Moral migrants, bitter arrivals: Inside Russia's “values visa” trap

In winter, an Estonian citizen named Daniil (name changed) crossed the Russian border over the ice of Lake Peipus and requested asylum. As a result, he has spent the past four months in Pskov Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1, complaining about harsh conditions – cold, mice, and sedative injections administered without his consent.

In a letter to human rights advocates, the 25-year-old explained that he fled because Estonia had “started banning the Russian language in schools,” while his lack of Estonian language skills made it impossible for him to find work and support himself. “I had long heard that Russia had a resettlement program – that people were moving to live in Russia,” Daniil wrote.

Russia does in fact have two programs actively encouraging relocation for people with roots tied to Russia or the Soviet Union. Since 2006, the country has operated the Compatriot Resettlement Program, and since 2024, a repatriation program (both aimed at Russian-speaking natives of Russia or the USSR and their descendants, though they offer different relocation terms). By all appearances, Daniil would have been an ideal candidate for either program. The Baltic states are among the key regions where these initiatives are promoted.

The Pskov Region where Daniil was locked up in pretrial detention has been actively recruiting Estonian citizens to address labor shortages, Estonian outlet Postimees reported. Estonia’s Department of Statistics recorded that 512 residents moved permanently to Russia in 2023, while in 2024 the number rose to 868.

The article’s authors point to a growing number of Russian propaganda materials carrying headlines such as “Study in your native language,” “Now they can freely speak their native language,” “In Russia, family and history are respected,” and “Welcome home.” “It is a good way to market relocation as a story of ‘spiritual and moral salvation,’” the outlet concluded.

Official media in the Pskov Region, along with local officials on their personal blogs, constantly promote images of successful relocation stories involving Russian-speaking residents of the Baltics. The Telegram channel of Governor’s Commissioner for Work with Compatriots Elena Polonskaya regularly posts stories about repatriates. For example, jeweler and artist Irena Pabo said in an interview with Pskov’s Silver Rain radio station that she had been afraid to remain in Estonia because “factories producing explosives and drones are being built there.”

Polonskaya also shared a report by the state broadcaster Vesti describing how Pskov had revived the “historic tradition of church services for settlers from other countries.”

“At the Church of St. George from the Ascent, services for Orthodox Latvians had been held every two weeks since the late 19th century. On the feast day of the Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, more than 70 settlers from various European countries gathered there. The liturgy for our compatriots was led by Metropolitan Matfey of Pskov and Porkhov,” the report stated.

It remains unclear what circumstances actually drove Daniil to flee alone across the ice. Most settlers and repatriates apply to move to Russia through consulates or intermediary firms that prepare a complete package of documents on a “turnkey” basis.

On the wall of one of these companies’ offices hangs a triple portrait: Donald Trump in the center, embracing Putin with his right arm and Kim Jong Un with his left. The North Korean dictator is holding a bottle of whiskey. Nikolai Kozolup, a balding man in a turtleneck sweater, gives the author of this article a video tour of the office. Another portrait of Putin hangs alone on a second wall, while a huge Russian flag covers the third. “Well, we’re in Russia,” Kozolup explains.

He then points to a bell mounted on the wall and says that he and his colleagues ring it “whenever Russia gets a new citizen.” There are thirty employees. From a small office in Moscow’s Taganka district, they help foreigners with Russian roots obtain Russian citizenship.

Aggressive advertising from this company and several competitors has in recent weeks been constantly shown to Russian-speaking Israelis, Britons, Germans, and apparently others as well. Demographer Salavat Abylkalikov of the New Eurasian Strategies Centre (NEST Centre) says he repeatedly encounters the ads in Germany: “I even tried filing complaints, but they still keep showing them. Russia is trying to attract new citizens from Western countries. In the view of the Russian authorities, they are preferable to Tajiks, Kyrgyz, or Uzbeks.”

Russian citizenship can be obtained in various ways. The standard migration route is the most common, but also the longest and most rejection-prone. First comes a temporary residence permit, then permanent residency, and only after five years – citizenship.

