As many as 1,500 “ideological immigrants,” including 127 Americans, have applied for temporary residence in Russia in the last year.

As many as 1,500 “ideological immigrants,” including 127 Americans, have applied for temporary residence in Russia in the last year.

Two years ago, Derek and DeAnna Huffman were desperate to leave Humble, a suburb of Houston. Their three daughters, they believed, were being brainwashed by public school and mainstream media to support LGBTQ rights. American culture in general no longer offered white people the same opportunities as other races, they said.

The couple yearned to live in a place that shared their “Christian values” and where they “weren’t going to be discriminated against” as white, politically-conservative Christians.

So in March, the Huffmans became the first family to move to a community planned for fellow English-speakers some 30 miles west of Moscow, a project they had been following online run by long-term American expat and former Kremlin-sponsored RT host Tim Kirby. The family is among a small but growing number of Americans who have moved to Russia because the United States, in their opinion, has become too “woke."

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    I find it interesting that a surprisingly large number if my fellow countrymen (Norwegians) say that religion is very important to them, yet our turnout numbers for weekly organized worship is among the lowest.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.todayEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      I obviously can’t say with any degree of certainty, but I wonder if where you’re at, it’s more common to hold personal faith without necessarily belonging to an organization.

      As a Christian Anarchist in the USA, this is where I’m at. I struggle to find a church that is just about Jesus, community, study, and worship, without the “evangelical” right-wing sociopolitical under/overtones the US has been infected with. (Or more rarely the opposite reaction: A hyper-left political organization that happens to be church flavored.)

      But my faith is still very important to me.

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Possibly. I’m agnostic myself, and I don’t know enough religious people for that stat to match my impression.

        However, it’s worth noting that there’s a lot of immigrants here, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they affect the stats. We do have mosques, synagogues, and buddhists temples, but you pretty much only find those in the major cities. Immigrants are found all over the country, so I find it plausible that lack of a nearby relevant house of worship could be the cause. In rural norway it’s mostly churches of the Lutheran kind.