Ideological asylum

Maria Butina, a former Russian spy turned member of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, helped organise the meeting as part of the work she does to attract foreigners from so-called “unfriendly” countries to move to Russia on new “shared values” visas.

The list of countries deemed “unfriendly” to Russia, which includes the US and the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and every country in the EU except Hungary and Slovakia, was first drawn up in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Any country that the Kremlin considers to be “imposing destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes” and engaging in “unfriendly activities” towards Russia can potentially be added to it.

Alternative viewpoints

Xiang*, a 47-year-old cryptocurrency trader, moved to Moscow in late 2024 from an “unfriendly country” in Asia that she asked Novaya Gazeta Europe not to name. Having begun to watch RT, a Russian propaganda broadcaster, in 2014, Xiang says she quickly learned to appreciate the channel’s “alternative” viewpoints on issues such as the annexation of Crimea, the war in Donbas, and Russia as a whole.

“I’m very intrigued by President Putin. I think he’s really smart. I like to listen to him,” Xiang says, describing him as “different from other politicians.”

Despite earning a relatively high salary before she emigrated, Xiang was unable to afford her own apartment due to the high cost of living. She had considered moving to Russia but ultimately hesitated due to her uncertainty over whether she’d be able to obtain a work or study visa.

While immigration to Russia from better-developed Western countries is hardly something new, only since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have Russian propaganda channels begun paying closer attention to the phenomenon and the potentially valuable role it could play in altering Western perceptions of Russia.

One particular focal point for pro-Kremlin media was the case of Irene Cecchini, an Italian student whose love for Russia led her to address Putin directly at a forum in Moscow in February 2024, urging him to accelerate the process for foreigners hoping to move to Russia on the basis of their shared cultural, traditional and family values.

Taking Cecchini’s comments on board, Putin took action and six months later signed a decree creating a new “shared values” visa for would-be migrants-of-conscience. Significantly streamlining the onerous migration process, the scheme only requires applicants to purchase health insurance and write a letter outlining their objection to their own government “imposing ideological attitudes that contradict traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”

Upon arrival in Russia, ideological migrants are able to apply for a three-year temporary residence permit, which, unlike other residence permits issued by the Russian authorities, requires no proof that the applicant speaks Russian, or that they are familiar with Russian history and Russian law. Nevertheless, once they’ve been granted the permit, they’re immediately able to work, start a business and access healthcare services.

‘Year of the family’

Shortly after the new visa scheme was announced, Xiang contacted her local Russian consulate and submitted an application. She moved to Moscow in October 2024. “I don’t regret the decision at all. I love this place,” she says, pointing out that as she works remotely, she was able to retain the same salary she had at home while paying three times less than she did for housing and utilities. But Xiang’s main reasons for moving to Russia were ideological: she fears that education in her homeland has become “too American” and that her nephews were being “brainwashed” at school.

Teo*, a 35-year-old from Belgium, was recently granted his shared values visa and plans to move to St. Petersburg in the near future, having visited Moscow as a tourist during the Covid pandemic and enjoying the relative lack of restrictions in place compared to Belgium.

Averse to Western “gender politics” and bothered in particular by what he sees as a primary school curriculum that teaches children that they can “choose their gender”, Teo believes that schools in the West have turned into “brainwashing camps”, exactly the type of false narrative that Russia has become adept at exploiting in its drive to attract foreigners.

Gender politics was also a driving factor behind the decision of 26-year-old Leon* to move to Russia from France. While he insists that he has “no problem” with the LGBT community as long as they don’t “impose” their beliefs on him, Leon says he actually believes Russia to be far more liberal than his homeland, particularly in terms of allowing people access to alternative sources of information.

Leon also said that the prevalence of drugs and the consequent lack of security in France had been another factor in his decision. “It’s a big relief to be able to walk outside at any time in Russia without feeling like you’ll risk your life, and knowing that if anything happens, police will help.” Putin’s decision to declare 2024 the year of the family only served to confirm Russia’s commitment to the “traditional values” he himself shares, Leon added.

Useful idiots

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, approximately 3,000 citizens of “unfriendly countries” have moved to Russia, according to Butina, who heads the Welcome to Russia Organisation. Almost a third of those come from Germany, with many others coming from the Baltic states, Italy, France, Canada, the US, and Australia.

Butina first entered the public eye when she was arrested in the US in 2018 and accused of working as a Russian spy. Investigators accused her of meeting with Republican politicians and acting on behalf of “a high-ranking Russian government representative.” In April 2019, she was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but was released shortly afterwards due to time served and was deported to Russia later the same year. Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova met Butina upon her arrival in Moscow, and her return to Russia was spun as “triumphant” by state media.

In 2021 Butina won a seat in the State Duma representing Russia’s Kirov region. Three years later, she founded Welcome to Russia to assist new immigrants arriving from “unfriendly countries.” Now, she spends much of her time promoting the organisation, for which she also periodically embarks on what can only be described as carefully curated tours of Russia.

Indeed, Butina organised and was present at the meeting in the library in Shuya last month where recent ideological immigrants gathered, many of whom now run social media accounts that enthusiastically promote life in Russia.

Hong Kong-born Alexandra Jost is perhaps the best known of the group. Born to an American father and a Russian mother, Jost was raised in the US and studied in Belgium, but decided to move to Russia permanently after spending a year in St. Petersburg when she was 19.

Though Jost’s first YouTube channel was deleted by the platform “without any explanation”, her determination to share her enthusiasm for her adopted motherland appears undimmed. “It seems like any positive video about Russia is labelled as propaganda. But, as we all know, Russians don’t give up! And I won’t be silent,” Jost said while introducing her new YouTube channel, Sasha and Russia, on which she also suggests that loving Russia is now “the most dangerous crime of all”.

Despite TikTok officially being banned in Russia since March 2022, Jost has over 150,000 followers on the platform and her apparently apolitical videos, which typically feature her talking about Russian tourist attractions, nature, and traditions, while always mentioning how much worse life is in “the West” than it is in Russia, generate millions of views.

Rose-tinted Russia

In recent years, a number of Russian Germans — descendants of Volga Germans who lived in the Soviet Union — have also relocated to Russia. While many have cited their discontent with gender politics in the West as a driving factor, many also point to the cost of living crisis, high taxes, and limited access to healthcare in their home country as other factors influencing their decision to emigrate.

The Kremlin excels at identifying and exploiting sources of discontent in other countries to boost the appeal of Russia to disillusioned foreign citizens, according to Margarita Zavadskaya, a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, who adds that as a result, many of those they target end up viewing Russia through rose-tinted glasses.

“These people have this impression of Russia because they’ve never lived there. In attempting to address some of their own problems, they project qualities onto this place that simply don’t exist,” concludes Zavadskaya.

So have any of the “ideological migrants” noticed any cracks in the Russian matrix so far? Novaya Europe pressed Leon on the negative sides of life in the country. “I heard some pretty bad stories,” he admitted, before mentioning cases in which police officers tortured prisoners using a bottle and in which sexual favours were demanded in exchange for having charges dropped, but he nevertheless appears to be in denial about the scale of police brutality in the country as a whole.

So far, his experiences with the Russian police have been “quite positive”, Leon says, refusing to tar all policemen with the same brush, and insisting that it’s only “a few individuals” who tarnish reputation of the Russian police.

* All names have been changed