the parents are doing what they can to make sure they're fed and clothed.
When Victoria first went to the baby house, she said they were reusing disposable diapers (as plastic pants) over cloth diapers made from old clothes. They dry the disposables out. She looked for cloth diapers with no luck. We and several of our friends bought about 12 doz cloth diapers and all the plastic pants we could find (that's something else I can no longer find at Walmart) and pacifiers and diaper pins. She said you'd have thought she was giving them a million dollars when she delivered them to the home.
There are 48,000 institutionalized kids in Kazakhstan because they have no foster care system.