An American Catholic Family Moves to Russia (Guest: Jozef Schutzman)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Why would a large traditional Catholic American family decide to move to Russia, of all places? We're going to find that out today on today's podcast. Hello, I'm Eric Sammons, your host, editor in chief of Crisis magazine. Welcome to the program. Before we get started, just want to encourage people to hit the like button. Subscribe the channel, let other people know about what we're doing here. We really do appreciate it when you do that. That tells the almighty algorithm to share our posts, our videos with other people. So appreciate when you do that. Also, subscribe to our email newsletter. Just go to crisismagazine.com, put in your email address, and we will send you our articles once a day in the morning. And you can also follow us on social media, just risismag at all the major social media channels. Okay. I think we have one of our more unique guests that we've had here on, on Crisis Point, Joseph Sutzman. I, you know, we did it right beforehand, and of course, I would mess it up. Schutzman is a traditional Catholic who grew up in America and works in IT. In 2023, he and his wife and six children moved to Russia. He is the host of the YouTube channel Home in Russia. Big American Family in Russia. Very descriptive title that says it all, I guess. Welcome to the program, Joseph. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Thanks for having me on, Eric. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Like I was saying before, I think you're a very unique guess as far as your backstory of what you've done. I think it's very fascinating. As soon as I saw. I don't even know how it came up in my YouTube algorithm or something. I just saw a video you made, and I was like, wait a second, what? What? And of course, the traditional Catholic angle was a big one for me. I was like, okay, this is somebody who probably, I probably know people who know him because, you know, traditional Catholic world isn't that big in America. So we all know each other somehow through like one or two degrees of separation. So I was just like, what the heck? Why is he doing this? So I want to talk about that, but I just want to first just kind of lay out your background. So just tell us a little bit about yourself growing up. Obviously, you grew up in America. Did you grow up traditional Catholic? Did you convert? Like, kind of? What's your story growing up here? [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah, so I was born actually in Virginia, but very quickly moved to Texas after that. But my father went to Christendom college and whatnot. And my mother, same familiar institutions that Catholics would be familiar with. Conservative Catholic Colleges. I was but raised in Texas, so I consider myself to be a Texan for the last 10 years or so, was living in the Missouri, Kansas area. But, yeah, I've been traditional Catholic since I was like, seven years old, so over 30 years. Okay. So, yeah, that's. That's been my. My background. My. I was oldest of 12 children. My wife was the fourth of 13. My wife was Australian. Yeah, so it's a. There's a. There's a lot of story there, for sure. But, yeah, big family backgrounds, traditional Catholic backgrounds. Made the tours, shall we say, you know, went to. Grew up going to the fraternity, went to the Society when I was, like, 18, went to the Institute of Christ the King, familiar with many of the priests from the different orders, have good friends in all of those places, so. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Oh, very good. Okay. So, I mean, yeah, you guys. You definitely have the trad cred there, both you and your wife. So your wife's from Australia, not America. So how did you guys meet? [00:03:50] Speaker A: We actually met online. Catholic Match. And. Yeah, well, I was looking for a wife for 10 years, but, you know, faced with the same perennial problem that any of us millennials were stuck with. Where are all the good women? And all the women are like, where are all the good men? And, you know, where are you guys? But, you know, we're all over the place. You just need to actually put, you know, put the time in, I guess you'd say. But, yeah, I think we just. We found out for. Between me and my wife, if she lived about 500 miles further, that would have been the opposite. And far as we could be away from each other. But, yeah, we met in 2015, or I started messaging her in 2015. A couple months later, I flew down there with a ring. Somehow, her father graciously allowed me to marry, you know, gave me her hand, and then we were married in November later on that year. So, you know. You know. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Okay. [00:04:49] Speaker A: As. [00:04:49] Speaker B: As a. As a father who just in the past two years has. Have had two of his daughters get married, I can just. I'm just trying to picture her dad in Australia, this American guy coming into town and saying, I want to take your. Your daughter with me to America. And I. I gotta imagine it was at least a little bit like hesitation, trepidation, something. [00:05:14] Speaker A: No, she's got good parents. And I think it was just very clear that both of us wanted to get married. We knew what we were looking for, and everything just fell into place. And God made it very clear. So blessed be God. Six children now Seven children later, I think it's working out okay. [00:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's good to hear. Yeah, it's good to hear. So that when you were courting your. Your now wife and, and messaging her, stuff like that, I'm sure at some point you probably talked about where you want to live, like where you want to settle down with a family or at least early in marriage. What were those conversations like back when you were dating and first. First getting. When you're first married? [00:05:59] Speaker A: Well, that's a fantastic question. I think that, you know, me being the eldest and her definitely being on the older side of the family, you know, very close to, you know, remembering what that was like in the early days, you know, as your parents are developing their parental techniques and whatnot, and growing with that, you have very, I guess it was very fresh in us that the high ideals that we wanted to preserve with the grace of God. And so we just very quickly, kind of looking at the world at that time, because certainly her father was very clear to me. He said, look, you know, my daughter, she loves her country, and if, you know, she ever needs to move back, will you commit to doing that? And I just said, well, if that's what's best for the children, then absolutely. And, you know, good man that he was. He kind of, wow. He. He was, he was impressed by that. And he was like, okay, you're thinking first about the children. That's the main focus. That's why we get involved in this committing matrimony business. And so he said that that's a good answer. And so we kind of looked at Australia versus America, and we decided that it was going to be better in the long term between the two that we. That America was a better option for tradition, for, you know, conservative values. I mean, you know, Australia sadly has become quite the nanny state, especially since the most recent unpleasantnesses of the last few years. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:38] Speaker A: So. So, yeah, that's where we ended up and we moved to Kansas City, and then we moved out to St. Mary's for a few years. And then we just said, look again, after this kind of 20, 20, 2021 garbage, we said, let's move out to the countryside. But, wow, when people came out after all of that, people were radically worse. I feel like, as a people, we were radically worse off than before. A lot of ideologies got pushed a lot harder. A lot of people tension built up, and you got to really see what Americans were like under pressure. And I think we all, if we think about it, we remember that was that was not pretty. That was pretty daggone ugly. We were. We're on the worst end of the spectrum in my opinion, for how that all went down. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Yes. So you're in Kansas city, you said St. Mary's a little bit. For those who aren't familiar, there's a very strong society of St. Pius X presence in St. Mary's I think that's. Isn't that where their seminary is? [00:08:43] Speaker A: No, but that's what I think the highest concentration of traditional Catholics that exists in that. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember when we did our top 10 places for Catholic families to top 10 cities in America for Catholic families to live. That was. Got honorable mention or something like that because. And I was like, okay, so. And I know some people actually who live there, but then you move out in the country. And so this was all kind of leading up to 2020. I feel like if we say the c word that YouTube will then like do something to our video. So maybe we'll just say the virus of unknown origin or whatever. You know, when everything, when the, you know what hit the fan in 2020, where were you when everything broke in 2020? Where were you at that point? [00:09:25] Speaker A: So I was in Kansas City. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Okay, Kansas City. [00:09:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was dealing with, you know, all the, again the, the accoutrement that they required us to wear and all this stuff, but I wasn't interested in that. And I got to see, you know, grown men, you know, wanting to get in fights with me because I wasn't, you know, doing that, complying. And even when I was holding my two years, two year old hand, walking around, some, you know, guy wants to fight with me in a, you know, high end up scale part of, you know, Kansas City. I'm like, you people are crazy. So that's when we decided to move out to the country. But yeah, it just. And of course I would say that as far as things go, I don't know where if St. Mary's was honorable mention, but I really love that place and I really have a lot of friends there. I have a long history with St. Mary's but even then I was beginning to see that this normalization as we do, we go in cycles in American politics, right? You know, you got presidents pushing, you know, very liberal stuff. And then you have a new president that comes in and everybody's like, oh, okay, somebody who's normal, he's going to fix everything, he's going to save anything. And we all know the reality is that if anything happens, there's just A consolidation, everybody catches up and then we move to a new era and we accept everything that's kind of happened before kind of en masse. That's my opinion anyways. [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, it's common among Catholics, particularly among traditional Catholics here in America, to get to a point where you're very disillusioned with our culture, with our, with our society. I mean, we all know the problems particularly, I mean, they've been there for a long time. I'm old enough to remember them. You know, I remember how Bill Clinton was the worst in the 1990s. Now I almost look at him fondly in comparison, which is sad. But really, over the last 10 years in particular, there's, there seems to be a ramping up of like from the end of the Obama era all the way to today, there seemed to be a real ramping up in a lot of the evil and terribleness and the trans and all that stuff. And so that's not uncommon for Catholics to particularly tradition ethics, to look for places outside of maybe the cities. A lot of people do homesteading. St. Mary's is actually an example of this going there. Some people go to maybe somewhere like Steubenville, Ohio. You know, you have your different places that you go to try to be around like minded people. But really, let's be blunt, it's to escape also the troubles that, that inflict our culture. And so would you just say before, like Russia was even in your brain as a possibility? Would you say that kind of was your mentality as well? Like, what can I do to protect my kids? Where can I put some roots down? Is that kind of the way you were thinking? [00:12:15] Speaker A: Absolutely, 100%. You know, this has actually become a little bit of a debate and I get various different messages and comments to this effect. You know, you're a coward, you're a trader, you know, all these sorts of things. And you know, I've seen a lot of people or several people kind of say, well, I was running to something, I wasn't running away from something. And I'm like, wow, that's, you know, a bit strange to be ashamed to say that you're running away from something. So people just want to think about that as a negative context. You know, there is a fight or a flight decision that needs to be made in any of these kinds of circumstances. And fleeing is just as acceptable in the right circumstances as fighting is. And you know, I spent a lot of time online trying to do, you know, battle. I went and started a Podcast to, like, try to help people enrich their faith so they could be stronger. I mean, let's try to actually fight here. And, you know, I just came to the conclusion. It's just, you know, first of all, my family is first. My children are first. They're all little children. My oldest is seven. And I can, you know, try to fight or I can take them away and, you know, flee from the country. Like my wife says, you know, the children, there's. The battlefield is no place for children. And I think all of us as Catholics, you know, good Catholics, families that have Christ at the center of their home, that is what is top of mind for every father is to how do I protect my children's future? And it should be spiritually first. And so this, this society, I feel like we've crossed too many red lines and we're going to keep crossing them. This has a lot to do, of course, with Fatima. This did not, like you're alluding to it did not. Wasn't my first choice to go. Go to Russia. I was thinking, first, I just need to get out of here. Where can we go? So we put a globe on the table and, you know, we. I didn't just spin it and blindly point at it, but I was like, let, let's. Let's look at the realistic options. I mean, I was. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Let me take a step back, though, real quick, because, you know, like we were saying, like, every good Catholic does a little bit of this fight or flight themselves. Because, for example, if you don't send your kids to the local public school, that's a flight because. Because that's the default in America, whether we like or not. The default is you send your kids to Catholics. I mean, I'm sorry, to public schools. Because it's free. Free and all that. And so if you don't send your kids to public schools, you send to Catholic schools. That's a flight from public schools. If you decide not to go to Catholic schools. So they don't. You don't think they're Catholic enough, you homeschool, that's a flight. If you decide not to attend your parish that you live in, but instead attend a. A better parish, however you want to define that somewhere else, you're a flight from your. So that just want. I can't put that in context, but there's a big difference between, like, okay, I live in Ohio and I decide, okay, let's say I live in California and I want to go to. And I said, move to Texas. I think a lot of People will be like, okay, that makes sense because California's got all these problems, Texas does not have those problems. But they're like, I think most people that, that's most Americans, there's no concept of going outside the borders. So what was it that got you just even jumping to okay, I need to leave America. Not just I need to leave my community or my state or something like that, but I need to leave America. Like what was it that really. Because I think that's the radicals that's, in my mind that's the radical step as much as deciding on Russia is I'm going to leave America. And I think that's something a lot of Americans, the initial like that seems a step too far, crazy, maybe even a little treasonous or traitorous. I mean, let's be honest, I think some people would even say that. So what, what kind of cross that border metaphorically and truly physically cross that border in your mind? [00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So you know, obviously this has to do with some, a little bit of, or a lot of American politics. And again, seeing this kind of self destructive cycle that we continuing through American culture or the American subculture, whichever way you want to refer to it, has degraded tremendously from an already not Catholic perspective just to begin with. I think one could even argue wasn't, you know, even founded on Christian principles. We would probably, you know, people could have debate about that. But you know, that's neither here nor there. The point is, is that we, we didn't start, you know, from a very high level of Christianity to begin with and then we've degraded in 200 years to being the world exporter of, you know, some of the most disgusting and impure and unholy pieces of this culture that pervades throughout the entire world. And I think we tend to lose sight of that. You know, we kind of sit even as, you know, good Christians kind of judging the rest of the world a little bit saying like, oh, you know, these guys or that president or this. And we're like, we know what Christ tells us to begin with is to look at the beam in our own eye, but unfortunately we get really carried away with that. And sometimes it's a temptation for us as Americans to kind of think that the world kind of revolves around us, that we get to judge everybody else on the periphery. But the reality is there are just better places to live than America. And yeah, it's hard to leave one's country. It's a major out of your comfort zone. I mean, people who have commented to me, you Took the easy way out. I'm like, yeah, okay. Really don't have time to respond to that, if that's not already obvious. This is not easy. Even if they paid me to move here and flew my whole family first class and everything, it is really difficult to not be in your own country, in your own comfort zone. But, yeah, I would say that without going too deep into it. That's really what took me out of that. From kind of the natural side. And then I think on the other side, when we were again looking at this globe and trying to, you know, look at other places, whether that may be in South America or was that, you know, I would think we were looking at Mauritius, you know, for a few days, like, oh, here's an island. There's traditional mass here. It's kind of beautiful. And then we finally were just like, look, there's only a couple superpowers in this world who is actually capable of protecting their people, protecting their values to. To some extent. Right. I mean, can you actually protect your people and the people inside your borders from other countries? And that's a very, very small list. Right. So the other side of that was. Again with. Was Fatima. We just said. Well, we know. I think as good Catholics, we believe in the. The prophecies of Our lady of Fatima that till the end of the world, you know, comes around barring that, that finality, that end of nations, as it. As it were. We know that Russia has a future. It's kind of baked into the prophecies that Our lady gives us. And we're like, well, that if Russia is going to have this impact that. That Our lady prophesied, even though certain things could happen along the way to magnify that or diminish that, there's a future nonetheless. And, you know, I guess when you're looking at some of the things that the laws that they're passing over in Russia, where the government is, you know, placing the laws, they're really. They've had it to a certain point. This is not this perfect country, but there are some basic boundary guidelines, stuff that in 30, 40 years ago, as Americans, we would have taken for granted. And now that's, like, outrageous. How dare you, you know, hold these. So I guess you put both of those pieces of the puzzle together. I'm wandering a little bit there, but you put both of those pieces together and you're just like, we gotta go and we gotta try something, and this makes sense. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So you. So you spin the globe and you randomly up in Russia. No. So Your thoughts start directing yourselves towards Russia and thinking, okay, this might be a country. First of all, what were your. Like when you thought of Russia maybe five years before that? What was your general impression of the country? Because, I mean, Russia is the number one country in America's mind as the other. The, you know, for. For so long, they were the enemy. Soviet Union, of course, that's what I grew up under, was the Soviet Union was the great. The great enemy, the great Satan and all that stuff. It was awful. The evil empire. That's what it was. Evil empire. And then, of course, in the 90s, when it kind of, you know, kind of like, well, maybe they'll come around and they'll be like us. Maybe they'll be westernized, they'll become like us. And even under the first years of Putin, you know, when he came on 2000, I think it was, when he came took, you know, presidency, it was still kind of like that. But then at some point it got back that the narrative was essentially, to me, the narrative seems almost no different than the Soviet Union days as far as what Russia is. So. So I'd say in the average American's mind, if you mention Russia, the first thought is, it's the enemy, or it's at least the opponent or somehow kind of almost a yin and yang of. America and Russia are kind of almost the two. I mean, we kind of forget about China sometimes, but it's more like those two are the big. The big two still in our brains. So what were. What did you think of Russia maybe five years ago, before this idea of moving there was even, you know, a possibility? [00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that it's pretty simple. And I. And I tell people this over here all the time. I said, you know, I, like most people, would listen to the sorts of things that Putin was saying from wherever he was speaking. And just being like this. This. This guy is, you know, not actually saying what he actually means. This is somebody who's trying to take some sort of high ground. And it's just. It's a trick. It's, you know, smoke and mirrors, cloak and dagger, whatever you want to, you know, say about that. And which is interesting, right? Because I think, again, not even. This is much, much beyond just Catholics, but I think more and more Americans, you know, I would say even the majority of Americans have a tendency to, you know, say, yeah, we don't trust the media or the media. I mean, even Fox News says, oh, the media. And you're like. But that. That's who you are, you know, like, it's, it's really kind of funny, right? But we have this now that's, especially since Trump's first election, that, you know, we have to completely discard and disbelieve whatever the media says. But somehow, again, because of, you know, this longer history and the communism in Russia and, you know, the Soviet times and most specifically the Bolshevik revolution and all that, you know, it's kind of stuck with us that. Well, that's probably still true, but when you're dealing with the liberal media screaming louder and louder and louder by the day about Russia and how they're the bad guys and whatnot, that's that sort of thing that started, you know, coming back to me, like, you know, it's really not fantastic when I am actually going along with what the media is saying, and they're really taking, you know, a tremendous amount of time investing to make this guy look worse and say that it's not true and it's, you know, it's. It's not genuine. And even again, I'm not, not comparing Putin to these guys. But, you know, we're finding out, you know, now in this, especially in the last couple of years, you know, that Gaddafi was it as, as a bad guy that they said that he was, you know, Assad wasn't as bad a guy as they thought he was. Nobody's saying that these guys are saints, but at the same time, they're just, like, seeing the actual bad things that happen when these people were removed from power and that they did give some basic protections to the people, particularly Christians in their regions. I think that this is kind of like not even a debatable fact anymore. So even if you look at Putin from that perspective, that's not my opinion anymore. But even if you looked at him from that perspective, you could say, well, I mean, who are we to be throwing mud at Putin when we have been dealing with the likes of Biden and, you know, even. Even Trump in many regards, having these problems. So, yeah, I definitely had the same. The same outlook that most people had. [00:25:30] Speaker B: So. So then you guys decide, though, you're going to go Russia. Did you. I don't need. We don't need to get into all the practical every step of getting here. But did you come and visit? Did you go there and visit once, like, by yourself with your family and then come back with the whole family? How did that work? [00:25:46] Speaker A: Yeah, so In February of 2023, I, you know, said, all right, well, we're not moving there without, you know, taking a look. I seeing A lot more things after I investigated and spent the time online to kind of look even closer than I was before. But then I just. Let me see it for myself. Flew over here, spent a week here. I mean, a week was honestly more than I needed. Russia is not as beautiful as my wife is, but it was pretty impressive. [00:26:15] Speaker B: And what part of Russia did you go to? Was this in. Around Moscow or St. Petersburg? Moscow. Okay. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Moscow. Which is very, very impressive. Right. And I've traveled a lot since then, too, because, you know, some people say, well, you know, it's Moscow, of course it's going to be beautiful. No, I mean, it's actually pretty amazing. You know, still, I know it intellectually that Russia is twice as big as the States, but it's just really shocking, actually, when you feel that California, if I was on the east coast, the distance to California is twice that. It's pretty impressive. Traveled a lot since then. I've seen a lot of beautiful places, a lot of beautiful cities. But honestly, what is really incredible is Russian people. I was here for a couple of days, and I finally asked one of my guides. You know, I'm a little bit surprised. People clearly can see that I'm an American. Why am I not getting any kind of discrimination? And they're like, right, because this is after. [00:27:26] Speaker B: This is after the invasion of Ukraine. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:27:28] Speaker B: And so there's definitely tensions. We'll just. Between America when you're. When you're there. In fact, this is less. This is a year after that that you're there. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Absolutely. And I just. Oh. And he turned to me. He's like, what are you talking about? We love Americans. We just hate the American government. I was like, oh, well, I guess we could be friends. [00:27:51] Speaker B: We just became best friends, didn't we? [00:27:54] Speaker A: No, it's. It's really fascinating. Russians really, really enjoy Americans. They're very curious people, and they want to know, you know, you know, what's. What are things really like, there? It's. It's. It's funny, the things that we take for granted that we know that are great or not great about America. They're. They'll say, you know, these. These videos on X, you know, or, you know, online and whatnot about the subways. Like, is it really that bad? Yeah, it's really that bad. Sorry to tell you. They're like, no, no, it couldn't be true. You tell them about the various different laws that we've even be passing in the past few years, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we were very sure that this was, you know, blown up, and you get to just basically switch views with the Russians, and they're kind of, like, sitting on the other side of the fence thinking that America's this great place to be. And I just explain a few things that are real that happen in America not once or twice a year or something like this. This is every stuff. Things that you and I would have personal experience with. And they're just shocked by that. They're still shocked, regardless. They do believe that we are overly obese. They believe that we have horrible eating habits and that we have awful GMO food and all this. All this garbage. And they definitely appreciate their good food here. But, yeah, anyways, I came during, like you said, about a year after this, this thing started, and they had basically just undergone, like, sanctions six months before, and people were talking about how people are starving and there's no toilet paper and there's no food. And I was walking around with a buddy of mine who traveled with me, and we were just walking in the grocery stores like we were like two kids in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. We were just like, there's so much stuff here, and the fruit looks like fruit, and they have everything from everywhere. I mean, there was not an empty shelf that we. We saw. That was back then, right? I mean, things have, you know, even become more separated between Russia and America. But, yeah, just walking around and you're meeting these people that are super friendly. They have a very straight face. They don't smile unless they engage, and there's something to laugh about. They say that smiles aren't free in Russia. It's very true. But once you engage with them, you realize that these people are very, very kind and warm people. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Did you speak any Russian when you went yet? [00:30:36] Speaker A: I think I knew that word. I think I knew nyet and dasudanya, but I couldn't say it correctly. I didn't even know the Alphabet. So when I returned with my family in September, we left on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in the same year, 2023. And I. I learned the Alphabet, and I learned about, you know, 10 more words of Russian. And Russia was a completely different place after that. When you can actually read the Cyrillic. Take some practice. But, yeah, it was really difficult the first time, but second time was a little bit easier. But, you know, one big difference is that their technology is so fantastic here, and they design their apps like we do. So you just get off the plane, and as long as you get A SIM card right. In your phone. They have English apps you can jump right in. And it's actually a super, super convenient city once you have the basic tools and you can kind of run by yourself. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Right. Now, when you went there, was there any issue with, like, America trying to keep you from going to Russia? Because, you know, of course the government discourages people from going. And was there any problems with Russia accepting you? Because obviously every country should have good immigration laws as far as who they accept and don't. And so was there any issues on either side as far as, like, we don't want you to go or we don't want you to come? [00:32:08] Speaker A: Yeah, no, there was absolutely nothing of the sort. You know, you look on the state.gov you know, travel advisory website, right? And they're like, people, they're arresting people in Russia, blah, blah, blah, left and right, you know, don't go to Russia. Like, when I went through tsa, the guy, like, saw my visa, which they stamp inside the. With the Russian visa in it, and he just looked at me and he's like, have a good business trip. And I was like, okay, cool. That was it. I was like, that's strange that you would say business trip, but whatever. [00:32:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:44] Speaker A: You know that. That's literally the extent of anything that I had when I got into Russia. Went in through security. They didn't. It was. There was no grilling and whatnot. People sometimes do get grilled. Like, they would coming the opposite way, but never had that experience. Went right through and out the other side and was. Yeah. Or. And coming back, same thing. Nothing. [00:33:12] Speaker B: And how long were you allowed to, like, live there? Like, initially when you first moved there? Because I assume you can't just move there and then permanently be there without some type of approval, right? [00:33:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'll just say how it was before. That's a. There's a really long answer to that question. Because there's a new shared values visa. [00:33:27] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:33:28] Speaker A: But when I. This is again, crazy. They give Americans three year tourist visas valid for three years. Yeah. You just want to come visit? [00:33:39] Speaker B: You can visit for three years. [00:33:41] Speaker A: Three years? Yeah. Oh, wow. You have to exit the country, like every six weeks, months or something. Like step across the border for 24 hours and come back. But it's valid for that period. Okay. But yeah, no, I mean, and we're the only country that they give that to. Like, only Americans have this distinct privilege of having a three year tourist visa of all the people in the world. [00:34:01] Speaker B: That's odd. Okay. [00:34:02] Speaker A: Yeah. But again, to my point, they. They love. They love Americans. So. [00:34:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:34:08] Speaker A: Please visit us again. You know, that's. They're like that. So. So. But, yeah, there's another visa that the President just made, which is called the shared values visa. And basically, there's a long list of countries that, from Russia's perspective, has been consumed by these WOKE ideologies and say, hey, look, come one, come all. If you hold traditional values and you stand against these woke ideologies, come here. We'll give you temporary residency. You don't even need to learn the language for the first three years, and you can just be here in Russia, and if you like it, then you can get permanent residency and then citizenship if you could decide that you want to stay. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Okay. Wow. Now. Okay. I think the question, a lot of people who watch Crisis Point, at least, are thinking is Russia is traditionally an Orthodox country. I mean, that's. I mean, it's as Orthodox as any country there is in the world. I mean, let's be honest. It's been like that for a thousand years. And it's very important to the identity of Russia. It's Eastern Orthodoxy, and it's the dominant Orthodox Church, and you are traditional Catholic, and it's hard enough to find a traditional Catholic parish in America. And so what was that like, first of all, in your thinking of where you moving to Russia? And in fact, I am unaware, but that doesn't mean anything that there's any traditional Catholic parish in all of Russia or many Catholic parishes that matter. So what was that like, that whole process of determining, okay, can we live our traditional Catholic faith here, and is there an opportunity? Is there a parish and all that? So what happened there? [00:35:50] Speaker A: Yeah, so there. The. The society has a mass here in Moscow. Really? Yeah, it's in a tiny little room. You know, we think early days trad cats, you know, going back to 1979 here. Yeah, no, when I wanted to turn back the dial, we went the whole way. So we're having conversations about how to remedy that now, because literally, we're out the door again. So just like how these traditional Catholic churches and chapels, they just somehow just attract people, and, you know, they start filling up very quick. So we're out into the hallways right now. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Is it a lot of other Americans. Americans or other foreigners there, or is it mostly Russians? [00:36:37] Speaker A: There are other foreigners there. It's actually probably. Well, there's a few families, big families there. One of them is French, as an example. So there's a lot of expats. There's some there were some Americans that were there. But I think if I. I'm just trying to make sure I'm not forgetting anybody, because that would be embarrassing. There are there. We're the only Americans in that. In that chapel permanently. So you found. [00:37:09] Speaker B: So you found society chapel. And so that's your. Now, is there any, like, what's it like, though, to be a traditional Catholic when Orthodoxy is the dominant religion all around you? [00:37:22] Speaker A: Sure. Let's just say that I'll take Orthodoxy all around me than Evangelical Protestantism or any of the other isms that exist out there. Look, the Orthodox people that are here, everyone that I have met particularly, I would say even the very religious ones, are very kind, generous people, just like the other people who aren't in Russia. There's a very strong hospitable air that exists and habits that have been formed with the Russians, and that's just who they are. So whether or not you're Orthodox or not, you have this approach to people. And so even being a traditional Catholic, I tell. Everybody knows that I'm a traditional Catholic. I say it on my channel wherever I go. You know, I have to be careful, like, hold myself back to not say, hey, I'm Joe. I'm a traditional Catholic, you know, just like, almost wants to, like, come out. You know, I love my faith and please God that I die with it. But, yeah, there's not been. We've had conversations. There's been dialogue. There's been interest, learned a lot of things from, you know, Orthodox people getting a better understanding of kind of where the Orthodox Church, how they perceive the situation, which is, you know, we have our own formed concept of what they say the thing is. Right. But it is interesting very much to see it from the opposite side. And I gotta tell you, when I walked into St. Basil's Cathedral, I, like, cried like a little girl. I was. I. You know, it's not like Orthodoxy in America, where it's just kind of like somewhere where it's like, doesn't really fit in. Right. Versus Russia, where it was, you know, this fits in. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Full flowering. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Right? Full flowering. And you really feel the pain of the separation of the east and what they have to offer. Right. And what they bring to the table and how that, you know, from these unfortunate circumstances for a thousand years that we've been separated and please God and pray constantly that the churches come back together again and become, you know, one with the truth. That's. That's the key. [00:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And so in America, even though I know we both would agree that America is very secular and things like that. We are, in comparison to, for example, Western Europe, a very religious country. I mean, people are more religious in America than Western Europe by far. Most of that is, like, you mentioned, evangelical Protestantism. But even, like our Catholicism, we're more religious, our Catholics are, than in, like, for example, Western Europe. Now, the standard line about Russia is that everybody is Orthodox, but very few are actually practicing and actually really, really religious. Except. Is that essentially what you found as well, is that, like, everybody might identify everybody, but almost everybody identifies Orthodox, but they. But they don't really go to Divine Liturgy. Or is that. Is that a myth? [00:40:36] Speaker A: No, I wouldn't say that's a myth. I would say that, you know, when Putin took over, I mean, it was. The churches existed or what was left over. And there's a big debate about that and how that actually, the last 70 years went down prior to that. As you might imagine, there's quite mixed opinions on this. But the practice of the faith was extremely, of course, let's call it restricted is a nice word, but many of the churches were still in operation that were still existing in the later part of the Soviet period. But basically nobody was going to church besides the old ladies. And it was basically just leave the old ladies alone, and that's it. [00:41:26] Speaker B: God bless those old ladies, too. [00:41:27] Speaker A: How about God bless those old ladies? Oh, my gosh. Well, you talk to some people and you say there's a. They even talk about how the Orthodox liturgy has, shall we say, grown somewhat because of the babushka's involvement, too, as we. As we might have experienced in some of our Catholic churches. Not necessarily in a negative way, but as a woman, you go into a church without an Orthodox church without a veil on, there is a babushka with a veil waiting there for you, and she will tie it on you if you want to continue. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:42:06] Speaker A: So anyways, that's the point. So there was a. Like, you were talking before in the 90s, right. Everybody and their brother was, you know, coming over here. And that was also the same way with regards to religion. I mean, everybody came. The Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Satan, I mean, and every. And full spectrum of. Of Protestantism. And so now they had to dial that back out. They had to kick out the Mormons, they had to kick out the Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, obviously the Satanists and all this sort of stuff. But now they, you know, have a structure in place to kind of regulate that so that they don't get any more weirdness, because they really are investing in. The state itself, is investing in return of religion. And that's why they're rebuilding all of these churches and whatnot. And people are like, well, yeah, but they're not filling up. Okay, look, you literally sucked the people dry of religion, and the people are starting from scratch. So I would say what they have now is, of course, way better than where it is, but it has a long way to go. And I think that is, in a sense, when I walk around and I see stuff, stuff like that, I see what the future is for my own nation and where we could end up if we don't fix the problems that we have. Because, you know, there was a great point to this, actually, that President Putin made about what was last year. He literally looked at the camera and he addressed Americans and he said, you Americans think that you have all the original ideas, like, all this stuff with the transgenderism, with the, you know, the LGBT agenda, all these things. He said, we already tried that back in the. In the. In the early 20th century. We did all of that and more. It's what he claimed. Okay. And he just said, it doesn't work. We've moved on. You feel like you got to go do that. Okay, well, you know, take luck. You know, just. That's that. That's it. So that we continue down this path, we're going to end up in that side. So things are definitely improving, I think, but it has a long way to go in that regard. [00:44:27] Speaker B: So are there certain approved religions? Is, like, Orthodoxy preferenced by the state? And then there's other religions that are approved in some religions that are not approved. Is that kind of how it works? [00:44:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So there is still, you know, a hierarchy of, you know, levels that enjoy Orthodoxy still definitely at the top 100%, and the state backs that up. There are, you know, Judaism is approved, Islam is approved. Buddhism is approved. Catholicism is definitely approved. Let's see. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Are there. Real quick, I just thought this. Are there just regular Catholic parishes in your area as well? I mean, you go to society, but is there, like the. [00:45:13] Speaker A: About, give or take a million Catholics, like, 900,000 Catholics in Russia? And, you know, people have asked me, so, like, what are those Catholics like? And I've. The best that I can tell is that they're probably a little bit better off than, like, mainstream Polish Catholics. They're more. Especially in kind of the more remote areas. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:38] Speaker A: I'll tell you a great example. I was talking to a friend of mine who went and visited Siberia. And he met this Catholic girl out there, young fella. He's looking to find a spouse. He's Russian. And you know, that's really tough, right? You know, being a Russian Catholic, wanting to find a Russian Catholic woman. And so he flew out to Siberia and he's like, joseph, I visited this, this church. There were several priests there, and they were all Jesuits. And I'm like, oh, no, this is going to be a bad story, isn't it? And he's like, no, they don't even do communion in the hand. And I was, I. I almost freaked out. I was like, gentiles that don't do communion in the hand, that they're basically traditionalists. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Exactly. That's right. Don't let that get back to the Vatican. [00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, right. Well, I'm sorry, you might have to edit that out. [00:46:25] Speaker B: You're right, exactly. So, so, okay, so there are Catholic parishes, just regular Catholic parishes in. Okay. But the only real traditional Catholic one is the society one. Is that in Moscow? [00:46:38] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, technically there are some set of ficantes that are somewhere around. I haven't seen seen them, but they exist. There is. There is a Unavoche Mass that is said once a month in the basement of the cathedral. Very Unavoche style. Original OG Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. [00:47:01] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. Going back. So, okay, so it sounds like. In some ways, it almost sounds like the Orthodox there are similar to the Catholics here or especially Catholics in Western Europe. Maybe not that bad, but, you know, maybe. But in that area. But beyond religion, then. I mean, your reason you left America was cultural. I mean, it sounds like, you know, you just didn't want your kids, particularly growing up in. In the American culture. And we all know, like, for example, if you're in. I mean, like, I live in a very kind of what we consider a conservative city, Cincinnati, Ohio. And yet, you know, there's a huge gay pride parade in there and there's. Our parish is in a neighborhood that's very much kind of a gay area nearby. We literally. We literally drive by a mural of two dudes kissing on the way to Mass, you know, every day. And fortunately, it's the way it's situated. I don't think the kids can see it that easily, but it's there. [00:48:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:01] Speaker B: And this is. This is not San Francisco. This is not Los Angeles, not New York. This is just plain Cincinnati, Ohio. So the culture just like walking around, you know, the type of activities that go on in Moscow, like parades or rallies or like the The. The night scene. I'm not saying you're going out the bars. I'm just saying, like, just generally walking or something like that. What is your general impression of the kind of the Russian culture? And is it kind of what you expect it to be? Is it something very different? Is it better? Is it worse? Like, what's that like? [00:48:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think you're pretty immediately shocked when you get here. And then once you settle in again, just like anything else, you start to see this. These imperfections and those imperfections, right? And you're like, oh, my gosh, that. That. That girl, she has, you know, dyed hair, as if that was like the worst thing. You're just like, oh, no, poor thing, she's dyeing her hair, you know, thinking that, you know, she needs to stand out a little bit. But no, you're really shocked when you come over here because men act like men, women act like women. The, you know, the guys are, you know, put, you know, put together. You know, they act, you know, have a, you know, kind of a manly presence to them and whatnot. And the women, very feminine, very beautiful. You go into even just going to sightsee and some of the churches, everybody's wearing a veil in there, right? Even when you're walking around, I. Going through the metro every single day, you know, half the women are wearing veils in the metro, you know, like the scarves and stuff like this. And, you know, they don't just like. Just some of them do, some of them don't. But there are lots of women wearing dresses, you know, all over the place and very elegant