Why Would Canadian Couple Who Dragged 8 Kids To Russia Need Asylum, Exactly? Hmmm!

The Feenstras escaped woke and are now headed for broke.

The Feenstra children in Russia (Feenstra Facebook page)

We’ve been eagerly awaiting an update on that Canadian couple, Arend and Anneesa Feenstra, who sold their farm in Saskatchewan, packed up eight of their nine kids, and moved to Russia, and here it is!

You’ll recall how God, via apocalypse-obsessed conspiracy theorists on the Internet, told them Pride flags fluttering on the streets of Saskatoon were a sign that the dark days of Christian persecution were at hand. And Arend felt targeted for being a white, meat-eating man. “You’ve got the whole woke movement, where a traditional male is seen as toxic in the West. In many jobs it’s a hindrance to a good career, because they’re trying to pick people from colored backgrounds … minorities,” he complained to a Russian YouTuber. 

How a non-colored-background man’s career is hindered when he owns his own farm in a place that’s 85 percent un-melanated, unclear. But there’s just too much tolerance, and they’ll go to any lengths to not tolerate it!

A plan was hatched for the family to roll into Russia, become citizens, and buy a farm. Easy-peasy pierogi-squeezy, promised expatriate-Russian propaganda YouTubers! Come to white-man paradise! But as five minutes of Googling might have revealed, the reality is not so simple. 

To catch up from our previous episodes:

PART ONE: The Feenstras got their bank accounts frozen, endured hours of government-ordered medical tests, and waited around for days to fill out forms with the help of an interpreter. A YouTube clip of Anneesa complaining about how frustrated she was with the country’s bureaucracy was posted, quickly deleted, then replaced with an apology video, and the Feenstras went on a Russian media tour to complain about what a hellhole of degeneracy Canada is. 

PART TWO: In which the Feenstras did not realize that they had to pass a Russian language proficiency test to immigrate, and got stuck 10 people in one bedroom with a broken sink and sick kids, “homeschooling.” Arend got hold of a van and they drove around to look at farms, thinking they could buy one, breezily unaware that foreigners can only own a minority — heh, heh — share of any agricultural land there. 

Now, their tourist visas have expired. Arend told me via Facebook that they’ve applied for asylum in Russia, though didn’t respond when I asked what grounds they were claiming. Russia also now offers a fast-track to citizenship and waiver of the language requirement if you join the army, but somehow that seemed rude to mention.

The foreigners-can’t-buy-land thing is also further cramping the Feenstras’ God-given plan, and their YouTube comments section has questions. 

“Why are we not farming if we came to Russia to farm? Why are we only vlogging and not farming?” He knows viewers are wondering. “So, we came here over four months ago to farm, but it’s not an easy step, it just doesn’t happen overnight,” he realized. “When my parents moved to Canada [from the Netherlands] in 1988 they had a farm purchased prior to coming.” The elder Feenstras were granted permanent residency at the airport when they arrived, and started farming right away.

Wonder what their problem with the Netherlands was? Bicycles, tulips and chocolate, what is not to like? Anyway, understates Arend, “it is not that simple here in Russia.”

“A foreign citizen like me is not allowed to buy agricultural property here in Russia. You have to be a citizen first. […] We have to form a Russian company first […] that company needs to be majority owned by a Russian citizen,” he explained, apparently only recently having heard this for the first time.

Arend says they’ve now formed a company and presumably found one or more Russians to take 51 percent of it, and are hoping to close on a plot of land to build their farm on. He reckons when it comes to achieving the Russian dream they’re “just about there” but registering a company takes time, finalizing the deal takes time. All of the bureaucratic stuff that could be accomplished in a matter of hours in Canada takes months or even years in Russia, not known for its cheerful, efficient, and smoothly flowing bureaucracy.

But Arend is optimistic, letting go and letting God, who has brought them all this far with His plan. “When are we going to start our own farm in Russia? And the answer I would say is very soon, but I actually don’t know. We live day-to-day, and so much of it is out of our control that we have really been learning to live in faith, and not by sight. And just taking each day as it comes, hoping we get one step closer every time. We believe God brought us here, we believe God is making a way, and we will just keep trusting in him.”

God gave you sight and the Internet, my dude! Ye could’ve Googlethed the language requirement and the land law. And the answer to when have your own farm in Russia is the elevendy-eth of nearly never. If an investor owns 51 percent of your farm, it isn’t your farm, my droog, it is theirs. You are not a partner, or a tovarish, you are their employee. Arend plans to build a house and barns on this land, seemingly unaware that any improvements and sweat equity he puts in, or profit he ekes out, will actually be property of the Russian investor and his controlling interest. Disagree and have fun in the Russian court system! Being granted full citizenship, which would actually allow him to buy a farm of his own, could take years. And as for farming, if you want the rubles, you grow what the government tells you to.

The Feenstras are a real-life version of the analogy of the farmer who sells his plough, donkey, and all his seeds and tools, then thinks he’s rich because he has money in his pocket. 

They had every personal freedom in Canada, all the civil rights. They owned a picturesque farm all to themselves, where they grew whatever they wanted and vlogged about raising goats and chickens and making kombucha and goat cheese, which they could set their own prices for. They were free to keep anybody off their property they didn’t want to associate with, free to start their own church that’s not Russian Orthodox, free to never vaccinate or take their kids to a doctor.

Now they own nothing but their clothes and whatever cash they have left, have no property, and were forced to get medical exams and rounds of shots to make the Trucker Convoy cry. They’ve gone from independence to being effectively illiterate deaf-mutes, dependent and beholden in every way to the kindness of Russian strangers and their bureaucracy, which is conducted in a language that they don’t understand. 

But what is money and personal freedom compared with saving the children’s souls from gender ideology and the woke mind virus consuming the West?

It would be funnier if one of the kids didn’t have a seizure disorder. 

God says a lot of things to us, too. Like “once you’re in a hole, stop digging” and “try to outfox a Russian and you will find yourself hungry and barefoot in a pine barren in the snow.” Or maybe that was a Ziggy poster and David Chase.

But anyway, best of luck to those Feenstras. We hope they get what they want, and that whoever bought their Canadian farm is enjoying it. Hopefully some nice gay Russian farmers fleeing conscription who also enjoy goat cheese, kombucha, and being left alone to mind their own business, who will set up an organic pierogi stand at the Saskatoon farmer’s market.

Can’t wait to see what the next update brings.