Nearly two weeks after President Boris Yeltsin signed a long-awaited adoption bill into law, foreign adoption officials were still in the dark this week as to whether or not adoption regulations have changed.


Theoretically, the new law went into effect immediately after Yeltsin signed the final draft March 7. But for lack of any instruction from government authorities, foreign embassies and adoption agencies are still conducting business as usual.


"They're being extremely cautious," said Louise Cote of the Canadian Embassy, who had asked the Education Ministry for a copy of the law after Yeltsin signed it and was refused. "For the last three months they have been reluctant to speak to us."


Irina Volodina, who is in charge of national adoption at the Education Ministry, said Monday that the government still must come up with an interim plan to regulate adoptions for those families who are caught in between two systems. "We want those who already have information on a child and clearance from the regional governments to proceed without slowing down," said Volodina, but did not indicate what these interim methods may entail, or when they would go into effect.


Some Western officials speculate that the ministry is reluctant to talk because they themselves have not ironed out the kinks of the new legislation. "The Russian government refuses to give the U.S. Embassy a copy of the law because the last time it did so lobbyists started jumping on their backs," said William Pierce, of the National Council for Adoption in Washington, referring to the panic that ensued last November when private adoption agencies thought the new law would outlaw their activities altogether.


At that time, the Education Ministry issued a preliminary statement unleashing international pressure that went as far as the president, which may have influenced Yeltsin's veto of the initial bill.


With pressure from Yeltsin, the new law was reworded to grant nonprofit foreign agencies the right to operate in Russia. It also makes all orphans available for international adoption -- not just those requiring medical attention.


According to Volodina, the ministry was given two months to lay the groundwork needed to put the new law into effect, which calls for the creation of a national database on Russia's 100,000 orphans and a special agency to issue operating licenses to nonprofit foreign adoption agencies. Volodina admits, however, that it is likely to take much longer before all the structures are in place.


Whether or not the doors on international adoption will be temporarily closed until the ministry can get its house in order, however, is unclear.


"We heard there might be temporary stoppage, but until we see the new law we can't deal with it," said Anna Belle Illien, of the Williams Illien Adoption Agency, a nonprofit agency registered in Tennessee that has been handling Russian adoptions for the past three years.


A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed that American families are still adopting Russian children at a stable pace. The U.S. Embassy, which accounts for the vast majority of international adoptions, issued immigration visas for 2,028 Russian children last year, and the numbers continue to grow.