Videos of Germans who moved to Russia seeking “traditional values” are racking up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok and YouTube. These new residents regularly appear on state television as the Kremlin promotes a narrative of Western immigration to Russia.
In August 2024 President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to provide “humanitarian support” to people who share traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, making them eligible for expedited residency permits regardless of quotas or language and history knowledge. A further decree in December aimed to recruit foreigners successful in fields such as culture and sports.
State media spotlight immigrants without Russian roots. Remo and Birgit Kirsch from Potsdam, who relocated to Nizhny Novgorod, have become frequent subjects of reports. Remo told DW he left Germany because he believes the West has lost values and opposes “gender and LGBT policy,” saying he and his wife want to live quietly in the countryside. He does not address how the Russian war in Ukraine factors into that choice.
In 2021 Kirsch sold his German farm, bought land in Nizhny Novgorod and plans an eco-village of eight houses for like-minded people. He was recently named an advisor to the regional governor and received fast-tracked Russian citizenship by order of Putin. German media say Kirsch is part of a propaganda network boosting Russia’s image; Kirsch denies being paid, though he concedes his citizenship might have been a form of “reward.”
Chef Maksim Zitnikov also received rapid citizenship after requesting it from Putin in an April 2025 video conference; he became a Russian citizen a month later. Zitnikov says he left Germany in 2023 to shield his children from “non-traditional values,” but German records show he had prior financial problems and a catering business that was closed and later declared bankrupt.
A recurring theme in Russian coverage is German child protection services portrayed as ruthless. The Civic Assistance Committee, a Moscow-based NGO helping migrants, notes many Germans now moving to Russia are actually ethnic Germans who emigrated from post‑Soviet states to Germany in the 1990s and speak Russian. One high-profile case is nurse Katharina Minich, who moved in 2016 after saying German authorities had taken two daughters from her. Russian media amplified the story, but one daughter, Melissa, later returned to Germany at adulthood and publicly accused her parents of abuse.
Konstantin Troizky of the Civic Assistance Committee says the image of German authorities snatching children is pervasive in Russian discourse, even though statistics indicate Russian parents face a higher risk of losing parental rights per thousand children than German parents.
Many migrants document their new lives on social media. Influencers like Liza Graf attract large German-language audiences. Journalists at the Latvia-based IStories reported that foreign bloggers are often taken on press junkets arranged by Duma deputy Maria Butina, founder of the “Welcome to Russia” foundation. Welcome to Russia and partners such as Austrian-born Martin Held’s “Moya Rossiya” offer relocation advice, language courses and organized trips; the My Russia site claims over 170,000 requests for moving assistance.
Investigations by IStories and the Austrian daily The Standard allege Held and his NGO received funding from RT, the Kremlin broadcaster, possibly up to half a million euros. Held denies receiving money or benefits from the Russian state or RT and says My Russia is not political.
Other groups involved include Anatoly Bublik’s “Put Domoj” (Way Home) and Jakob Pinneker’s OKA, a Nizhny Novgorod agency recruiting foreign workers. Way Home publishes relocation tips and alarmist pieces (for example questioning whether Europe will build “concentration camps for Russians”) and portrays itself as patriotic volunteer work while cooperating with state bodies like Rossotrudnichestvo. Bublik has spoken of such cooperation but declined DW’s interview.
OKA promotes career opportunities, farmland and lifestyle benefits without mentioning the war in Ukraine or the repression of dissent. Pinneker says despite cases of foreigners detained for alleged anti‑war activities, people still move to Russia. He claims his agency relocated 91 people in its first year. Russian Interior Ministry statistics put the number of German citizens moving to Russia in the year after Putin’s “Shared Values Decree” at 369, but experts at the Civic Assistance Committee and other observers say media portrayals of mass migration from Germany to Russia greatly exaggerate the scale.
This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton