A Substack series about 'Migrate to Russia'. Yes, it's a good idea.

A Christian take on moving here.

I tweet about migrating to Russia at @cbausman. DMs are open.

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Since my family and I fled Biden’s January 6 persecution, arriving in Moscow in early 2021, I have watched momentum build around a serious government effort to encourage desirable immigrants from developed countries, i.e. the US and Europe, to move here. Putin’s recent decree finally made this realistic. This is a subject I know in detail, and I believe what I can share with you could be valuable to those curious about it.

I am definitely a big proponent, for many reasons. From what I know of Russia, mass migration to her vast empty lands from the West makes huge economic, social, historic, political, and spiritual (Christian) sense. Indeed I believe it to be inevitable, and that it will be massive over the years, and that Russia will become a very ark of refuge for millions. I am very familiar with the advantages of moving here and the problems too, and on balance, to my mind, the pros very much outweigh the cons. This series will describe various aspects of moving and living here, the practical realities like costs and opportunities for making a living, imigration rules, learning the language, and so on. (See list below).

I know Russia well, have traveled its length and breadth, lived here on and off (mostly on) over 40 years, am married to a Russian, have four half-Russian daughters, and speak the language fluently. I’m of German-American stock and have no Slav blood, but I feel native. My father was the bureau-chief of the Associated Press here from 1968-72, so I experienced perhaps the most prosperous and successful days of the USSR as a boy during the Brezhnev years, from age 4-8. I came back as a language student in 1986, having studied Russian history at university, caught the last flickers of the collapsing USSR in the following years, witnessed the 90s hardships and the steady renewal under Putin. I converted to Orthodox Christianity from the luke-warmest of Greenwich, Connecticut Episcopalians in 1999 here, and over the years it became my steadfast oak, so much so that in 2017 I started a website, Russian Faith, with American Orthodox friends here to tell others about what appeared to us to be a miraculous renaissance of Christianity in these long-suffering lands. The Christian angle on moving to Russia is a big one, more about that later.

I started in journalism, then a long stint in finance and business, including several years specializing in private equity investments into Russia’s burgeoning agribusiness sector. I know Russian agriculture inside and out. In 2014, together with friends here, I started the Russia Insider news site (offline for now), which started as a hobby, and quite unexpectedly it grew very large. This brought me back to journalism, which I have pursued since then. Since childhood, in my parents’ home, in college, from friends, and especially since returning to journalism, I have been steeped in the history, politics, extraordinary arts, and Christianity of Russia. Along the way I have been to all sorts of places foreigners rarely see, met every sort of Russian character, important and not, and led a colorful Russian existence.

In addition to agriculture, another subject I know a lot about in Russia is her Christianity. This evolved from working on Russian Faith over the years and reading an enormous amount about all aspects it, and from God’s providence in meeting so many remarkable Christians here: priests, monks, nuns, monarchists, journalists, politicians, patriarchate bureaucrats, librarians, scholars, businessmen, artists, authors and Orthodox people of all sorts who have made my life so infinitely richer than it had been in my pre-Christian days. Much of my journalistic work over the past 3 years, separate from Russian Faith, has been related to Orthodox Christian media here. The Orthodox Christian, nay, Christian of all denominations, part of migrating to Russia is key, and there are so many aspects to it that it would take many posts to cover. Suffice it to say that I will be talking a lot about this in this series, including the prophecies of many Orthodox saints, Russian and Greek, who have foreseen a wave of foreigners finding salvation and Christ in Russia. I’ve been to so many Russian holy sites, remote monasteries, remote village churches, to Mt. Athos with Russian pilgrims, going back 24 years. I know a lot about the Orthodox media here, the TV stations, the publishing houses, magazines, social media, YouTube, film, and websites. I know Russian Christianity well, and will try to share it along the way.

