8.  The applicant was born in 1955 and lives in Moscow. 9.  In 1997 the applicant became pregnant. 10.  In the night of 1 August 1997, in the thirty-fifth week of pregnancy, the embryo asphyxiated in the womb. On 4 August 1997 the applicant gave birth to a stillborn baby boy and decided to bury him. 11.  On 13 August 1997 the stillbirth was registered by the Chertanovskiy branch of the Civil Acts Registration Service (Чертановский отдел ЗАГС). Mr Z., who had been the applicant's husband until their divorce on 25 March 1997, was entered as the stillbirth's father in the birth certificate (акт о рождении) and in the birth register (книга записей рождений). 12.  The applicant submitted that the biological father of the stillbirth had been Mr G., with whom she had been living as man and wife since 1994. Mr G. had expected the child and talked about their future son as his own. They could not, however, file a joint declaration establishing the child's paternity because Mr G. had been placed in a detention facility on 20 June 1997. It appears that the applicant had no access to her partner after that date. On 12 October 1997 Mr G. died in custody. 13.  The applicant refused to put her former husband's surname on the stillborn child's tombstone and left it empty. 14.  On 10 August 2000 the applicant requested the Chertanovskiy District Court of Moscow to establish Mr G.'s paternity in respect of the stillbirth and amend the child's surname and patronymic name accordingly. In Russian, patronymic names are normally formed from the father's forename and a special ending, -ovich for sons or -ovna for daughters. The applicant relied on Article 49 of the Family Code. 15.  On 21 November 2000 the applicant's former husband died. 16.  On 16 March 2001 the Chertanovskiy District Court of Moscow gave its decision. It held that the stillborn child had not acquired civil rights, whereas Article 49 of the Family Code only applied to living children. It ordered the discontinuation of the proceedings because “[the applicant's claim] was not fit for examination and determination in the framework of civil proceedings”. 17.  On 18 May 2001 the Moscow City Court, on an appeal by the applicant, upheld the decision of 16 March 2001. The court repeated that “the case could not be examined as a civil action because the child had not acquired civil rights”.