A Canadian family moved to Russia to escape ‘wokeness’ and LGBTQ+ people. It did not go well
Arend Feenstra and his wife Aneessa in a tearful apology video to Russian authorities after criticising the laws of their new home country (YouTube)
The YouTuber patriarch of a right-wing Canadian family, Arend Feenstra, decided that he’d had just about enough of the gay people existing in his country. So he decided to take his family to Russia instead.
“We didn’t feel safe for our children there in the future anymore,” said avowedly Christian dad of eight Arend Feenstra on Russian state TV. “There’s a lot of left-wing ideology, LGBTQ+, trans, just a lot of things that we don’t agree with that they teach there now, and we wanted to get away from that for our children.”
He also explained that their parents hadn’t wanted the couple to leave Canada. It’s almost like they knew best.
When he’s not horse riding shirtless, Vladimir Putin is currently pushing to re-brand Russia as a safe space for “Traditional Conservatives,” and it seems the Dutch-Canadian Feenstra family were some early takers.
Would it have been a good idea for them to learn Russian before they went? Yes, yes it would. Did they do that? No, they did not. “We were naive on that,” said Anneesa Feenstra, matriarch and former beet farmer. “I needed to use the washroom, and on the doors said male and female, but I didn’t know which was which!”
“In America, that wouldn’t be a problem, it’s free-for-all in the bathrooms, but now in our world it matters!” her husband added.
In a YouTube episode titled “our first week in Russia”, Arend Feenstra showcases the hospitality that the local people living in their district had shown to the clueless family, who hadn’t brought enough cold-weather clothes. The locals donated snow suits for the children, and even helped them with their language issues.
All ten of the family are currently living in a two bedroom apartment after failing to find a farm.
Unfortunately, no amount of kindness from strangers can make up for significant financial problems: something the Feenstras encountered because – who knew?! – Visa or MasterCard don’t work there, and authorities closed the Russian account they moved their money to due to it being a suspiciously high sum with no explanation of where it came from. Similar anti-money laundering laws exist in the UK and US.
Arguing for their money proved incredibly challenging since Russia doesn’t require any bank, or any business, to hire English translators.
This caused a fairly significant tantrum, posted on YouTube by Anneesa Feenstra and then deleted. “I’m very disappointed in this country at this point,” she said – about an issue that could have easily been solved in advance with a quick Google search. “I’m ready to jump on a plane and get out of here”. We’ve hit the first snag where you have to engage logic in this country and it’s very, very frustrating,” she complained.
It seems that criticism caught the eye of their Russian handlers, and they presumably had their knuckles rapped, as they soon issued a clarification, with Arend saying, “After reading an article that said we were ‘disappointed with Russia’ we decided to remove our video. We are not disappointed with Russia — in fact the opposite is true. What Anneesa actually said was ‘I am very frustrated IN this country right now.’ This was a reflection of her inner frustration with not being able to speak and understand.”
Arend repeatedly apologises for the deleted video, and blames the “misunderstanding” on the language barrier. Top tip for anti-LGBTQ+ families hell bent on escaping Pride flag-waving degenerates: maybe spend at least a few hours on Duolingo learning Russian before moving to a country with an entirely different alphabet.
They’re now receiving additional help with immigration from authorities, saying, “we have a contact called Igor who has offered to help us get started with language and renting land, those kinds of things.”
Russia has become increasingly unsafe for LGBTQ+ people since November 30, 2023, when Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that the ‘international public LGBTQ+ movement’ (which does not exist) is an extremist group and also declared LGBTQ+ activism illegal.
Federal agents recently shut down a My Little Pony convention in Moscow, Russia, accusing the animated programme of promoting ‘LGBTQ+ propaganda’. Maybe living in this intensely anti-LGBTQ+ ‘wonderland’ will eventually cheer up the church-going Feenstras and their eight children (who hopefully don’t like My Little Pony, as the show has an 18+ rating in the authoritarian country due to once featuring two lesbian ponies).
