Michelle Obama tours Russian school for orphans

US first lady tours Russian school for orphans

MOSCOW — Michelle Obama took time away from her husband’s public diplomacy Tuesday to share a laugh with Russian orphans, hobnob with volunteer nurses and watch dazzling folk dancers gliding on stage as if on ice.

The U.S. first lady toured sites around the Russian capital while her husband held a whirlwind of meetings on the second day and final day of a Moscow summit.

At St. Dmitry Primary School, many of whose 160 students are orphans, a radiant Michelle Obama was met by around two dozen students at a second-grade classroom, where she listened to them recite several poems in English and sing a Russian folk song.

Some of the students — especially those in their teens — looked stiff and shy during the performance, but they laughed along with Obama while posing for news photographers.

Two of the children gave her homemade presents — one of them an intricate origami figure — and a girl in a wheelchair asked Obama in Russian if she had any children. The first lady responded through a translator that she has two daughters — Malia and Sasha — who she said remained behind in the hotel with their grandmother.

Later Obama toured the complex’s St. Dmitry Cathedral and met with several dozen nursing students at the college.

“It’s very important for us that you are doing a lot of charity. You have scored a record in fundraising and attracting volunteers,” the church’s chief priest, Arkady Shatov, told Obama. He urged her to continue with her charity initiatives as first lady, saying that Russian czarinas often volunteered in hospitals during wartime.

After listening to the nursing students speak about their work in HIV and AIDS treatment projects, she said: “The education of the broader public is just as important as taking care of the patients.”

Obama was also given an outsized traditional Russian nesting doll — dressed as a nurse.

Svetlana Arzamastseva, director of nursing college, later called Obama “a very beautiful woman, an openhearted person” and noted Obama’s experience developing volunteers and fundraising for the University of Chicago Medical Center.

“We have a common cause with her,” Arzamastseva said. “It’s very pleasing for us that the first lady does the same thing as we do.”

Father Arkady said he had heard Obama was known as a record fundraiser when she worked at the Chicago hospital.

“That’s a very generous title,” said Obama, who got an enthusiastic round of applause from the nurses before they said farewell.

Later in the afternoon, Michelle Obama — this time with her mother and daughters — joined Russia’s first lady, Svetlana Medvedev, for a charity performance by top Russian folk dance groups.

The performance featured the Moiseyev Dancing Company, founded by Igor Moiseyev, widely described as the world’s best folk dance choreographer who died in 2007 at the age of 101. The show opened with an iconic Beryozka dance by the Nadezhdina Dancing Company, in which a dozen of female dancers glided across the stage in traditional red dresses whose hems touched the floor.