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."
Spoiler alert: he lives:(
The Hares’ sons, 17, 15, and 12, have had difficulty adapting to life in Russia, and the two older boys want to return to America, according to their father. They feel isolated and are disappointed that school is not an option since Russia requires students to pass a language test to study in public schools.
[…] Leo Hare said it probably “would have been a dealbreaker” if they knew about the school restrictions.
Go to Russia because you can’t stand gay people.
Don’t learn the language.
Apparently don’t inform yourself at all about the country.
I can’t make fun of this whole thing. I can’t even wrap my head around what they were thinking.
They weren’t thinking. They were gulping down the propaganda and gorging themselves on the fear-mongering. And now their kids are fucked over because of it.
Thinking wasn’t part of this.
It’s kind of crazy the number of people that go to other countries and don’t intend to learn the local language
Vote for trump to get rid of immigrants cause "“They don’t talk no English, and dey terk err jerbs!” and then immigrate to Russia and complain that they want you to speak Russian. Also don’t research any of these before you make a completely life changing decision for your kids. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They clearly look capable of self education so no probs.
Atleast maybe this dramatic idiocy is a wake-up call for their kids who otherwise might have turned into your run of the mill red necks.
Imagine leaving Texas because you think it’s too liberal.
Humble is about 45 minutes from the center of Houston. It’s definitely becoming a victim of urban sprawl.
Texas in general is a shithole though that only cares about personal freedom when it’s convenient for business owners.
So funny Christians feel persecuted and like they don’t have personal freedom. They want the Bible in the classroom, 10 commandments on the wall, drag queens to stop performances, and folks with brown skin deported but heaven forbid someone teaches their children they are free to love whomever they want or be whoever they want.
Yes, that’s denying them the freedom to be ignorant, superstitious, greedy, sociopathic idiots and be rewarded for it.
Texas in general is a shithole though that only cares about personal freedom when it’s convenient for business owners.
Is there another version of IRL conservatism?
Yeah, the one where your forced to move to Russia because you don’t have the capital be be an individualist where you spawned
They could try Syria next!
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/16/how-religious-is-your-state/
Religious profile of Mississippi
1st most religious state overall
61% (1st) say religion is very important in their lives
54% (1st) say they attend religious services at least monthly
62% (1st) say they pray daily
74% (1st) say they believe in God or a universal spirit with absolute certainty
50% in Mississippi are highly religious, based on an overall scale of religiousness
There was a much easier and better choice than Russia if they wanted to up their “more Christian environment” game.
Illinois being more religious than ohio kinda surprises me
Illinois is funky because about a quarter of the state (by land area) is heavily influenced by Chicago but the rest of the state is just generic rural Midwest dotted with small railroad towns and farming communities
I feel like that’s because Chicago is all people hear of. The rest of Illinois is most definitely not that.
Meanwhile Ohio has the 3CS (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus) and smaller cities like Akron, Toledo, Dayton, Youngstown, Athens, etc.
Too many black people in Mississippi. Even if they are religious. Highest amount of African Americans percentage wise in the US.
Gather ye by the cursed lake and wasteland.
Plus with Romney, I’m not positive on the whiteness of Mormons.
But that’s the wrong kind of religious.
But Orthodox Christian is fine??
If someone’s opinions are entirely formed by Russian propaganda memes then yeah. This guy didn’t pick Russia at random he chose it because he was influenced.
It doesn’t matter to my perspective. The history of religion is for sub groups to spilt off over inconsequential differences, make up different doctrines and eventually go to war over them. It’s an expression of Authoritarians and cult behavior, and what leads to some of the greatest suffering that mankind has ever inflicted upon itself.
These families wanted to filter themselves to a sub group that’s a distinction without a difference.
Meanwhile, only 13% of Russians go to church, mosque, etc. regularly. Religion is not their reason to go there.
Yeah, but the people in the article said the real reason explicitly: LGBT is illegal there.
In the US we still have a lot of first amendment rights and we (all) still have the protection of Lawrence v Texas.
They also are the poorest state, they have the worst education, and last I checked the highest murder rate in the country, they also have probably the highest ratio of black to white because they brought in so many slaves.
They seem to be the nicest Americans though. At least at face value. America has this traditional image of being a very friendly people, and Mississippi might be at the top of the states for that.
The roads suck ass. People joke that if a woman in Mississippi has all of her teeth she is considered a princess.
Seeing groups hated by everyone else is always interesting to my morbid curious mind. Mississippi is the perfect example of an extremely poor state in the wealthiest nation in history. For the past 100 years pretty much every politician has hated Mississippians like most Americans and the neglect of the people there is astonishing. The ones who still have a little class are pure survivors.
It was named after a native American tribe or word like many places down here, it was one that one of my ancestors was part of or that same general group. She was actually royalty in the tribe. The tribes from that area were pretty cool. One of the few examples of a truly matriarchal, and somewhat polyamorous and very peaceful societies in history. You can still see those genes floating around in the friendliness and general respect for women in the south, and also the often suppressed somewhat gender fluidity of many in the south.
One of the great ironies of history is in the past, these parts of the world where there was fertile farmland used to be the most desirable and best spots. Now they are some of the worst because of industrialization and high global temperatures making the south nearly unbearable to live in.
Well anyways I’m done with my little bit of history you didn’t ask for.
Does this include experiences from living there? Not that you can’t be trusted if it’s just from history books. I just find all this to be so interesting, and would be nice to hear it’s from both.
I’ve never lived there but a few miles away and my mother is from there with her family. I knew a few people who lived in the state.
Derek Huffman said he joined the Russian army to expedite the family’s applications for Russian citizenship, as well as to show support for their new homeland.
Service guarantees citizenship!
This all sounds like Starship Troopers propaganda lol
Other way around, actually.
to ukraines sunflower fields.
He is doing his part!
He’s losing his parts!
HAHAHAHAHA. That’s it, I have no more words to say about this peaceful and Christ-loving family that would kill people if they could.
The leopards have a feast tonight.
Oh boy everybody, he used AI, lets all get irrationally angry over a meme!
It’s pretty clear, that collectively, we don’t like AI. Getting down voted for violating a well established social norm seems pretty tame as far as consequences go.
I only post my AI from Russian lemmy instances
Yeah I think this is an OK usage for AI. Just illustrates a meme that normally exists in verbal form. This isn’t replacing an artist or anything. It’s good for a quick chuckle.
Nah. Shitty memes are great. If all you can do is some shitty mspaint, that’s better than any llm art just by virtue of it having thought behind it
Oh I agree. But if you’re on your phone and think of something, even shitty memes are hard to make. On the computer it’s different.
But… but…but…AI took our jerbs!
I didn’t actually generate it with AI myself. I stole it from someone else’s reply on IMGUR forever ago.
Sorry Ukraine - didn’t mean to let our trash blow into your yard.
Please kill him swiftly before he has the chance to do any tangible damage to your nation. May his corpse nourish a few sunflowers.
The amount of idiocy demonstrated by the adults in that article is fucking mind-boggling.
One family moved to Russia with only $50K to their name, for their family of 5, and didn’t research the public education requirements for their sons ahead of time.
It tracks that people this fucking stupid would have this level of hate for “non-traditional” relationships.
No way Russia is so uncivilized they don’t speak English, right?
I guess that was their thought process, if there was any at all
lmfao what is this. i want to know what harm LGBTQ people cause day to day that they were scared and had to leave.
It caused so much trauma that they had to flee their country!
You, maybe or maybe not doing something that you may not talk about, hurt them so badly they gave up their family, life, work, friends, everything to get away from what you might do even if you don’t talk about it.
Welcome to fascism, the next stages get bumpy.
the man who did this, and for his wife to just be ok with it, means they both have batshit insane views of the LGBTQ community. its like when i see the people complain about drag storytime and think they are pedophiles. im sorry but i don’t see the connection. a man, dressed up as a women becuase he feels more comfortable dressing as a women, is somehow a pedophile. i think i missed the nexus event where pedophilia and drag became the same thing, but you know, i dont watch enough fox news or turning point media to get the “truth”
Projection. The answer is always projection.
you know, i was reading about the stonewall riots, and its interesting that there’s a repeat of what’s going on back then with gay/lesbian/trans views and now.
Interesting. I have heard of them in passing but I admit I know nothing of them. I’ll have to check it out!
Is this the same shit stain who got recruited and then got blown up?
Unfortunately he is still alive. They talk about that misinformation campaign in the article.
FYI, this is the same family as the article from the summer. I was uncertain as I had expected they had last been in Russian longer than a few months.
A snopes article. https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/22/derek-huffman-russia-war/
Yeah I thought it was weird it happened twice. But not really
Leo Hare thought their troubles were over when their landlord’s son offered a generous interest rate for investing their $50,000 nest egg in what he described as a car import business. But they only saw one payment before he stopped sending them money and refused to return their money, Leo Hare said.
Wow, trained to believe every dumb shit presented to them, huh
As many as 1,500 “ideological immigrants,” … have applied for temporary residence in Russia in the last year.
This is a hilariously small number for a big country, why are they even touting this?
We’re getting the same reporting on South African refugees to the states. A lot of it is local propaganda, playing up how horrible it is in foreign countries by comparison
It’s funny how often I see a headline like this, then think to myself “now, now, let’s be reasonable and give them the benefit of the doubt because crazy situations happen every day…”
aside: You see, growing up in white conservative christian america, my brain has this old deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or who have different priorities in life than me and think of how stupid/worthless that makes them. I have those neural pathways pretty safely contained, but it’s important to do maintenance.
Anyways, I often think to myself oh hey they aren’t just mind numbingly stupid and surely there’s something else going on. Then I read the details and it’s like every sentence pushes my face closer to my silly optimistic assumptions bellowing “search your feelings, you know it to be true” like some really heavy-handed metaphor about feeling the call of the dark side.
Nah, I guess I do know how stupid they are. But their stupidity isn’t gonna frustrate me into being like them again.
Deep take. Thanks for sharing.
I appreciate the comment. Thanks!
You see, growing up in white conservative christian america, my brain has this old deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or who have different priorities in life than me and think of how stupid/worthless that makes them.
It’s so interesting to see how other people’s experiences of white conservative Christian America can be so different from mine. I have this deep conditioning to see people who are different looking or have different priorities and be curious about their choices and experiences, specifically because of my upbringing in a little country church.
In fact, I remember being cautioned to pull back on the reins a bit when I was in my “angry conservative” stage in college—back during W’s first term, when I was super far right for the time but still had beliefs that would make me a “radical lib’rul” today. Some of the people I went to church with were like, “yeah, I can see that your heart is in the right place, but you’re kinda over the top about this and this.” Most of what brought me out of that phase was meeting people who were different from me, but another part was Christian people I trusted saying, “that’s too much.”
That’s part of why I had so much cognitive dissonance when Christians started supporting Trump; it felt out of step with everything we had ever been taught as children, and even as young adults.
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I (and my parents, more recently) just aren’t going to be welcomed back into that community again, because it has gone so deeply maga. But it wasn’t like that when I was a kid.
their stupidity isn’t gonna frustrate me into being like them again.
That’s a really great way to say it. I feel that way myself, though I couldn’t put it into words.
It’s so interesting to see how other people’s experiences of white conservative Christian America can be so different from mine.
I agree. It’s interesting and enriching to hear about the different starting points in life that led us to similar places.
my upbringing in a little country church.
It looks like you had one of those pockets of “true”
scotsmanchristians! /sMy family was catholic. I was surrounded by miserable conservatives before it was cool! :D
This belongs to leopardsatemyface, no?
More like “I ate my own face.”
Leopards weren’t that interested in my face, so I moved to a country with hungrier leopards.
in russia, face eats you.