and beautiful. And, you know, you go to a restaurant and whatnot, people like to dress up. And it's not just this slovenly, just, you know, you know how it is taking your children to the grocery store, walking, watching a bunch of, you know, girls walking around in their pajamas, you know, just like, okay, this isn't even like, this isn't temptation. This is just depressing, you know? [00:50:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:50:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Could you put some clothes on before you go out, please? [00:50:09] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:50:10] Speaker A: Yeah. No, they. They're. They're put together people. And that's. There's something that's very encouraging about that. [00:50:16] Speaker B: Now, you might not. I don't. You might not watch any Russian television, I don't know. But is. Are like the. The. The show. Do you know if the shows or anything? Because that, of course, is a sewer pit here in America. And so that's why most traditional Catholics don't watch any television, or Catholics, for that matter, because it's all terrible. Do you know anything about, like, the. The. The pop culture or anything like the music or anything like that in Russia? Is it any different? Is it kind of has been wet, Westernized, and what's that like there. [00:50:43] Speaker A: There is definitely Westernization that is active inside of their pop culture and their media, and some of it is very repulsive. I, again, we don't have a tv, so, you know, you have to, like, you know, come across this stuff online and stuff like that. So there's no denying that. You know, again, there's like this. This idea that America has this, you know, vibrant, wonderful culture over there. It's just fascinating to me when people say that. But, yeah, there's like, companies like, the Facebook equivalent is like, vk, and they try to do some of this modern type of stuff, and you can see that there are people that are attracted to that, but then a lot of that. And then there's also just even like, the tv, The TV stations and what's showing on tv. Again, I've seen snippets here and there going out, and there is again, also some repulsive stuff there. But it's. None of this is like the LGBT garbage, right? That I've seen. [00:51:55] Speaker B: That's what's going to ask next was like, is there a big, like, you know, lgbtq, like, you know, trans stuff, gay stuff? Is that. I mean, because it's pretty much in our face, even most places here in America, as you know, is it like, does it exist there publicly? I mean, I'm sure there's gay people in Russia. I'm not saying that, but, like, you know, how much is it in your face and how much is it out. Out and about? [00:52:18] Speaker A: It is. It is not out and about. Right? So they've passed laws about the LGBT propaganda agenda and all this sort of stuff. And literally, even when they write articles and they reference the lgbt, they have to put an asterisk by law in the article that says lgbt. You know, propaganda or agenda or whatever is illegal in Russia and pushing this. And, you know, so they. They put it right out there that every single time you see anything like this even being referenced, reminding people that this is absolutely against the law, so you cannot promote this in any kind of form. Like, Putin says, like, okay, they. They take this approach of, you know, hey, you know, you do what you're going to do, but don't let anybody see you do it. Like, take that. Keep that in your own house. Which is, of course, the attitude that we had in America and, you know, we, we saw where that ended up. So, but again, we're in, we're in the dialing back part of this, which is what's very encouraging, you know, was these things were happening, and now they're getting dialed back. Now even just like last week, I think was seven, eight guys got arrested for, and of course, the Western media mocked it for, for looking gay. I mean, if you saw the description of what these actually guys were wearing, you'd be like, yeah, I'd put those guys in jail, too. It was, it was, it was disgusting. But they just don't put up with that. And they're very hardcore about it. I think when they passed one of the first LGBT agenda bills against the LGBT agenda, the next morning at like 4 o'clock in the morning, the police are raiding all these underground, you know, gay bars in St. Petersburg. So, no, they, they don't mess around when they pass a law about this sort of stuff. And it's even, and a lot of people taking it extremely personally, especially the people who are out on the front. You see videos come back from these guys, and they are, you know, of course, like, traditionally, let's say in America, we had, you know, all the hardcore, you know, conservative guys were serving their country. The same holds true in Russia. And those guys sending videos back like, this has got to stop. And this has got to stop. I'm not fighting, you know, I read this on the news, and I'm not out here fighting to protect my, to protect this garbage. [00:54:47] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:47] Speaker A: We need to get rid of that. So those guys play their own role out there from that perspective. [00:54:53] Speaker B: That's interesting. I, I, I think that this kind of leads into another question. So, I mean, as Catholics, we should be happy when something like the, the gay movement, so, like, that is, is shut down. I mean, it's kind of like something I think we've realized in America is that there is this idea that you don't want to oppress people, you know, give them freedom, stuff like that. But what we didn't realize was if you let a community that's based upon sin free to proselytize, they will, and they will propagandize, they will evangelize, whatever you want to call it. They will go out there and they will, and what they're proselytizing is sin, deadly sin. And so that's why. And basically, you want to prevent that, you want to stop that. But that then leads to the question of the stereotype of Putin as a dictator, as Russia as not a Free country that, you know, you don't have the freedoms. Now we know, of course, a lot of that comes if you don't let gay people do what they want. You're not. And promoted everywhere. You're not free country. But besides that, though, just as a regular person living there, trying to raise their family, is there any, do you feel like there's any, any type of restrictions on your freedom that you had in America that you no longer, that you no longer have in Russia? [00:56:13] Speaker A: No. Never felt freer a day in my life. And I don't say that lightly. You know, I, There's a video that's taken down from YouTube. So I won't already. So I won't say what I said exactly. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Please don't. [00:56:27] Speaker A: I won't bring me down. Here we go. [00:56:31] Speaker B: Okay, I'm putting this on. Rumble 2 people. [00:56:33] Speaker A: Just so you know, I won't say it exactly, but I walked into an interview, my first interview for a job in Russia, and, oh, I heard this. [00:56:46] Speaker B: Before it went down. I heard, okay, go ahead. [00:56:48] Speaker A: Though I won't say it exactly. And I, I was in there for an hour with this interview and everything's going great. And so the guy's like, okay, so I gotta know, like, why are you here in Russia? And I, you know that when you're, when you're mouth starts moving before your brain. Happens to me frequently. Anyways, I just literally blurted out to get away from the blanks. And he laughed. Everybody in the room laughed. There were ladies and guys there and everybody just laughing. And they're like, we like you, you should come back for another interview. And I'm like, these are my people. I was just. You. You felt like you were just in a completely different world. I, I think that, you know, in some, if you're like doing comparisons of times, in some ways you could almost look at Russia, like dialing back and having like a second chance at the 90s, you know, not that the 90s were some, you know, golden years or anything like that. Plenty of bad things going on in the 90s, plenty of things going on for quite a while before then. But, you know, you're, you're, you're, at least in the 90s, you're like, okay, we can survive. Like, we can, we can, you know, work this and we can still joke about, you know, certain things. And you're not worried at work that, you know, HR is going to come tap on your desk because you said something right, quote, unquote, off color in, you know, in a, in a meeting or something like that. I was working, I worked for Microsoft, I worked for Oracle, I worked for Red Hat and all at the always, you're just gotta just keep your mouth shut. Don't, don't go crazy, don't joke too much. You know, you never know who you could possibly offend. And now I'm literally at work and I just say what I think like. And people are like, oh, that's very interesting. I never really thought about it that way. Oh, okay, cool. You know, why actually think about this? And I have a completely different perspective. And they're just very blunt about it and truthful about what they're thinking and you know, and I mean Russians are blunt. Sorry. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Yeah, Russians. Every Russian I've ever met is blunt. Yeah, I don't think I've ever met a non blunt Russian. I mean I don't know a lot of them, but the few I have, like I've worked with some before and I remember the first I hired a guy, I was working in tech and I hired a guy who was a Russian exchange student at Francisco University, Studentville actually. And it was a, I remember the first week or two I hired him, but I was. Because he's brilliant. But I was like, he, his personality is a little bit taken aback by it. And my wife who is a Russian studies major ahead of time, so she kind of knows Russian, Russian soul a little bit better. She said, oh, wait a minute. He just so you know, he will say exactly what he thinks. He will not. He will, more than likely he will not try to make it like try to soften the blow. Yeah. But you can do the same thing to him and he won't care, but just know he will. And sure enough, this guy, I mean he would just, he was great. I mean like I said, he's brilliant, hard work, all that stuff. But he would just say things. It's like, oh, we don't say it like that here. And like we just don't. And this was in the 90s even. This was like, you know, this was a while late 90s, early 2000s. So yeah, it definitely. I got a buddy though, he works for a large company in a large city and he was telling me a story recently. He's been there for years. There was a, a guy there who is homosexual, worked there, a co worker and he was very flamboyant about it, very outward about it and everybody knew my friend was a good Catholic, but he never said a word against this guy, never once even suggested anything. But the guy was, was very Loud in the background when my, My friend was trying to make sales calls. And so he told his manager, you know, can we have something? You know, that that's. I'm having a hard time talking to my clients, my potential customers because this guy's being kind of loud back here. HR comes to him later. It's like, do you have a problem with so and so because he's gay. [01:00:38] Speaker A: Oh my gosh. [01:00:40] Speaker B: And of course, my friend was brilliant because he's like, wait, what? He's what? So, but it was just like. And that's just, that was. And this is a, this is not a, a rare occurrence, things like that in the. Especially these larger companies. So, yeah, so that, that I, I did hear what you said in your interview. That's pretty funny. So you just work in a Russian company now, like in Russia, like, you. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Know, a local company consultant to a Russian firm working in it. And you know, again, that's. This is nowhere even close where I came. I actually was intending to just work remotely for, you know, just doing the job that I was right. I was, I wasn't working for Red Hat anymore, but I was planning on being in the same line of work and working remotely. And wow. Once I actually found really kind of came to terms with that really wasn't going to work. So I actually got a job right after I got over here. And then they were like, yeah, so you just need to come in for the, you know, the drug test. And I'm like, oh, this is a remote white collar job. When did we start drug testing for those? So I was like, I'm not going back for that. So I guess I gotta have to figure out something here. And I really was impressed with the level of opportunity over here. I mean, again, we were, we jive really well with the Russians, especially if you can handle blunt conversations. And we get along famously and it's really exciting stuff. They get excited about us being here and they're just very hospitable and we work together really, really well. And the opportunities because so many companies have left and all this sort of stuff out of, you know, virtue signaling or whatever else it is. They're building analogs to everything. And so it's like starting over.com bubble, you know, type. Type of thing that's, that's blowing up because there's so much to develop right now. So. [01:02:53] Speaker B: Yeah, now, okay, you did not move over to Russia by yourself. You brought your wife and your pregnant wife. Was she pregnant when you moved? [01:03:02] Speaker A: No. [01:03:02] Speaker B: Okay. [01:03:03] Speaker A: So just had Wolfgang. [01:03:04] Speaker B: Okay, so you have. You had six kids now you have seven kids. So what is that like, particularly for your. I mean, I. I care about your wife, of course, how she is adapting, but also, like your children. Do you. I mean, I have a million questions. Do you homeschool? Have they. Are they able to make friends? Is your wife met, you know, is your wife stay at home, I assume with the kids? And if so, does she have any friends? Or she just basically alone all by herself and miserable? I mean, you know, all these are the questions I think most people who are listening might be thinking, what is the story of your. Of your wife and children? How they're adjusting to Russian life? [01:03:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So first of all, like, with regards to the hospitality that is extended to my entire family and to my children and whatnot. So, like, we travel. I got a car recently, but before that, before we had a car for nine months. We were just traveling on public transportation with the whole family. My wife was expecting our number seventh after she arrived in Russia. So she was expecting and, you know, pushing one of the babies, and I was pushing two of the other ones. And then we had three, you know, kind of walking again. And Florine was six. So is that your oldest? My oldest. She was six now. Okay, seven. Okay. [01:04:30] Speaker B: That's your oldest? [01:04:32] Speaker A: Yes. [01:04:32] Speaker B: Okay. [01:04:33] Speaker A: She'll. She'll almost be eight just in a few months now. So that's okay. She's at. But, yeah, she was. She was six when we got here. We're, like, getting on trains, and I'm like, put this stroller on the train and then put the other stroller on the train. I mean, it was. It was really rough. Look, I think everybody, anybody who's had any interest in seeing what life is like in Russia has seen a Moscow Metro video. But it really is an impressive, like, transportation system. And anything less than that would have literally been impossible for us as, you know, a large family with a bunch of little kids to travel around it. So I'm really grateful for that. But that was. That was definitely probably the toughest thing that we did since we were here, because we were doing it through one of the biggest going to church in one of the biggest blizzards in history, like the 100 and last 100 years or something like that in Moscow, 150 years. So anyways, stuff like that. But they every, like I said, everybody's very kind, so they're, like, talking to the babushkas on the metro, and they're all just. They can't speak any English, but they're shaking their head and pretending that they understand and listen to the children. People stand up in the, in the trains and you know, give all the children seats and you know, help us carry the strollers up and down the stairs. You know, I. Something that's weird. Do you remember how like once upon a time we used to open doors for women in America? [01:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I still do and sometimes get funny looks when I do it. But you know, my dad taught me to do it. I'm not gonna stop. [01:06:09] Speaker A: More power to you. That's it. That's it. That's the thing here. Everybody, like men are opening doors for women and whatnot. And it's just manners like again like we were taught. So it, they, they've taken it to a, to the next level, I guess you'd say, because you'll have literal like 18 year old boys. This is impressive to me that they're people that still have these manners. 18 year old boy walks up to my wife, she's coming up with a stroller to the stairs. They just reaches down and grabs the stroller. Doesn't ask anything, just grabs the stroller, picks up the baby up and carries it down the stairs. Not a lot of 18 year olds I don't think nowadays that would do that in a lot of places, sadly. But it's really impressive. [01:06:54] Speaker B: So do you homeschool the kids or they go to school? [01:06:56] Speaker A: Yes, you do. [01:06:57] Speaker B: Home school. [01:06:57] Speaker A: Okay. [01:06:58] Speaker B: And that's, there's no legal problems. Any problems with that in Russia? Like Russians can homeschool with like immunity, basically. Immunity. Okay. [01:07:06] Speaker A: Yeah, you can, you can homeschool there. There's several ways. Like it is in the states. Depending on where you live in the States, there's different ways to, to handle that. You can be attached to an online school, you can do your own. You can be attached to like a physical school that, and have that kind of relationship. You do have to do testing after a certain age. So anyways. That's similar to America then. Yeah, exactly. There it's a little bit challenging right now because they're just passing a law and there's a lot of laws like in America, except we just never get to hear about most of them right. Until it's too late. But there, there's an active law that's being changed right now about language in the school, language requirements for the children. So they got to try to figure out how to work that out with now the, the children. So actually homeschooling will probably be, you know, pretty high on the list of, you know, approaches For. For us Western foreigners that are interested in moving to Russia just for schooling, is there a. [01:08:08] Speaker B: Is there a homeschool slat or Catholic community that the kids, like, have friends with, that they, you know, hang out with people? Or is there. Or any other type of community that the kids kind of have made some Russian kids friends and things like that? [01:08:23] Speaker A: Church community. So we have a good, you know, mix of Russians and expats and whatnot. So we get to experience different cultures all together at the same time. But they find their own language to communicate with and that sort of thing. But a lot of people speak English, so you'll find, you know, kids who are excited to see our children because they're like, oh, somebody I could practice English with. I learned