Link: https://meduza.io/en/news/2026/10/02/canadian-who-moved-his-family-to-russia-for-traditional-values-says-he-no-longer-recommends-it-permanent-residency-would-require-signing-a-defense-ministry-contract

Canadian farmer Arend Feenstra, who moved to Russia through a streamlined immigration program for citizens of “unfriendly” countries who share “traditional values,” has complained that he cannot get a permanent residence permit. The news outlet Nizhny Novgorod Onlain drew attention to his YouTube video.

Feenstra received a three-year temporary residence permit in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region in early 2025. He then brought his wife and eight children to Russia and began farming.

But Feenstra has now learned that to replace his temporary residence permit with a permanent one, he must sign a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry.

Fucked around enough. Time to find out now.

Dont come back, fucker.

Did he think Russia was taking them in out of the goodness of their heart? They need meat for the meat grinder.

I didn’t come here to sign a contract. I’d rather take my chances in Canada, though I think living there is risky too.

You'd have to watch Canadian society treat people you hate with respect. The horror.

How can someone move his family with 8 children to a war zone? "Traditional values" what the fuck?

The worst is that he’ll never acknowledge that it was his mistake alone

As a petty individual I'm just happy he FAFO but then I remember the kids and hope the idiot turns back to Canada so they are spared their dad supidity…

when they are so brain damaged that war is an adventure like in the TV but knowing that some person in Canada is cay and exists, that's the real danger!!!

This guy hates gay people so much he moved his family to Russia. But he doesn't hate them enough to die in Ukraine.

It's ironic that a Christian got in trouble because they couldn't hate enough.

Ukrainian men can't even leave.

Nonsense. Just move to Alberta.

All the racists and incel roughnecks and insane police violence and systematic rape of first nations peoples. You just don't have a risk of being pushed into the Ukraine meat grinder.

Unfortunately they’re raised believing in hate no matter what

He thought he could be a social media influencer for the Russian conservative pundit class.

Guess not.

yeap, that is likely the case… but if we don't even give kids the benefit of doubt, we will never break the cycle

It’s so funny that some people think Russia has traditional values. It was an atheist country up until 30 years ago, and today when people say they’re religious, what they mean is they go to church a couple of times a year at most. Not to mention, today they have a very high divorce rate/many single mother households. How are these traditional values?

Please, no. Please? This is how we got into this mess in the first place. We were slightly more conservative than the Canadian average 25 years ago and then all the rest of the country dumped their social rejects on us. Our population doubled in like 10 years and now we have Danielle Smith running the province. Please, I'm begging you, stop sending every failed Ontario washout to Alberta.

War zone? It's like 300 miles east of Moscow. More like a don't walk near the refinery zone.

How long until we hear that the guy decided to sign the contract anyway and has been shipped off to fight in Ukraine? Of course, he'll be fighting one handed for a while because several of the fingers of his other hand we're mysteriously broken and/or had the fingernails torn off shortly before he signed.

But they’ll be far away

When people say they want traditional values, they mean racism, gay-bashing and misogyny. Russia has those. This loser is mostly upset because they want him to fight in ukraine in exchange for permanent residency.

They have traditional values in Russia. It's just that they are Stalin's traditional values.

Tbf, he was probably very far away from the war (Russia is massive). And for all that he paid attention to Canada's flaws, he didn't pay attention to Russia's trafficking in people from all over the world to act as cannon fodder. Unfortunately for his family, he didn't realize his privileges until they got revoked.

Ofc, there's nothing preventing him (trying to) move his family back to Canada, but I wouldn't be surprised if any assets he has in Russia are confiscated (the farm, any money he might have, etc). They'll probably let the wife return, and hopefully any younger kids, but the dad's fate and that of any older boys (who I feel very sorry for) may be very different.

I’d argue that Russia has less misogyny. Women for example have always been in the workforce, and having a woman run a large department or be in charge of men is considered normal. It always has been.

In terms of gay bashing, Russians are private people and they don’t care what you do in private. But this is true for all matters, not just being gay.

I do agree about racism.

Yeah "traditional values" = "I get to hit the people who are forced into dependency on me"

My father is a traditional values type and I remember him complaining to me when I was like ten that "spousal rape" was a thing.

He also hit us.

That’s an interesting point about the misogyny. The Soviet Union was relatively egalitarian between men and women, i suppose. i think the first female astronaut was soviet.

Russian media is whatgave me the impression that russia was misogynistic, but i have no firsthand experience.

