He receives a little extra attention because of his troubled past, she explains. In the barren room, Igor takes a few steps in his walker, then stops to observe the activity around him. A little boy with Down syndrome is placed in a crib, while another one with infantile cerebral palsy runs in circles, clapping his hands to his face. Still another bawls in the corner. An accident is wiped quickly with a towel, the child lifted up and taken to have his diaper changed.
Many disabled orphans spend much of their days in cribs.
A group of deformed and mentally handicapped children lie on their backs on stained sheets in playpens or cribs. The slightest human touch brings smiles to their normally apathetic faces. Patrushev points out their deformities. In a playpen, one boy with hydrocephalic syndrome has an oversized head. Another child was born with a head that is too small.