But in 2006, a shorter route to a passport bearing the double-headed eagle was introduced  – the Compatriot Resettlement Program. As the official website explains, the program is intended for people belonging, “as a rule, to ethnic groups historically residing on the territory of the Russian Federation,” as well as foreigners with Russian roots who have made a “free choice in favor of a spiritual, cultural, and legal connection with the Russian Federation.”

In 2006, Putin declared that demographics were “the most acute problem facing modern Russia.” It was after this statement that both the maternity capital program and the resettlement scheme were launched simultaneously, Salavat Abylkalikov recalls. At the same time, the expert stresses that the program was never designed as a repatriation effort. Rather, it was aimed at solving economic problems and attracting labor to the regions. Compatriots were expected to match specific professional qualifications, relocate to a strictly designated federal subject, and live and work there.

For example, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the Moscow Region do not accept compatriots at all. Krasnodar Region only accepts people from certain professions. This differs from repatriation programs operating in Germany, Israel, Greece, or Poland. There, once a person receives the necessary documents, they are free to move around the country.

Russia’s own repatriation program (running in parallel with the Compatriot Resettlement Program) only came into force on Jan. 1, 2024. By that point, it had already become clear that the compatriot resettlement effort had failed, Abylkalikov says. He recalls that in 2006 officials expected 300,000 people to arrive in the first year or first few years, followed eventually by millions. The program’s architects believed Russia was sufficiently wealthy and economically attractive to achieve this. At the same time, however, people were being directed toward far-from-prosperous regions such as Kaluga Region. Among the relatively attractive destinations, only Kaliningrad Region stood out.

From 2006 through 2024 inclusive, Russia received, according to the highest estimate, 1.2 million compatriots. A significant share of them were Ukrainian citizens arriving after 2014, the expert notes. It was then that the annual number of settlers rose into six figures.

In 2019, Putin also approved a new procedure for issuing Russian passports to residents of the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR. As a result, the number of “compatriot” settlers from 2020 onward once again reached six-digit levels.

Even at its peak, participants in the Compatriot Resettlement Program made up only a minority of those receiving Russian citizenship. The overwhelming majority followed – and continue to follow – the standard, lengthy route. Among citizens of Tajikistan alone, for example, 103,700 people received Russian passports in 2021, and 173,600 in 2022.

On Jan. 1, 2024, a third track appeared, allowing people to relocate quickly to any region and obtain a passport almost immediately – repatriation. According to figures from Russia’s Interior Ministry Migration Service, more than 5,500 foreigners and their family members received repatriate status in the very first year. During that period, 1,800 repatriates and their relatives entered Russia. In 2025, the number reached around 7,000.

In Interior Ministry statistics, repatriates and settlers are grouped together. At the same time, the share of repatriates has already reached 26%. Among citizens of the so-called “unfriendly states,” the figure is around 60%. But the overall number of arriving repatriates and compatriots has been steadily declining. It fell from 108,600 in 2019 to a record low of 26,700 in 2025.

One reason for the decline is stricter language screening. Under the resettlement program, most arrivals come from former Soviet republics. In 2024, a Russian-language exam was introduced for settlers from all countries except Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. According to Kommersant, more than half of applicants are now rejected as a result.

There is also a language exam for repatriates. But Nikolai Kozolup reassures me that it is not difficult: “The knowledge required is around a sixth- or seventh-grade level. I’m from Donetsk myself and took it seven years ago when I obtained citizenship. After that, there will be an interview. They’ll ask how you feel about Russian policy and how you feel about the ‘special military operation.’ We’ll conduct a role-playing session in advance so you know how to answer correctly.”

The first stage has to be completed in the country of origin – in my case, Israel. If everything goes smoothly, I will receive a so-called “repatriate’s booklet,” a green-colored document allowing relocation to Russia within five years.

After that, I would need to travel to Russia and apply for citizenship. Once the documents are reviewed, the next step is taking the oath of allegiance. A Russian passport for foreign travel can then be issued immediately.

Most clients, Kozolup admits, do not seek Russian citizenship in order to relocate permanently, but rather to comfortably live between two countries: “We’ve had many more people interested from Israel since the war began. Right now, six Israeli applications are on hold. They’re waiting for the consulate to reopen. For example, there’s one married couple in their sixties. They’re very afraid of the bombings.”

The interviewee tells the Insider that his firm previously specialized in helping Jews repatriate to Israel, but has now begun working in the opposite direction as well. I ask Kozolup whether I could speak with people who have already obtained citizenship. He replies that no one is willing to communicate, even through messaging apps. He answers the most sensitive questions himself.

Is there antisemitism in Russia? Kozolup immediately becomes animated and insists that there is not, adding that “the second most important person in the state, Putin’s right-hand man, is Jewish.” By “second most important person,” he means Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Kozolup also claims that when the war with Iran began, an aircraft was sent to Israel to evacuate Russian citizens. But that is not true.

Could I be sent to fight in the war against Ukraine? No, Kozolup assures me, such requirements apply only to people obtaining citizenship through the ordinary process. According to him, the practice supposedly does not extend to “compatriots” and repatriates.

For its services, the company charges 450,000 rubles for “turnkey” citizenship processing or 300,000 for the first stage alone – up to obtaining the repatriate’s booklet. Of course, everything can be done independently and almost free of charge, Kozolup tells me, but the number of rejections grows every year, he warns, sending over migration statistics for the standard application route.

A second company also responds quickly. Its rates are lower – 250,000 rubles. I am promised repatriate status within three to three-and-a-half months. Another month would then be needed to prepare the documents, followed by an additional three-month wait for citizenship.

At that office, I am told that most of their clients come not from Israel but from other countries: “A lot of people are arriving from Germany because boys and girls are being forced to use the same bathroom there. Right now, the main thing for you is to decide which program you’ll use. If it’s the Compatriot Resettlement Program, you’ll receive relocation payments. Repatriates do not receive those payments, but they aren’t tied to a specific region.”

“If you have a choice of how to move, then go only as a repatriate. No region will be able to reject you,” Anatoly Bublik explains to his TikTok followers. He and his wife moved to Russia from Germany immediately after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and he now heads the movement “Path Home.”

On social media, Bublik alternates between talking about the collapse of Western civilization and offering practical advice to people relocating. For example, he says that the spouse who is younger and has a more in-demand profession should apply under the program. If the family has an adult child, it is best for that child to become the primary applicant. Russia evaluates potential settlers and repatriates primarily in terms of their usefulness to the country. “The program was created not to save people, but to solve the issue of labor reserves for the regions,” Bublik candidly admits.

A major German news portal, T-online, directly describes Bublik as “one of the key figures paving the way for people from ‘unfriendly countries’ to Putin’s Russia.” His movement cooperates with the “Welcome to Russia” foundation, established by exposed Russian spy and current State Duma deputy Maria Butina. In Germany, the foundation also works with “My Russia,” an organization run by German Putin admirer Alina Lipp and Austrian activist Martin Held, as well as with Jakob Pinneker’s OKA agency.

Political scientist Felix Krawatzek, a senior researcher at Berlin’s Centre for East European and International Studies(ZOiS), provided The Insider with the following statistics: as of 2019, Germany was home to 3.52 million people with Russian roots. Of them, 39% were immigrants from Russia or their descendants, while 35% came from Kazakhstan.

The number of German citizens who moved to Russia in 2024 totaled 3,210 people, and over the past decade the figure has fluctuated between 2,000 and 3,200, excluding the pandemic year of 2020. If one includes people residing in Germany without German citizenship, the expert notes, then 11,070 people moved from Germany to Russia in 2024, while 16,525 moved in the opposite direction – from Russia to Germany. On a national scale, the numbers may appear small, but they still amount to thousands of Germans each year.

One of the destinations promoted as a place for overseas compatriots to “return to the motherland” is Dobrograd, an entirely private township in the Kovrov District of Vladimir Region.

Galina Guseva says she moved to Dobrograd from Israel. In a video, she poses among birch trees. Guseva explains that she never felt at home in the Jewish state, that Israeli homes lack heating and are cold indoors, and that she is very happy to now be living in Russia.

Dobrograd is being built by a local patriotic businessman who made his fortune selling mattresses. As early as 2017, the town’s master plan included a military-patriotic camp. Residents actively support the war against Ukraine. Maria Butina is now a frequent visitor to the settlement, while advertisements promoting relocation to Dobrograd are shown to Russian-speaking residents of Israel and Europe.

The project’s website offers foreign buyers free assistance in obtaining Russian citizenship. Newly naturalized Russian citizens living in Dobrograd also regularly give interviews explaining their reasons for moving.

For example, a German man named Maxim, the son of a repatriate from Russia, says on camera: “Russians do not understand how free they are. In Germany now, having an alternative opinion has become bad. An alternative opinion means family, children, God.”

What follows is a lengthy monologue about transgender people, as well as high taxes and expensive utility services in Europe.

Strangely enough, the main motive for Germans deciding to move to Russia is not even “traditional values,” but economics, Felix Krawatzek explains:

“Despite its real economic problems, Russia has managed to project the image of a successfully developing country. And this works especially well on people who are economically dissatisfied in Germany. The second factor is traditional values. The supposed ‘decline of the West,’ LGBT propaganda. These topics are widely discussed and evoke strong emotions. But I don’t think they are the main argument for people leaving Germany.”

Indeed, if one examines advertisements promoting relocation to Russia, the much-discussed traditional values are always mentioned, but are rarely placed at the forefront. The main emphasis is on claims that would seem strange to anyone familiar with Russian reality – for example, that “Russia is a country of stability and growth,” that it offers “a high level of service and comfort,” and “safe streets with low crime rates.”

“I just couldn’t take it anymore, guys. As someone born in Russia, I can tolerate a lot. I have a very high tolerance for a shitty life. But even I couldn’t handle it anymore, because the internet didn’t work, crime was rising, and the police did nothing. I couldn’t even work online properly. Everything in this country is falling apart,” Russian American Sergey Bronshtein complains in a video recorded on May 6.

By that point, Bronshtein was already in Turkey, firmly determined never to return to Russia. The journey from saying “This place is practically paradise compared to America” to fleeing the country took less than six years.

Sergey was born in the USSR, but his parents moved him to the United States while he was in high school. Over 25 years, he never came to love America. In 2019, he relocated to Moscow and on Aug. 27 recorded an enthusiastic video on Pushkin Square in which he said: “I like everything about Russia!.. I even like the police here. People who say the police here are supposedly bad don’t understand what American police are like. At least the police here have some logic and sense of justice… This is basically paradise compared to America.”

For his English-language videos about life in Russia, Bronshtein launched a separate channel called Meet Sergei. At first, he filmed videos about borscht, pelmeni, and the Moscow metro system – while also criticizing the United States.

In 2022, Sergey claimed that “Western sanctions are not working.” By 2023, his tone had become more restrained: “Despite everything happening, for the most part everything looks normal, people are living their ordinary lives.”

In February 2024, Bronshtein released a Russian-language video titled “Moving to Russia Was a Huge Mistake.” In it, he says that channels promoting relocation to Russia present a distorted picture of the country and describes numerous problems he personally encountered in what he calls his historical homeland.

First, he says he was labeled an LGBT person and became the target of harassment. Second, despite his education and American banking experience, he was unable to find work over the course of four years.

Housing turned out to be the worst problem of all. “At first I rented an apartment – the landlord kept showing up and bothering me. There’s a huge amount of real estate fraud. It’s very difficult to buy anything. So if anyone is thinking about returning to Russia, just know: you won’t make much money here, you won’t find work, but there will be ‘human warmth,’” Sergey says, reflecting on his experience.

On Nov. 24, 2025, Sergey posted another video with the same title, this time in English:

“I’m making this video for people sitting in the U.S., watching videos about Russia and traditional values and thinking: ‘I’ll move to Russia because I hate LGBT people, gay pride parades, and all that stuff.’ Well, after living in Russia, you’ll start missing even the gay pride parades. Not literally, of course. But you’ll run into so many other problems that you’ll start missing things that existed in the West.”

In the video, he says that “it is impossible to do business in Russia if you do not deal with criminals,” and talks about low salaries, tiny pensions, and extremely high prices. Even his affection for the Russian police completely disappeared over the course of five and a half years.

“People treated me like shit. I have a video on my channel about a terrorist neighbor who attacked me. And when I went to the Russian police, they did nothing,” Sergey complained. “They’re even worse than American police, who at least fight criminals.”

Stories of settlers who became disillusioned after moving to Russia periodically surface in the media. For example, African American Francine Villa relocated to Moscow in 2019. Russia Today even produced a propaganda film about her in which she explained that she had left the United States because of racism and in search of safety. In the summer of 2025, Francine posted a video showing her bruised face. She described being beaten and subjected to racist abuse by neighbors in her apartment building.

A British man named Ben married a Russian woman and has lived in Kursk since 2021. He documents his life on the YouTube channel Ben the Brit. In December 2025, he decided to debunk some of the more rosy myths about Russia. He complained about prices, bureaucracy, landlords unwilling to rent to foreigners, racism, and interrogations by security services. At the same time, he explained to viewers abroad that his new home was nothing like a conservative paradise: Russia has extremely high abortion rates and large numbers of children growing up without fathers.

Leo and Chantal Heyr moved to Russia from the United States for ideological reasons – to get away from LGBT culture. Soon afterward, the Americans found themselves without jobs or means of support: Leo handed over all of his savings to the son of a Baptist pastor who had hosted the family on his farm. The pastor’s son “invested” the money and never returned it. The Heyrs’ children, who did not speak Russian, were not accepted into a Russian school. In the end, the older sons returned to the United States. The parents, however, remain in Russia and are still trying to build a life there.

Of course, after moving to Russia, repatriates encounter a reality very different from what they expected. But very few of those who become disappointed speak publicly about it. People do not like talking about their failures, Dr. Krawatzek explains. Television and YouTube feature only success stories.

Alina Yashina-Schaefer, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, shared with The Insider two examples from her research – the stories of people who moved to Russia but later returned home.

One of them was a man in his thirties from Petropavl, Kazakhstan, who had earlier relocated to Russia under the Compatriot Resettlement Program. He was motivated not by abstract ideas, but by a sense of hopelessness about his prospects in Kazakhstan. But the move completely disillusioned him. “He described his experience in Russia in harsh terms, recalling how he was treated ‘like a pig’ and as a ‘second-class person,’ characterizing the experience as deeply humiliating. Importantly, this disappointment not only changed his perception of Russia but actively reshaped his sense of belonging, leading him to recognize Petropavl as his home – the place where he wanted to be,” Yashina-Schaefer says. In the end, he returned home.

The second participant in her research was a man in his thirties from Estonia. He left the economically depressed city of Narva for Russia. “He moved to Moscow to study, seeking to affirm his sense of self-worth and achieve recognition,” Yashina-Schaefer explains. “However, paradoxically, he recalled that during his studies he began to grow increasingly distant from Russia. Instead of finding a sense of belonging there, he ultimately arrived at a new understanding – that his real sense of home was in Estonia.”

Many settlers note that the social realities of life in Russia are far removed from what they had been promised. “Immediate integration into society did not occur. Instead, some settlers encountered indifference, humiliation, or even exclusion from local residents, who perceived them as outsiders,” the researcher says. “A shared language and historical ties did not automatically lead to acceptance into civic or ethnic communities.”

In an interview with The Insider, Felix Krawatzek sketches a portrait of the average Russian-speaking German who wants to move to Russia. Low economic status, low educational attainment voting for the far-right or far-left, and – importantly – consume media in a very specific way. They are deeply skeptical of Germany’s traditional media outlets and prefer to get information through social networks. They either believe that objective truth does not exist at all, or that German media conceal it in the interests of the government and big business.

At the end of 2025, Dr. Krawatzek and his colleagues studied the attitudes of German citizens with Russian or Kazakhstani backgrounds. They found that on some issues these groups differ significantly from the broader German population.

“There are two key differences,” the expert explains. When asked whether Russia is “the country that most strongly supports traditional values,” 75% of German citizens answer negatively. But among immigrants from Russia, only 50% disagree with that statement, while among repatriates and descendants of repatriates from Kazakhstan, the figure falls to 44%.

The second question concerned whether Russia and Germany could be partners. Only 6% of respondents agreed with that proposition, while among people with Russian or Kazakhstani backgrounds the figure exceeded 20%.

