Opening remarks to the court...

Here is the actual speech I will be making today. The real one of course is in Russian, but this is what I started with.

I guess I should also mention that this is going to be my 599th blog. That would be a more interesting thing if it had not taken me so long to get from 500 to 600. I guess I lost interest. Anyway, I have to take a shower and clean up a bit and to get all of my materials in order for our meeting. Here's the text.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Your honor,

I have something I want to say, but I will try to be brief. This process has been going on, and the difficulties between Kopus and I, for several years. I think I have a reasonable argument here that I am making. I am saying that I want to spend more time with my daughter and that the time that the court has allowed me is not sufficient to give her what she needs for her life.

There was a time, before we came to this court, when I was the main caregiver for my daughter. And she was with me every day and she was with me through many different activities, both when it would be playtime, and if it would be my work time. But we always seemed to be able to handle every situation, and not only well, but with remarkable results for my daughter in terms of intelligence and abilities. She always learned with me and we always had fun.

But for almost two years now we have had a new situation. And this situation has not been good for my daughter. It has not been good because this unnecessary war has stunted her growth. I believe it has hurt her emotionally and that it has caused her to carry burdens on her shoulders that she never needed to have at all.

However, I think that there are two ways for me to make my case here. One, is to say that Tanya Kopus has not been a good mother. The other way is to say that I am and have been a great father. I think that the second is more important than the first because I think that it is important to understand that education, friendship, physical culture, love, music, communications and growth, are the most important things for any child. And I give these things to my daughter because this is who I am. I am an educator. I am, or have been a sportsman. And I am a friend to people and I help people. I have lived almost ten years in Pinsk. I do not have a bad relationship with this town. I am not a saint, I have emotions, but I am not a bad man. I am not a criminal and I love my daughter and have always given her everything that she needs, and with love.

The only thing therefore that I want to say about Tanya Kopus, is that in place of taking care of our child, she chose instead to fight me. And I could say point by point the things that she has done, and in this case I will show some of these specific events. But really, in the end this is the only mistake that she has made which has been catastrophic. There was no reason for her to use my daughter in a fight against me. Our job was to raise her, whether we could live together or whether we couldn’t. Our job was to take care of the children, and I did my job with everything I had. So to say that I was not a good father is a lie. Or to say bad things about my character are lies. And to have done this for her own selfish reasons has been a crime.

I love my daughter. I want to be with her. I want her to be with me. I want to make the decisions regarding her life because I believe I am better suited to this task than her mother. I will not prohibit my daughter from seeing her mother or to have a relationship with her. But I do not want any more wars around my beautiful girl’s life, not from anyone, ever again.

Thank you