There is a genre of MAGA conservative so right wing, so brain dead, that they go through the immense hassle of moving themselves and their family to Russia—where gay and transgender people supposedly don’t exist, and … well, that appears to be the bulk of the motivation for fleeing. They imagine a utopia where “traditional values” rule and “wokeness” is banished, even if it means embracing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Russia hasn’t just welcomed these ideological expats, it also markets itself as a refuge for them. In 2023, a Russian immigration lawyer publicly pitched a “migrant village” outside Moscow, designed to house hundreds of American and Canadian families who want a life of wholesome, state-approved traditionalism. Russian media breathlessly claimed that about 200 families were eager to sign up.
In reality? By mid-2025, the grand vision had fizzled into just two occupied homes—one of them belonging to a family you’re about to meet—and a PR stunt that played better on state TV than on the ground.
Putin, of course, loves these Americans for propaganda purposes—until the cameras stop rolling. Then he leaves them to fend for themselves in a country with a hostile climate, significant language, cultural, and legal barriers, and an economy best described as “Soviet nostalgia with fewer working elevators.” Let’s meet a few of these true believers.
The Hare family
Leo and Chantelle Hare decided they’d had enough of the United States after encountering, in their words, “too many lesbians” in their children’s school. In Russia, they saw a land free from LGBTQ+ “indoctrination” and overflowing with wholesome, patriarchal virtue.
So they sold everything, boarded a plane with their three kids, and landed in Russia’s icy embrace, only to immediately run into a wall of bureaucracy. No housing. No work. No social safety net. They latched onto a series of local pastors and other samaritans for temporary shelter—because socialism is apparently fine when it’s keeping them warm and fed. They just call it “hospitality” when it’s for them.
For months, they ping-ponged from one free lodging to another, enjoying the sort of community aid they’d denounce as “woke handouts” if it came in the form of an American food stamp card. For all their rants about rejecting a “nanny state,” they traded the U.S. safety net they despise for a patchwork of Russian church basements and borrowed couches.
Then, in a display of impeccable financial judgment, they invested nearly all their savings in a shady business scheme that’s now collapsing. Instead of cutting their losses, they’ve convinced themselves that divine providence will intervene. Actually, they think Putin himself will hear of their plight and personally step in to save them. Because nothing says “effective leader of a nuclear superpower” like micromanaging the bad investment choices of a couple from Texas.
They seem to genuinely believe that, between murdering his neighbors and crushing dissent, Putin will carve out time in his schedule to track down some shady small-town grifter and get the Hares’ money back. But if Putin can’t do it, they’ve got a backup plan: “Jesus is our lawyer.” And he’s probably the only attorney in Russia who will work for free.
The Huffman family
Texan father of six Derek Huffman was done with America’s “woke culture”—the “LGBT indoctrination,” the toxic dyes in food, the government overreach, and the, uh, discrimination they faced, in Texas, as a white family.
“As a white family, [we were] being told we’re racist and not given the same opportunities because of the colour of our skin,” he said.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The Huffmans’ world was turned upside down when his daughter learned about—gasp!—lesbians.
“The final straw was when we found out my daughter Sophia learnt about lesbians from a girl in her class,” Huffman told Russian state TV. “She didn’t fully understand it, but for us, that was enough to realize something had to change.”
His daughter clearly didn’t care about the existence of lesbians, but apparently even Texas was too woke for Huffman. Seeking a purer, safer life, the family relocated to Russia under the Kremlin’s “shared values” visa—a three-year residency scheme pitched as a sanctuary for those fleeing “destructive neoliberal ideology.”
“The city was cleaner, safer, and more orderly than we ever imagined,” Huffman gushed to Russian state media after a visit to Moscow. “Most importantly, we found a place that respected our values—where we finally felt at home.” The family was one of the two ending up in the American Village.
But three years was too long to wait for citizenship, so Huffman decided to speed things up the Russian way: by joining the army. He signed up in May expecting a civilian post—welding, maybe mechanics, or even a war correspondent gig—anything to support his family without actually facing danger.
Instead, this being Putin’s Russia, everyone had a good laugh and handed him a rifle. With zero military experience and no Russian language skills, Huffman was rushed through basic training—conducted entirely in a language he didn’t understand—and deployed near the Ukrainian front.
