Short video clips of Germans who say they moved to Russia in search of “traditional values” are drawing huge audiences on TikTok and YouTube and being recycled by state broadcasters as part of a Kremlin narrative about Western migration to Russia.
Since August 2024, when President Vladimir Putin signed a decree promising “humanitarian support” to people who share what the Kremlin describes as traditional Russian spiritual and moral values, some foreigners have been eligible for expedited residency permits without standard quotas or language and history requirements. A follow‑up decree in December broadened the rollout to recruit foreigners deemed successful in areas such as culture and sport.
Russian state outlets have highlighted newcomers without Russian ancestry. One frequently featured couple, Remo and Birgit Kirsch from Potsdam, relocated to Nizhny Novgorod. Remo Kirsch told DW he left Germany because he believes Western societies have “lost values,” opposing what he termed gender and LGBT policies, and that he and his wife wanted a quiet rural life. He has not explained whether the Russian war in Ukraine influenced their decision.
Kirsch sold a farm in Germany in 2021, bought land near Nizhny Novgorod and plans an eco‑village of eight houses for like‑minded families. He was appointed an adviser to the regional governor and received fast‑tracked Russian citizenship by presidential order. German media have described him as part of a network that helps burnish Russia’s image abroad; Kirsch denies being paid but has said his citizenship may have been a kind of reward.
Chef Maksim Zitnikov also received accelerated citizenship after publicly asking Putin for it in an April 2025 video conference; he became a Russian citizen a month later. Zitnikov says he left Germany in 2023 to protect his children from “non‑traditional values,” though German records show earlier financial troubles and a catering business that closed and was later declared bankrupt.
A recurring theme in Russian reporting is a portrayal of German child protection services as heavy‑handed. The Civic Assistance Committee, a Moscow NGO that helps migrants, notes that many of the Germans moving now are ethnic Germans who originally emigrated from post‑Soviet states to Germany in the 1990s and still speak Russian. One high‑profile example amplified by Russian media is nurse Katharina Minich, who moved to Russia in 2016 after saying German authorities had taken two of her daughters. Russian outlets gave the case wide coverage, but one daughter, Melissa, later returned to Germany as an adult and publicly accused her parents of abuse.
Konstantin Troizky of the Civic Assistance Committee says the image of German authorities “snatching” children is widespread in Russian discourse, despite statistics that suggest Russian parents face a higher per‑child risk of losing parental rights than German parents.
Many migrants chronicle their new lives on social platforms. Influencers such as Liza Graf attract large German‑language followings. Investigations by the Latvia‑based outlet IStories found that foreign bloggers are frequently taken on press trips organized by Duma deputy Maria Butina, who founded the Welcome to Russia foundation. “Welcome to Russia” and private initiatives such as Austrian‑born Martin Held’s Mya Rossiya (My Russia) offer relocation advice, language courses and organized tours; the My Russia website says it has received more than 170,000 requests for moving assistance.
IStories and the Austrian daily The Standard reported that Held and his NGO may have received funding from RT, the Kremlin broadcaster, possibly amounting to as much as half a million euros. Held has denied receiving money or benefits from the Russian state or RT and says My Russia is not a political project.
Other organizations involved include Anatoly Bublik’s Put Domoj (Way Home) and Jakob Pinneker’s OKA, a Nizhny Novgorod recruitment agency for foreign workers. Way Home publishes relocation advice and alarmist commentary—at times wondering aloud whether Europe might build “concentration camps for Russians”—and presents itself as patriotic volunteer work while cooperating with state bodies such as Rossotrudnichestvo. Bublik has acknowledged working with official institutions but declined to be interviewed for this reporting.
OKA markets job opportunities, farmland and a lifestyle change without mentioning the war in Ukraine or the state crackdown on dissent. Pinneker acknowledges reports of foreigners detained for alleged anti‑war activity but says people continue to relocate; he told reporters his agency moved 91 people in its first year.
Official Russian Interior Ministry figures record 369 German citizens moving to Russia in the year after Putin’s “Shared Values” decree. Observers, including experts at the Civic Assistance Committee, say media portrayals of a mass German exodus to Russia overstate the scale: the numbers are small and the phenomenon is amplified by curated social‑media content and state promotion.
This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton.