SnitchSeeker.com - Russian Harry Potter look-alike is an orphan too

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Russian Harry Potter look-alike is an orphan too

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Thanks to Wizardnews

This is a story about a boy, small, with dark black hair and glasses, an orphan with a deep scar from just after his birth, who is clad in a wizard's hat and cloak.

He does not live on Privet Drive, nor in a novel, but in Moscow; for Valera Ashcheulov, 12, is not Harry Potter -- or even Garri Potter, as he is called in the newly released fifth installment in Russian -- though he shares the features of the eponymous hero and the fact that he is looking for someone to replace his parents.

On Saturday he stood nervously in the Moskva bookstore on Tverskaya Ulitsa, holding an owl called Hedwig, while Ron Weasley and Hermione Grainger stood around him as contestants in a look-alike competition to celebrate the release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

Together with 10 other boys and girls -- three Hermiones, two Rons and five Harrys -- Valera won the prize for best costume, as well as joint prize in the look-alike contest.

Valera does really look like Harry Potter and genuinely loves the books, although, to be honest, one of the Ron look-alikes was the most startling resemblance in the contest. But Valera took part not to win prizes, but in an attempt to change the course of a rough 12 years.

When asked about what he and Harry Potter have in common, Valera said, "He hasn't got any parents, like me. I live in a children's home."

Born with a serious congenital urological problem, Valera was abandoned at birth by his parents, who simply told his two siblings that he had died.

Shunted off to a children's home in the Khabarovsk region where he was born, Valera needed constant care. His condition was so severe that his urine could only be removed via a tube, and doctors operated on him numerous times. On the occasions when he was fortunate enough to leave the hospital, he was bullied and teased by the other children at the home.

When he was 5 years old, Valera was admitted to the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital in Moscow. It was at the hospital church that he found the support he needed. His habit of approaching churchgoers and saying, "Mama! Have you found me?" endeared him to one churchgoer, who took him in.

With a guarantee of home care, the hospital operated for the sixth time on Valera, helping to alleviate his condition and remove the tube.

However, last summer he lost out on family life when his foster mother became seriously ill and could no longer care for him.

Despite all this pain and heartache, Valera is a bright, charming boy who is fond of chess, ping-pong and computers.

"Valera was left alone, but like Harry he managed to stand up on his own two feet," wrote the Charitable Fund for the Help of Seriously Ill and Destitute Children, which organized his participation in the contest.

"He's had a tough fate," said Oleg Dusayev, vice president of the charitable fund. "He's a good boy, very kind, but he needs love. He's very unhappy."

The charity went to the unusual step of appealing publicly because of the lack of recent success. Valera has been on the adoption list -- along with more than a million names -- for more than a year.

The charity is aware that unless he finds parents in the next couple of years, he will almost surely be sent back to Khabarovsk, perhaps even to the children's home where he was treated so poorly as a young child.

"We try not to think about it," said Galina Chalikova, a charity volunteer. "By rights, he should go back to Khabarovsk. But we have promised him that it will never happen."

This time they are hoping that parents from abroad can be found, because of the expense of certain medical needs.

Valera is no longer considered sick, Chalikova said. He is a healthy child, though he needs regular checkups and a diet that would be difficult for most ordinary Russian families to provide.

Many people called after a previous appeal. But they were mainly elderly ladies who could barely look after themselves, let alone care for a young child.

Valera understands that there is a push on to find new parents, but he is understandably coy about saying anything to the journalists who gently quiz him.

At the moment, Valera lives in a children's home, but stays with friends from the church every weekend. Returning to the home, he always asks for another walk around the block, then he "overcomes his reluctance and goes into the children's home."

When all the other contestants were asked their names and how they learned about the contest, one after the other said that their parents had told them.

Valera paused, and simply said, "I heard about it. They told me."

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