About us

History

The very first trip (February 1999) was accomplished by German Pyatov with his friend on a private car, and all goods (85 pairs of winter shoes for children in the orphanage #72 in Rybinsk) were bought with German’s money. At that moment German was not planning a vast activity and was not recruiting other people or resources. Other people learned about German’s trip in an internet chat room and displayed a wish to participate. The community of participants started to grow. The work of the emerging organization was executed as follows: people who wanted to participate were told by German which goods are needed most and were they can be bought for less (usually on the wholesale markets). Then volunteers went out and bought these goods with own money and delivered them on the private cars to the orphanages, with which German has an established a contact.  During 2000 three more orphanages were taken under the supervision of the team. By the end of 2001 the number of the supervised orphanages reached 18.

Although almost no active fund rising or advertising was performed, the organization became quite known through publications in the press, internet (launch of the web-site www.murzik.ru in 2001), and person-to-person communication. The number of people who regularly gave money and participated in the mission trips increased. In addition, many people made one time donations. Making and accepting onetime donations became much easier after official registration of the organization and opening of an account. An amount of in-kind donations from public also increased significantly.

more history...

Why “Murzik”? Origin of the word – Fairy tale

The organization aims to help orphaned children. This help consists not only of delivering goods, but also of bringing love and care into orphans’ lives, and of giving them a happier childhood. This is why there is a fairy tale-like concept behind the name of the organization. Murziks are the humanoids that live in a galaxy far-far away in the country called Murland. They are very kind and look like cats - Murzik is a common nickname for a cat in Russia.

Children are of greatest value in Murland. Murziks do not understand why in a country as rich as Russia there are over one million of children deprived of family and love, whilst often having a living parent. That is why Murziks came to Earth and started helping lonely little persons.

What is Murland – overview of organization

The Charity Fund Murland is a non-profit charitable organization registered on April 17, 2002 in the Moscow Registration Chamber.

The informal charitable organization Murzik successfully exists since 1998. However as an informal group it was not entitled to accept donations made by bank transfer. The official registration of the charitable fund Murland allowed us to start accepting/making both bank and cash payments.

Even though our group was very effective and well organized, only with the registration of Murland we now can officially represent orphans at all levels and to demand the Government to fulfill its obligations for these children.

Articles of the fund prohibit the founders to financially benefit from the activities of the fund.

The official registration of the charitable fund Murland did not change the purposes of our organization.

The fund follows the principles established in the informal charitable organization Murzik:

a.       Full transparency of all activities,

b.       Most effective use of funds and goods,

c.       To increase the impact in the lives of orphans in Russia we call for contribution a wide range of individuals, corporations, foundations and institutions.

All reports on the activities of the charitable fund Murland are posted on www.murzik.ru

Registration Details of the Charity Fund Murland

Registration number: 002087868

Legal address: 29/4 Kirpichnaja st., bld. 7, Moscow 105118, Russian Federation.

Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN): 7719245059 (KPP 771901001) as registered in the local tax authority Nr. 7719 for major taxpayers of the Ministry of Taxation of the Russian Federation

The fund was registered in accordance with the Federal Law on Charitable Activity and Charitable Organizations (1995). This law determines the concept of a charitable activity and its aims, the concept of a charitable organization and the requirements it has to meet, the mechanisms of the public and governmental control of activities of a charitable organizations, possible forms of a support of charitable organizations by the government and local authorities.  This law also specifies the legal documents to be submitted for registration purposes.

For the full text of the law (in Russian) please see: http://www.ngopravo.ru/11/i4_42.htm, and for comments (in Russian): http://www.internews.ru/cip/char_ngo/contents.html.

Any tax privileges of charitable organizations are defined according to the Taxation Law.

This site is dedicated to helping orphaned, abandoned or handicapped children in Russia.

The problem:

There are presently over one million orphans in Russia living in state run institutions. The vast majority of them are not true orphans in the real sense of the word. They often have a living parent, but are forced into orphanages because their parents have been stripped of custody for a number of different reasons, most commonly, alcohol or drug abuse. These children are known as ‘social orphans’. 

The Federal childcare system provides orphans with housing and food. However, due to a chronic lack of funds, the living conditions in the majority of orphanages, especially those in rural provinces, are horrendous.

In many cases, the children’s most basic needs for items such as warm clothing, sturdy shoes, simple hygiene products, medical supplies are simply not met.

Deprived of family and love, having experienced emotional, psychological or sexual abuse, orphans become socially detached, isolated, and develop emotional problems. At the age of 16, when they leave their orphanages, these adolescents experience great difficulty in finding gainful employment and joining mainstream society. As a result, 90% of these children follow their parents’ destiny and fall into lives of alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, and crime. The desperate and miserable cycle just repeats itself again.

How do we solve the problem?

Our organization targets three major problems: inadequate financial support of orphanages, the poor education and social isolation of orphans. We provide the most under-funded orphanages with the resources to meet the children’s most immediate and basic needs. We develop and execute a number of educational programs with the main emphasis on computer education and vocational craft and work skills. We also develop programs of social rehabilitation and counseling. Our goal is to help orphans to become healthy, educated, self-sustaining and contributing members of society. You also can help.

How we work?

This charity organization was founded in 1998 as an informal volunteer-driven initiative. We started by helping one orphanage and expanded our activity to 25 orphanages in Central Russia over a 5 year period. During this time, we gained the necessary experience to identify the most urgent needs of orphans, developed methods for the effective use of funds and goods, and developed a system of monitoring and control in the orphanages we support to prevent misuse of funds. We ensure that all our activities are completely transparent to the donors through postings on our web-site, financial reports, and descriptions of mission trips supplemented with photographs.