His wife DeAnna called it “being thrown to the wolves,” and said he hadn’t been paid, while also being asked to “donate” 10,000 rubles for supplies. And truly becoming Russian, DeAnna also admitted that she was a former alcoholic and had started drinking again due to the stress.
In June, Huffman posted a Father’s Day message—camouflage-clad, longing for home, promising he’d “do whatever it takes to be safe and to come home to you.” Months later, there’s been no confirmed update, only periodic rumors of his death.
At one point, his family briefly launched a Telegram channel with a single post—his wife and daughters in tears, pleading, “We are asking the United States government to save this family.” It was quickly deleted, perhaps after they realized that President Donald Trump cared exactly as much about them as Putin does—which is to say, absolutely nothing.
The Feenstra family
Arend and Anneesa Feenstra were Canadian farmers, but in their minds, the gay hordes loomed large, threatening the very existence of their large family.
“We didn’t feel safe for our children there in the future anymore,” said Arend on Russian state TV. “There’s a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ+, trans, just a lot of things that we don’t agree with that they teach there now, and we wanted to get away from that for our children.”
With eight kids, the odds were decent at least one of them might eventually veer away from godly heterosexuality, so the Feenstras packed up and headed to Russia. But reality hit hard and fast.
Their first crisis? Using the restroom. “I needed to use the washroom, and on the doors it said male and female, but I didn’t know which was which!” Anneesa recounted. Arend helpfully added, “In America, that wouldn’t be a problem, it’s free-for-all in the bathrooms, but now in our world it matters!” Turns out, they’d assumed every sign in Russia—a country with its own language and alphabet—would be in English.
They also hadn’t considered that Russia gets cold in the winter—an astonishing revelation for people who emigrated from Canada—the country famous for hockey, snow, and temperatures that can freeze your eyelashes. Apparently, “traditional values” don’t include checking the weather. They soon needed charity from locals to stay warm, which they accepted without hesitation—because when the freebies are for them, it’s just good Christian fellowship, not the dreaded handouts they despise.
Then came the financial hiccup: Russia doesn’t accept Visa or Mastercard due to Ukraine War sanctions, and their new Russian bank account was frozen after a large transfer. The language barrier made it nearly impossible to fix.
On YouTube—because of course they document every misstep online—Anneesa broke down in tears. “I’m very disappointed in this country at this point. I’m ready to jump on a plane and get out of here,” she sobbed. “We’ve hit the first snag where you have to engage logic in this country and it’s very, very frustrating.”
But Russia isn’t the land of the free or the brave, and they quickly learned that public criticism of the country is not encouraged. The video vanished, replaced with a groveling apology: Anneesa hadn’t meant she was disappointed in Russia, they clarified, just “very frustrated in this country right now.”
By the time a Christian Science Monitor reporter visited, Arend had mastered the art of being a model subject of an authoritarian regime. Asked about Putin and Russia’s political system, he dutifully avoided any criticism, instead echoing state propaganda. “I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Putin,” he said. “Government here works together with the people for a common goal.”
The Villa family
Okay, this one isn’t MAGA, but more of a victim of Russia’s propaganda.
Francine Villa, a Black woman disillusioned by systemic racism and police violence in the U.S., decided the answer was to move somewhere she believed race didn’t matter. That somewhere, according to her, was her birth country of Russia. She relocated in 2019 and quickly became a darling of Russian state media—smiling in interviews, praising the country’s racial harmony, and holding herself up as living proof that Western criticism of Russia was overblown. For the Kremlin, she was gold: a walking, talking rebuttal to accusations of Russian racism.
But propaganda stardom has a short shelf life. Once the photo ops were over, reality came crashing in. Her neighbors tried to prevent her from entering her apartment and attacked her—beating her and her baby and shouting racial slurs. The police did nothing, of course. Not a report filed, not an arrest made.
Villa later posted a video online showing her face swollen and bruised, eyes puffy from crying, detailing the attack and the official indifference. The country she’d praised as a racial safe haven revealed itself as a place where racism isn’t just tolerated, it’s part of the furniture. Of course, she asks for “help,” though who is supposed to render that aid in her racial utopia is unclear.
Villa had fled a country with imperfect but existing civil rights protections for one where she had none—and found herself abandoned by the very system she helped promote. In America, she might have had a lawyer. In Russia, maybe she should try the Hare family’s approach and call Jesus.
