As many as 1,500 “ideological immigrants,” including 127 Americans, have applied for temporary residence in Russia in the last year.

Two years ago, Derek and DeAnna Huffman were desperate to leave Humble, a suburb of Houston. Their three daughters, they believed, were being brainwashed by public school and mainstream media to support LGBTQ rights. American culture in general no longer offered white people the same opportunities as other races, they said.

The couple yearned to live in a place that shared their “Christian values” and where they “weren’t going to be discriminated against” as white, politically-conservative Christians.

So in March, the Huffmans became the first family to move to a community planned for fellow English-speakers some 30 miles west of Moscow, a project they had been following online run by long-term American expat and former Kremlin-sponsored RT host Tim Kirby. The family is among a small but growing number of Americans who have moved to Russia because the United States, in their opinion, has become too “woke."

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    23 hours ago

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/16/how-religious-is-your-state/

    Religious profile of Mississippi

    1st most religious state overall

    61% (1st) say religion is very important in their lives

    54% (1st) say they attend religious services at least monthly

    62% (1st) say they pray daily

    74% (1st) say they believe in God or a universal spirit with absolute certainty

    50% in Mississippi are highly religious, based on an overall scale of religiousness

    There was a much easier and better choice than Russia if they wanted to up their “more Christian environment” game.

    • DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      23 minutes ago

      They also are the poorest state, they have the worst education, and last I checked the highest murder rate in the country, they also have probably the highest ratio of black to white because they brought in so many slaves.

      They seem to be the nicest Americans though. At least at face value. America has this traditional image of being a very friendly people, and Mississippi might be at the top of the states for that.

      The roads suck ass. People joke that if a woman in Mississippi has all of her teeth she is considered a princess.

      Seeing groups hated by everyone else is always interesting to my morbid curious mind. Mississippi is the perfect example of an extremely poor state in the wealthiest nation in history. For the past 100 years pretty much every politician has hated Mississippians like most Americans and the neglect of the people there is astonishing. The ones who still have a little class are pure survivors.

      It was named after a native American tribe or word like many places down here, it was one that one of my ancestors was part of or that same general group. She was actually royalty in the tribe. The tribes from that area were pretty cool. One of the few examples of a truly matriarchal, and somewhat polyamorous and very peaceful society in history. You can still see those genes floating around in the friendliness and general respect for women in the south, and also the often suppressed somewhat gender fluidity of many in the south.

      One of the great ironies of history is in the past, these parts of the world where there was fertile farmland used to be the most desirable and best spots. Now they are some of the worst because of industrialization and high global temperatures making the south nearly unbearable to live in.

      Well anyways I’m done with my little bit of history you didn’t ask for.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Yeah, but the people in the article said the real reason explicitly: LGBT is illegal there.

        In the US we still have a lot of first amendment rights and we (all) still have the protection of Lawrence v Texas.

    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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      21 hours ago

      Too many black people in Mississippi. Even if they are religious. Highest amount of African Americans percentage wise in the US.

      • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        I feel like that’s because Chicago is all people hear of. The rest of Illinois is most definitely not that.

        Meanwhile Ohio has the 3CS (Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus) and smaller cities like Akron, Toledo, Dayton, Youngstown, Athens, etc.