A Canadian farmer who moved his wife and eight children to Russia in search of traditional values and a new farming life says his path to permanent residency now leads through a military contract.
Arend Feenstra and his family moved to Russia in early 2024 and settled in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where they built a farm and documented their new life on their Countryside Acres YouTube channel.
Feenstra had spent years farming in Canada before the move. The family sold property there, relocated to Russia and eventually established a roughly 280-acre homestead.
They later received three-year temporary residence permits through Russia's simplified immigration program for foreigners who say they share the country's “traditional spiritual and moral values.” The program allows eligible applicants from designated countries to obtain temporary residence without the normal quota and without proving knowledge of Russian language, history and law.
But Feenstra says the problem comes…
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