Interestingly, the views of Russian-speaking Germans who obtained citizenship through Jewish ancestry differ from the broader pattern. For this group, the desire to move to Russia is not typical.

There are also people who want to relocate to a more “traditional” place centered on “spiritual values,” but are unwilling to move to Russia because they do not want to lose the ability to travel regularly to Europe, Dr. Krawatzek notes. Such people instead relocate to countries friendly to Russia – Serbia, North Macedonia, and, until the recent elections, Hungary.

In a broader perspective, emigration is always accompanied by return migration. Some people fail to find their place, some get divorced, notes Yannis Panayiotidis, a historian and migration researcher at the University of Vienna. Many simply miss their homeland. In an interview with The Insider, the scholar gives the example of an elderly couple who moved back to Russia even before 2022. Germany had proved too crowded for them, and the couple relocated to a village in Altai.

More generally, however, the repatriation program in Germany, launched in 1987, was designed from the outset to reduce the number of people returning, Dr. Panayiotidis explains:

“People moved as entire families, sometimes even entire collective farms. In many cases, they no longer have a social network left in Russia or Kazakhstan. Often, the collective farm where they once lived no longer even exists. That means there is nowhere to return to. It is one thing to talk about how much you dislike Germany, and quite another to actually leave. People may be politically unhappy – and many genuinely are. But economically their lives are fairly successful. And in many cases, their children no longer speak Russian. So most choose to stay here and vote for pro-Russian parties.”

Before 2022, some people moved for practical reasons. They understood that knowledge of the Russian language was not especially valuable in Germany, while in Russia, knowledge of German could help secure a good job, Yannis Panayiotidis notes. But now everything has changed: “Under current circumstances, moving to Russia may be more of a political statement. A person has to be very committed to actually do it. And this propaganda is not aimed only at Russian speakers. Russia has recently introduced a ‘values visa.’”

The “values visa” is indeed a new phenomenon. Since August 2024, it has been issued to foreigners who “share Russian spiritual and moral values.” It is through this visa that Europeans, Americans, and Canadians without Russian roots relocate to the country. Such people are frequently featured on Russian television, but their real numbers remain small. During the first eight months, Russia managed to attract only 800 applicants.

From a demographic standpoint, that figure is negligible, notes Salavat Abylkalikov of the New Eurasian Strategies Centre (NEST Centre). In general, he is skeptical about the state’s entire policy in this area.

Before the war, professional demographers frequently proposed migration policy measures, but after passing through ministries and government agencies, the proposals would emerge almost unrecognizable, the expert explains. “The security services tried to ban and restrict things. Economists wanted to attract more young people. Everyone was pulling in their own direction. The previous Migration Policy Concept expired in 2025. Now a new one has been adopted through 2035. Its primary focus is no longer demographics or economic resources, but security and keeping unwanted people out.”

Migration from Central Asia is being deliberately restricted, the expert argues. At the same time, residents of those countries themselves are increasingly reluctant to move because of rising xenophobic and anti-migrant sentiment, says Salavat Abylkalikov:

“Against the backdrop of war, society needs a scapegoat. Liberals have left, LGBT people have kept their heads down, and people with distinctly Central Asian features became a convenient target. After the Crocus terrorist attack, the situation became even more acute. At the same time, it is completely unclear what can be done about the demographic situation. You can try to raise the birth rate, but so far no one has really succeeded. France and the Scandinavian countries spend 2.5–3.5% of GDP on family policy, and even there the effect is limited. So what can Russia expect, given its tiny spending in this area?”

The new repatriation program launched in 2024 more or less resembles what other countries offer. But, in the demographer’s view, it arrived fatally late. And not only because of the war, which damaged the country’s image and economy.

Compatriots abroad are subject to the same demographic cycles as Russia itself. And those cycles stretch back to World War II. After the war, millions of people were never born because their potential parents died at the front. As a result, that generation was significantly smaller and had fewer children in the 1970s, creating another demographic trough. The cycle repeated itself among their grandchildren in the 1990s. Now yet another generation has turned over, and Russia is approaching a new demographic collapse. There simply are not enough young and working-age compatriots abroad to fill the gap, no matter how aggressively they are lured back.