Curiously, since we landed up here 3 years ago, and even before, events kept tugging me towards this subject like a mystical force. Russian legislators like Maria Butina (English Telegram channel) and Dmitry Kuznetsov who have been agitating for this brought me into their events and deliberations. Close friends have been involved in drafting the legislation. Russian TV channels have dragged me on shows to talk about this going back years. My close friend, Fr. Joe Gleason, a pioneer of moving to Russia for ideological reasons, spent many years editing Russian Faith, and I am intimately familiar with his story and his lovely family, having first driven him up to Rostov Veliky where he subsequently settled, and then seen other Americans and Europeans settle in that area, pitching in to help them get settled. He has a Substack about moving to Russia with a lot of good information. Some stayed and thrived, happy with their choice, others have returned home or moved on. I have many friends among them, and know their stories, the challenges and triumphs. I’ve met literally hundreds of expats in Moscow who have come in recent years and listened to their stories, and some have become good friends. I’ve talked to Russian officials around the country eager to attract migrants from the West, and learned of the programs they have started to make the transition easier.

There is a tendency to romanticize moving here, and I will do my best not to do that, and be up front about the difficulties. Russia suffers from many of the ills which Westerners are eager to flee from, and quite a few unique to her, and you can expect no sugar-coating. But she also offers a real solution for many people in the West, and extraordinary riches of her own of which few Westerners have much inkling. We will have plenty of time to discuss the problems in future articles. There is nothing wrong with romanticizing a country, and indeed, it is likely a good sign, because love is often the embellishment of a kernel of truth, and there is much in the Russian ideal which is worthy of romanticizing.

I’ve made a rough sketch of topics to write about, perhaps separate articles, perhaps parts of them, in no particular order. I’m sure other topics will occur to me as I write these, and with feedback from readers as this story develops. Perhaps let me know which of these you want info about first. They are roughly as follows:

1. The true state of Christianity in Russia. How Christian is she and where is she heading? Attitudes towards Catholics and Protestants in Russia and what they can expect here.

2. Russia’s advantages over other countries for those wishing to leave the West. To my mind, they are very compelling. The war with Ukraine.

3. The many options of where to live in Russia. It is such a vast land, with so many options. Aspects to consider.

4. Farming in Russia. Family farming, support programs for small and medium farms (they’re great).

5. The Ugly. My dear friend and brother Edward Slavsquat has done a great service in pointing these things out on his Substack, and they are considerable: the same miserable globalist WEF baloney as in the West, migrants from brown countries, mRNA vaccines, widespread abortion, coordination with WHO, secular schooling, digitalization of everything, digital currencies, censorship, poverty, alcoholism, high divorce rates, low birth rates, wealth disparity, government corruption, amoral TV, porn, rap culture, soul-crushing social media, consumer culture, and more. I’ll explain why despite all this, I believe Russia is much better off regarding these things than the West.

6. Health and food crisis in the West. Food is much healthier than in the US, and even than in Europe. To my mind one of the biggest reasons to move here, especially if you have children or are planning to.

7. From which countries will most migrants likely come? US and Germany top the list.

8. Orthodox Christian prophecies about Russia, her future as an Orthodox monarchy. Political future of Russia. What happens when Putin retires?

9. Employment - what can migrants from US and Europe expect in terms of making a living, income.

10. Immigration legislation. Where it stands, how its going, what to expect.

11. Government programs to facilitate migrants, support.

12. Gun rights.

13. Russian public schools. The good and the bad. Private schools, homeschooling (it is quite common).

14. Surviving WW3 (if it comes) in Russia.

15. Visit Russia to see for yourself. It’s quite easy, and aside from the cost of plane tickets (around $1300 round trip from NY), VERY affordable if you are on a budget.

Let me know in the comments about other things you want me to cover. I’ll be sharing more details on Twitter at @cbausman.

There are so many small detail questions about visiting and moving here, visas and tickets and whatnot, and I know from the expat community that they are being swamped with questions from people who are interested, but few have the time to really help. There is definitely a business opportunity to set up more than one consulting agency which would help folks. If they were run from here the costs and therefore the consulting rates would be very low by Western standards. My friend Svetlana Rose does this here in Moscow and I can recommend her very highly. You can reach her at svetarose2013@gmail.com.

Russian and European history is a life-long love, and over the years I have learned that what the West has been taught about Russia, going back hundreds of years, but especially worsening in the second half of the 19th c., and all through the 20th and up to our day, is just completely wrong, a pack of shocking and deliberate lies really. Knowing the history of a country you are considering moving to is important, for if you don’t, you will have trouble correctly understanding it. I will try to ward you away from some of the most common lies.

One thing to know is that Europeans have been migrating to Russia in large numbers for a 1000 years and longer. Under Peter the Great and continuing until the revolution Russia attracted large numbers of Europeans. Crucially, the Romanov dynasty gradually married its way into almost pure German blood, so that the 19th c. Russian monarchs were essentially Germans.

% of Russian blood in the last 6 Tsars

This is important because the Russian elites became sympathetic to Europeans in general, and large numbers of Germans, French, Dutch, Scandinavians, Scots, English, Poles, Swiss, Italians, Greeks and others flowed in. They often arrived with advanced skills from farming to science to industry, and played leading roles in building one of the greatest Christian empires ever known to man, especially in the military. Many of the great men of pre-revolutionary science and industry were of European extraction.

Catherine II, who was pure German, famously brought in 20,000 German farmers starting in 1763 to settle sparsely populated lands recently liberated from marauding muslims whose economy existed significantly of kidnapping Russians and selling them into Turkish slave markets. They thrived and prospered, reaching a population of 2 million by the time of the revolution. They tended not to mix with Russians, living in German villages and towns, practising their Protestant and Catholic faiths. The German-American historian J. Otto Pohl writes on Substack about this, @jottopohl1 on Twitter. Up until the revolution, many major Russian towns and cities had European communities with their respective congregations, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg they were very large. All this was sadly completely stamped out by the truly evil Bolsheviks, with vicious cruelty.

My point is that Russia is no stranger to immigrants of European heritage, and they are a very large part of her history and contributed mightily to what Russia is today. In this, Russia bears a similarity to the US. Another, larger wave arriving in this century would be no anomaly, rather a strong likelihood. Shuttling around Russia’s endless, thinly populated rural interior, one is struck by how empty this enormous, fertile country is, beckoning Christians to come prosper here.

Having said all this, and knowing Russia so well and having so much connection to her, and profound affection for her, and thinking her so worthy of moving to, I would be remiss not to explain that I myself would come back to the US with my family if we could. As it happens, we can’t, for now, because I am a refugee from the absurd January 6th persecution, having found myself, rather unexpectedly, as a journalist inside the Capitol Building, surrounded by other patriots on that great day. Whether that changes anytime soon is very much in God’s hands, and in ours to the extent our prayers and deeds are sincere and brave enough. In the meantime, we are here, and finding life here just wonderful. Perhaps, once I have the meat and potatoes out of the way in these articles, I can explain why we want to go back. It has nothing to do with Russia not being a great place to live, rather with a sense of patriotism and duty.

Finally, I will write from a Christian perspective, which is key to understanding Russia. She, like America, was founded as a Christian project, the former 1000 years ago, the latter 400. They are the only countries I know of which were. Surely it was God’s plan that these two most Christian of all nations should also be so large and richly endowed, and needed to be filled with people. Russia has no concept of statehood outside of Christianity. She has no history as a pre-Christian state. Christianity is thoroughly baked into her character, language, literature, and history, and is greatly shaping her future.

I am mostly a political analyst by trade, and notice that in the endless chatter of 10s of 1000s of over-caffeinated voices yapping on and on about why the world is in such a mess, and what to do about it, there is little awareness, and less talk, even from Christians, that it all stems from the fact that most men have tragically turned from God, and that it won’t improve until they, and especially their leaders, come back like prodigal sons. We have only ourselves to blame and we pundits need to talk about this more.

Let me know what you’d like me to write about in the comments. I’ll make a serious effort to keep up and respond.

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PS - The images above are from a very good Russian Christian meme channel. They do a good job combining good quotes from Orthodox saints, most of them Russian, often with excellent Russian Christian art, much of it from the 19th c. They convey very well the Christian mentality here, and would be of interest to Christians of all denominations, and others. I recommend following them for those curious about the Russian psyche, globalorthodox on Twitter and Telegram, especially their older posts. They stopped posting on Telegram a few months ago. I know the people running this, and will urge them to resume on Telegram. They are also on Facebook.