Alex Griffith doesn't remember it, but he lived the first year of his life at a Siberian hospital for abandoned children where the playground consisted of a single metal swing and an unkempt sandbox.
Today, because of the efforts of the North Harford High School sophomore, the play area has slides, a climbing wall and dozens of other pieces, and has become a symbol of friendship and cooperation between two nations separated by an ocean and vastly different ideologies.
Alex lived the first year of his life at a hospital for abandoned children in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.
He was adopted in 1994 by Dwight and Jenny Griffith of Jarrettsville. As he grew, the Griffiths shared their journal of their trip to Russia with their son, one of their five adopted children.
The photo of the stark playthings gave him the motivation to launch the playground project.
For the past two years, Alex, his family, his Scout Troop 809 and the Bel Air Rotary Club have worked to raise money for the effort.
After collecting $62,000 from pit beef and candy sales and donations, there was enough to purchase 20 playground pieces and ship them, along with two 8-foot-tall wooden carvings of an eagle and a bear that grace the entrance to playground.
Alex celebrated his 16th birthday this month in the town of his birth, as he and several other volunteers from Harford County completed their work.
"Kids were playing on the pieces the whole time we were building it," said Alex. "At the grand opening, there was a long line for the sliding board."
The project will almost certainly earn Alex his Eagle Scout badge, the highest Boy Scout honor. It has also generated good will, spawned friendships and led to the start of Siberia's first Scout troop.
"People kept telling us over and over that we didn't bring a playground to Krasnoyarsk, we brought a miracle," said Dwight Griffith, who traveled with his son, three other Scouts and their Scoutmaster on the 15-day trip. "Every day, we had people to help us, many with tears in their eyes thanking us."
One young man saw the story on Russian TV and rode his bike to the site. He stayed three days to help. An 18-year-old patient awaiting surgery spotted the activity from his hospital room and joined them. Doctors delayed the surgery, until the day the Americans left. One morning, when the Americans arrived on the construction site, they saw a Russian worker writing "U.S. + Russia = Friends" in the playground's sandy base.
