To Russia, with love? Why some in West are heading east to start over.
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Fred Weir Special correspondent
| Dalneye Konstantinovo, Russia
A couple of years ago, Arend Feenstra and his wife, Anneesa, were unhappy with their lives in northern Saskatchewan.
Mr. Feenstra says that it was getting increasingly difficult in Canada to make a living as a farmer, with costs going up and too many middlemen between field and grocery store partaking of the profits.
Moreover, they were fed up with what they describe as “woke” culture, particularly the defense of LGBTQ+ and trans causes, which he claims is ubiquitous in Canada. They wanted to take their children to a place where they wouldn’t be subjected to it.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onA small number of Westerners see Russia not just as a conservative country, but as a place to build a better life. And Moscow, facing a demographic crisis, is opening its doors to those who want to realize that goal.
So the Feenstras sold their farm, packed up eight of their nine children (the eldest elected to remain in Canada) and set out to do something many of their friends thought was crazy, if not downright impossible: immigrate to Russia.
Now, on a snow-swept rolling plain not far from the Volga River, the Feenstras are trying to build a new life in Russia, where they believe traditional, Christian family values are respected and the government promotes policies that favor private family farms. They are among a small but growing number of Western immigrants whom Russia is welcoming into its fold. Though just a few thousand have come in the past couple of years, they are starting to find a niche.
“We are filled with optimism about being here,” Mr. Feenstra says, “and [about] what we can accomplish.”
Luring disaffected Westerners
Russia, like much of Europe, is in a long-term demographic crisis. The population of 143.8 million is decreasing, due to a combination of low birth rates, high mortality rates, and high emigration. So the Kremlin has been seeking out ways to encourage able-bodied people to come to Russia.
The Russian workforce includes millions of migrant workers from former Soviet republics in central Asia. And for the time being, it is also host to three million refugees from Ukraine, though many of those can be expected to return home when the fighting there ends.
But the government appears to want to avoid a Western-style “melting pot” approach to building up its population. Instead, officials are seeking to attract disaffected, traditional Christian Westerners who can quickly assimilate into Russian society within a generation or so. If the newcomers help Russia score propaganda points in Western media, so much the better for Russia.
Last September, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to ease conditions for people from Western countries – those deemed “unfriendly” – to immigrate to Russia. Immigrants need only state in their own words that they have “shared values” with Russia to obtain this status. Those values seem to be largely in line with what the Feenstras believe: that society should be built around conservative, declaratively religious principles that don’t permit what Mr. Putin’s decree called “destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes” of Western nations.
Vouching for such principles exempts immigrants from the mandatory language test and streamlines bureaucratic requirements. That’s what enabled the Feenstras, who still don’t speak a lick of Russian, to obtain residency papers.
The governor of Nizhniy Novgorod, hoping to attract more families like the Feenstras, has established a special agency, OKA, to provide assistance, including legal consultations and help finding employment and accommodation, to newcomers.
“The local government is very serious about attracting skilled workers who share Russian values, and our job is to make their entry and adjustment as smooth as possible,” says Jacob Pinnecker, head of OKA.
Mr. Pinnecker says 12 foreign families have already moved to the region, and OKA is dealing with hundreds more inquiries. His agency is working with the local university to develop Russian-language immersion courses specially tailored for Westerners.
“You really should speak Russian,” he says. “There are lots of good jobs available, but most local companies are not set up to deal with people who can’t speak the language.”
A better life?
After just over a year in the Nizhniy Novgorod region, whose climate and topography are remarkably similar to that of Saskatchewan, the Feenstras have acquired a 280-acre homestead, built a house, gained three-year residency permits, and are gearing up to start raising livestock and growing crops this spring.
Since foreigners are not legally entitled to own land in Russia, Mr. Feenstra established a company with a Russian partner he says he trusts to buy the farm. He won’t disclose what he paid, but says that “in Canada land prices have gone crazy. Russia is a vast country, with lots of good, cheap land available. And they’ve got a government that wants farmers to prosper.”
The family documents their adventures on a YouTube channel, where they also vent about their problems, recount their visits to Moscow and nearby Nizhniy Novgorod, and remark on how friendly everyone has been to them.
The Feenstras did have troubles initially, which they highlighted in their videos. Many of them involved standard Russian conditions for residency. At one point their bank accounts were frozen until they explained the provenance of a large sum of money. But that problem was resolved within a few days, and they have been more positive about their experiences since.
“In Canada, rural people tend to be self-sufficient. Here they’re more collective,” Mr. Feenstra says. “People seemingly have very little, but they’re more willing to give. Russians don’t necessarily go to church, but they hold to traditional values,” he has found. Despite the family’s language barrier, “we’ve made some good friends already.”
“It’s not political, it’s humanitarian”
The person driving the immigration campaign in Moscow is Maria Butina, now a Duma deputy for the United Russia party. She was arrested in the United States in 2018 for “conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent,” and spent 18 months in prison before being deported to Russia.
Ms. Butina insists that she is not bitter, that she was never a spy, and that in the U.S. she was merely trying to “build bridges” between Russians and Americans. She says she is doing the same sort of work now, by heading an organization called “Welcome to Russia” that aims to promote people-to-people contacts through tourism and immigration.
In practice Ms. Butina works closely with new immigrants, helping them deal with problems that come up, and using her status as a member of parliament to press for reforms to Russia’s byzantine immigration system. About 3,500 immigrants from “unfriendly countries” have made that leap in the past two years, with the biggest groups being Germans, British, and North Americans. Newcomers pay their own way, with no subsidies from the Russian government, she says.
“It’s mostly families who come, with three or more kids,” Ms. Butina says. “It’s not asylum we’re offering. People get visas with a note saying it’s based on a presidential decree. It’s not political, it’s humanitarian. If it doesn’t work out, if they don’t like it here, they can leave.”
Though the numbers are tiny in comparison to the waves of Russians who regularly emigrate, there have always been a few foreigners who come to stay, often marry, and raise families in Russia.
Sarah Lindemann-Komarova, an educator, has lived for more than 30 years in Siberia, and is now semiretired in a small village in Altai, near the border with Mongolia.
“When people say that Russians are friendly and welcoming, I can attest to that,” she says. “You can have problems in this country, but the people are great. I feared that being an American might create difficulties for me, but so far it never has.”
Disconnected from geopolitics
The Feenstra family has received a lot of press attention in Russia, but surprisingly little in North America. The few news items to appear have been sharply negative, questioning their motives for leaving Canada and warning that they are being used as propaganda tools by the Kremlin. Mr. Feenstra says that until The Christian Science Monitor appeared, no Western journalist had come to meet the family in their new homestead.
Mr. Feenstra does not show much interest in politics. Reminded about the war in Ukraine, he says only that he has not seen any sign of it during his time in Russia.
Asked about President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s authoritarian system, he sidesteps controversy by voicing sentiments that align with the Russian government’s perspective. “I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Putin,” he says. “Government here works together with the people for a common goal.”
Within a few months, he says, his farm should be starting to produce, mainly meat and vegetables. His idea is to market directly to restaurants, grocery chains, and individual consumers, in order to cut out middlemen.
“My hope is that every one of our children will become a farmer,” he says. “You can’t do that in Canada anymore. We feel that Russia has much more to offer.”
