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."

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    70·
    2 days ago

    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.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/how-religious-commitment-varies-by-country-among-people-of-all-ages/

    https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/e6f791bf-9311-421e-b2c4-6856c7922b77.webp

    Religion very important to them

    US: 53%

    Russia: 16%

    https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/5914b607-bdf5-4238-883e-46fd51f4c52a.webp

    Weekly worship attendance

    US: 36%

    Russia: 7%

    Aside from Poland, where 42% of respondents attend weekly, every other European country in this analysis has rates of attendance at or below 25%.

    Clearly Poland needs to start advertising, because Russia probably isn’t where you want to go if you’re on the hunt for a particularly religious environment, especially if your starting point is the US. Now, Poland’s gonna have a more-specifically-Catholic environment, which I bet isn’t what they are, but I bet that they aren’t Russian Orthodox either, so…

    • ToastedRavioli@midwest.socialEnglish
      41·
      2 days ago

      They could have moved to Ethiopia and been rocking that 82%, if it werent for that pesky racism point theyre standing on

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        12·
        2 days ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_appearance_of_Jesus

        The race and appearance of Jesus, widely accepted by researchers to be a Jew from Galilee,[1] has been a topic of discussion since the days of early Christianity.

        Thus, in terms of physical appearance, the average Judean of the time would have likely had brown or black hair, honey/olive-brown skin, and brown eyes.

        Unfortunately, Christ was the “wrong sort” of Christian.

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      You might want to recheck Poland. The article’s from 2018, and from what I’ve heard, thanks to the aura of Catholic child abuse scandals, they’re speedrunning Ireland’s post-independence history.

    • harc@szmer.infoEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      Could they please not? We have enough issues with local idiots and bigots without importing additional ones.

      Also a massive part of supposed Polish religiousness is absolutly bullshit performative stunt for the older part of the family or the neighbors is a small town. Most religious indicators are (finally) rapidly declining.

    • exu@feditown.comEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      It annoys me that the title in the first graphic is expressed the opposite way to what the legends mean and you have the actual meaning just below. Seems like a very bad choice of wording.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        So, I agree that it’s not the best presentation, but they’re trying to put the summary of findings up top. The actual “title” of the chart is the subtitle beneath.

    • 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
        2·
        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.