International adoptions to the United States are not a new phenomenon. Officially, they date back to the post-World War II period. However, the adoption of children from Eastern European countries by Americans is a relatively new phenomenon, beginning in 1990. According to U. S. government records, between 1957 and 1963, only two children from the USSR joined American families as adoptees. These records also show a marked absence of adoptees to the United States from the Soviet Union until 1991. In 1991 and 1992 combined, Americans reportedly adopted 444 orphans from the Soviet Union. The numbers of Russian adoptees to the United States began to grow dramatically throughout the rest of the 1990s, peaking at 4,491 adoptees in 1998. The principal Eastern European sending countries of adoptees to the United States include Russia, the Ukraine, Romania, Kazakhstan, and Bulgaria. The majority of these adoptees came from two principal countries: The Ukraine and Romania.