Land of Churches and Vast Grasslands: Why are Westerners Moving to Russia?

Some conservative Westerners are looking at Russia as a place where they could freely express their Christian beliefs, work and raise children. Moscow is seeking to make their relocation easier for those who want to settle in the country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested making it smoother for foreigners to relocate to the country, embracing Russia's traditionalist and conservative values.

"It is a good idea to focus on traditional moral values when welcoming people who want to live here in our country," Putin said at the plenary session of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects (ASI) on February 21.

As an important and timely move, Father Joseph Gleason, an American-born Orthodox priest, told Sputnik that he hoped that moving to Russia could be simplified for family-oriented, hard-working Western Christian immigrants.

Father Joseph Gleason, an American-born Orthodox priest

© Sputnik / Father Joseph Gleason

Gleason moved to Russia with his wife and eight children in 2017. Since, he has helped conservative Americans and Europeans tired of Western aggressive neo-liberal agenda to settle down in the country.

"Now, in America, there are cases of people losing their jobs, not being able to find a new job, being denied an education, not being able to get into a university, simply because they're opposed to homosexual behavior and because they're opposed to this lie of homosexual marriage or because they're opposed to transgenderism. It's become an environment that is very hostile to Christians," the priest told Sputnik.

He fears that unless America repents these things, it's only going to get worse.

"And so at this point, knowing what I know now, seeing what I've seen in both America and Russia, I'm very grateful that I brought my family here to Russia. I think it was the right move," he said.

It's not only traditional values that attract Westerners, but also Russia's lucrative opportunities in the agricultural sector.

Russia had for centuries been considered a "breadbasket of Europe." Presently, Russia has the potential to become the world's agricultural powerhouse, second to none, according to US-born farmer Justus Walker, nicknamed the "Merry Milkman" for his sparkling sense of humor and kindness by Russian netizens.

Farmer Justus Walker, nicknamed "Merry Milkman"

© Sputnik / Justus Walker

Walker came to Russia in 1993 along with his parents, who were Protestant missionaries and stayed in the country for good. Now he is running a farm in Russia's Altai region, famous for its vast grasslands, together with his wife Rebecca and three children.

"Farming has always been a marginal profitability kind of a thing to do," he told Sputnik. "It's one of those things where even the American farmers, we always say that a farmer is land rich and money poor or land rich and cash poor. That's true in the States, that's true in Canada, that's true anywhere. What Russia right now offers is relatively inexpensive land."

"When you're starting a farm in the United States or Canada or somewhere else, the number one line item for expense is going to be your land, bar none. Like land will often be as expensive as everything else put together, whereas in Russia at the moment your land is cheaper than your equipment. Your land is cheaper than your house."

"I'm not saying it's easy to make money in farming, but the fact that you can pay back your original investment in 5 to 7 years or something like that is absolutely unprecedented when you look at the same kind of startup, the same comparable type of farming operations in the United States or in Canada and pretty much anywhere else in the industrialized world," Walker said.

But that is not all: Russia is interested in boosting farming and creates favorable conditions for agricultural workers, whereas European countries, including France, are following the EU's guidelines and aren't able to protect their domestic producers, according to Nicolas Boisset, a French entrepreneur who set up a farming business in Russia.

Nicolas Boisset, a French entrepreneur who set up a farming business in Russia

© Sputnik / Nicolas Boisset

Boisset was born in the French city of Grenoble and moved to Russia 21 years ago. He is of French-Italian-Russian origin. One of his ancestors was a Russian Cossack, who was deprived of his property after the 1917 October Revolution and then migrated to France.

"Over the last 10 years, Russia has been actively developing the production of basic products: grains, oil, and sugar," said Boisset. "The potential of the Russian national agricultural sector is enormous. It's producing agricultural products not only for its own needs, but also for export. Russia protects its interests, including the interests of its farmers and agricultural holdings, which now make up approximately 80% of the agricultural business. We can say that Russia aims to develop more small and medium-sized farms and develop cooperatives."

"The main difference is that France today does not decide its agricultural policy independently; almost all conditions are dictated to it by the EU. That is, the state cannot solve the problems of farmers today, since these laws were signed in the EU for the entire Eurozone," the French-born farmer emphasized.

The EU's diktat has sparked a wave of farmer protests that has rocked the Old Continent over the last few months. In France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Poland and other states, protesters have blocked key highways, cut down traffic with tractors and haystacks, opposing the EU's tough climate and environmental policies which stripped them of much-needed subsidies and imposed limitations on their operations, threatening to make farming nearly unprofitable.

Historically, Westerners moving and settling down in Russia is nothing new: it happened throughout Russia's history, especially starting from the 18th century under Russian Tsar Peter the Great. This tradition is still alive today as Russia is maintaining traditional values that are dear to the hearts of some Western citizens on both sides of the Atlantic.