Even assuming that's an accurate picture, "I don't care what you do as long as I don't have to acknowledge you exist" is still homophobia.

Thoughts as I was reading this:

He then brought his wife and eight children…

This is not someone who should be taken seriously. Not normal.

He also said his family no longer recommends that other foreigners move to Russia because the authorities keep changing the rules and “there’s no way forward.”

Haha, loser. Imagine finding out in 2026 that the Russian state is corrupt.

Since November 2025, foreign men ages 18 to 65 who are deemed fit for military service have been required to sign a contract with the Defense Ministry to obtain a permanent residence permit in Russia. People who moved to Russia through the “traditional values” program are not exempt from this requirement.

Go get killed for the state, moron. Why do you think they let you in? Because they're nice and friendly? They need cannon fodder, you dolt.

If you don't get sent to the front lines or the gulag, you get to drink yourself to death. As is tradition.

Isn't Alberta where all the best hiking is? I've often thought about where I would want to live in Canada if they ever accepted me and I would prefer to live where there's mountains and hiking. Did they really turn the prettiest province into a dumping ground for their worst people?

It’s in regards to all matters, not just being gay.

Right, because Russia invaded Ukraine.

In January 2017, Russian lawmakers voted, 380–3, to decriminalize certain forms of domestic violence. Under the new law, first-time offenses that do not result in "serious bodily harm" carry a maximum fine of 30,000 rubles, up to 15 days' administrative arrest, or up to 120 hours of community service.

I think maybe you are confusing an idealized version of the USSR with modern day Putin's Russia.

The statute amended the Russian law On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development and the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses, to prohibit the distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships" among minors. This definition includes materials that "raise interest in" such relationships, cause minors to "form non-traditional sexual predispositions", or "[present] distorted ideas about the equal social value of traditional and non-traditional sexual relationships."

That sounds pretty specifically about criminalizing homosexuality.

BC is fine for hiking and skiing and not being insane.

I've said this before about this guy and his wife, bring the kids home. But the parents? Fuck those traitors. They shat their bed. Let them lie in it.

... and then things got worse

I'm guessing they will eventually return after the idiot Dad runs from the Russian draft or gets killed in the Ukraine front

The Oblasts that Russia is currently occupying had already democratically seceded after the 2014 coup.

Azov Brigade ran over civilian barricades in Mariupol with their tanks. That was the invasion.

You are seeing this through the eyes of the occupier.

Rape and murder*

The Oblasts that Russia is currently occupying had already democratically seceded after the 2014 coup.

Were those "democratic secessions" internationally observed?

No, they were done at gunpoint.

Azov Brigade ran over civilian barricades in Mariupol with their tanks. That was the invasion.

You're repeating Putin's propaganda.

You are seeing this through the eyes of the occupier.

The occupier is Russia, and it sounds like you've been brainwashed by their "west bad" propaganda your whole life.

They're not being sent, they're being called to Alberta. Did you know Alberta has been heavily advertising in other provinces to get people to move there? They've been doing this for over ten years now. They have huge multimillion ad campaigns to lure people over.

What's more traditional values than dying for your liegelord in an offensive war that doesn't benefit you even if won though?

Classic FAFO. After the dumbass signs, hopefully some Canadian made munitions will find his worthless ass.

The DPR and LPR invited anyone who wanted to come.

All elections are guarded by guns, especially after a coup and entering a civil war. If you disrupt a polling station in America you'll see guys with guns pretty fast.

The idea that a region who overwhelmingly voted for Yanukovych wouldn't want to secede is denying the realities. You sound like a MAGA election denier.

I'm GenX in America. I've listened to your tired Boomer McCarthyist propaganda my entire life.

It was Nazi propaganda before that, and nothing has really changed.

America and Europe don't seem to mind so much, as long as you give them all your natural resources you can persecute whomever you want.

You're just pinkwashing imperialism.

TIL the leopards in Russia are critically endangered. Hopefully eating faces can help their numbers rebound.

If these are Ontario's deplorables I'm not sure who's left in Ontario of any quality given who they keep electing with abysmal voter turnout.

Thinking that Russia, a country with the highest rate of HIV, abortion, CSAM, child prostitution, and drug use has traditional values is proof that online propaganda works.

Well, I mean if you stick to the coast it's fine. You get into the interior it may as well be Alberta.

Read it again. Your recency bias is showing. They flooded out west long before there were any ad campaigns.