it in school. School. But I, you know, don't have, like, any conversational practice. So that's exciting for a lot of Russian children when they. When they meet our kids, and generally very, very polite and, you know, great for them to talk to, especially right now as they're learning. You can't really convey, even be worried about something that they might say to your children while you're not, you know, paying attention. [01:09:20] Speaker B: Are they learning Russian, the kids? [01:09:22] Speaker A: They are. They are against my. My greatest efforts. We're. We're still trying to find a Russian tutor right now that will actually come to the house to actually do the. The language learning. But my eldest, particularly Florine, she's just dying. Whatever she could do. She's. She's a. She's a talker, and she wants to get it out and get her ideas out. So she's already reading Russian. She doesn't know every time what she's reading, but she's, you know, saying what it's saying. And she has, like, all these books that are, like, side by side, English and Russian, even, like, you know, old. Old school Winnie the Pooh books and stuff like that that many people have been generous to kind to give us. And we watch, you know, videos and, you know, pronunciation, and then they get to practice it when they. When they go out. [01:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, the kids, their brains, they can just pick up languages like sponges. I mean, they're just. And yeah. So how about your. Your wife and yourself? Have you been trying to pick up some Russian as well? [01:10:33] Speaker A: K. [01:10:37] Speaker B: It sounds good to me. My wife was sitting here, she'd tell you if it actually was good. But, you know, okay, I. I'll play it for her and I'll ask, what did he just say? [01:10:46] Speaker A: Did he say something about me? Oh, great. [01:10:50] Speaker B: Did you Say something that's going to get us banned off of YouTube. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Maybe, maybe, maybe YouTube won't be able to understand it, but you can. [01:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:10:58] Speaker A: Exactly. That's right. [01:10:59] Speaker B: That's good. So you are picking it up now. I mean, clearly, you know, we kind of said earlier you made a joke about, like, people saying it's easy way out. Clearly moving your entire large family from one country to another, no matter what, even if you move from, like, I don't know, from like, America to Canada, even that would be a challenge because, you know, and that there's so much in common between the two. But moving from America, obviously, to Russia is a huge challenge. What were kind of some. I mean, you mentioned the subway. Just getting around was. It was, you know, they have a good subway system, but still it's hard not to have a car. What would you say probably were the biggest challenges for either you, your wife or your kids kind of acclimating and getting involved in. In Russian culture? [01:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, just the Alphabet was. When you get past the Alphabet, then you're. You can read things and then you can see some similarities in the language and whatnot. Doesn't work for everything, but you can kind of feel your way around it. If you know the Alphabet. If you don't know the Alphabet, you can survive. But, wow, that is. That's rough. So learning the Alphabet will unlock a new Russia for anybody coming over here, for sure. So I was glad that I learned that before I came back. Other culture, you know, it's. It's interesting. They. There's. They're working on smoothing a lot of these kind of landings of families that are beginning to show up now with more regularity from Western countries, including Germany, including France and America and Australia even, you know, you look on YouTube and you can start seeing these grow, these numbers grow. Some important things that you would need to. That you could know coming to Russia. Russians value friendships and relationships and connections more than just about anything else in their life. They have a saying in Russian, rather have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles. You should probably update that saying a little bit, but you get the point. Yeah. And so that's really important. So, like, professionally, I was like, getting on the equivalent of LinkedIn, like HH.ru or, you know, profi.ru which is like their LinkedIn. And I was applying and I wasn't getting any responses, and I'm like, what's going on here? And I finally started talking to some Russians and I'm like, if you want a Good job. You're not looking in the right place. You need to go and make friends with people. You know, go have, you know, drinks, go have dinners, go have lunches and whatnot. And, you know, then people will understand who you are, where you're coming from and all this sort of stuff. And they're not worried that you're, you know, some spy, you know, trying to, you know, turn something over, you know, in Russia, you know, something like that. Anyways, so that. That's a really big deal. Relationships, making friends and, you know, be genuinely interested in other people. I mean, thankfully, that's something that comes to me naturally. But it was a good thing to learn that I needed to communicate more and get out more than I already was and learning those places that you should mix with people. [01:14:25] Speaker B: I mean, have you made, like, I mean, you know, your church community? I mean, frankly, a lot of what you're saying sounds a lot like just a traditional Catholic that most of their friends are at their church and that's their community for their kids and stuff like that. But have you had also, like, made friends with, like, Russian families through work or anything like that, that you've been able to kind of integrate with that as well? [01:14:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. No, we've been invited even by. We have some friends who are old believers as it exists. Like the traditional Catholics of the True. [01:14:54] Speaker B: Exactly. We got some common cause there. [01:14:59] Speaker A: No, but like I said, everybody's really friendly. Everybody's like, can you come over for barbecue next weekend and whatnot, and, you know, can we go to the park? I love our children to, you know, talk. You have, you know, such nice children. So. Yeah, no, there's as much of that as you could possibly want, and we have taken advantage of it and been able to make some good friends along the way. But, you know, like I said, you know, the most. Well, like you said, you know, the most important thing is our faith. And, you know, we want to make sure that we keep that at our core. Just as a great example, just yesterday, you know, my closest friend who's, you know, French family with 10 children, you know, most of their children don't speak, you know, more than 20 words of English maybe, but they all came over and we had an amazing, amazing epiphany post epiphany party. We didn't have it on the epiphany, but we had a big epiphany party party with a galette and all this sort of stuff. So we get. We get a nice spectrum of. Of people to. To communicate with, and it's very lively, a lot of fun. And we're all just standing around saying, we're living in Russia. It's awesome. [01:16:13] Speaker B: I bet that does come to your brain more than once. Every once in a while. You're like, wait a minute, I'm living in Russia right now. It's gotta, yeah, gotta be a kind of a mind blow sometimes even to. [01:16:24] Speaker A: Yourself, my wife, and sometimes in the morning, we just wake up, get out of bed, you're just like, we're living in Russia right now. This is really very strange. [01:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, very strange. Very strange. The one last thing I kind of wanted to ask you about was when you were looking to, you know, our culture and where things were going, it was, let's be honest, it's. It was a low point in America, you know, following 2020, 21, 2022. Now there's a lot of more optimism in our country with the election of Donald Trump. A lot of people are thinking, okay, now we're, we're gonna kind of get rid of some of this nonsense, some of the WOKE nonsense, the trans stuff. No, I mean, I don't think anybody thinks he's a savior. And, you know, we know he embraces some things that are not. Not good. Like he, you know, during the campaign with ivf, and he doesn't really say much about the gay marriage and stuff like that, but clearly he's a. A step in the right direction from Harris and from Biden, things like that. Do you look at that and think, maybe I shouldn't have left? Maybe I. Maybe it could have turned around. Do you have any regrets or do you just think, you know, good for America, but I'm staying where I am. [01:17:31] Speaker A: You know, I don't. I don't want to sound like an arrogant jerk, but I like, you know, you know, good riddance, all you guys and all that. I have many, many good friends that are still in America, and I love them dearly. I have, you know, my family, lots of family that's still in America. So I don't, I don't think about those people like that. But again, as a, you know, kind of political solution, this is two parts. And I think I alluded to one part at the beginning that, look, I think people are even, you know, Trump's not even president yet. And I think that people are already beginning to wax and wane a little bit on what these promises are, and a lot of them already being walked back like they are every single time. You know, it's amazing, just as humans, this is not limited to the American experience. But as humans, we just have a really short memory. I mean, we just, and I'm sorry the American political system has been allowed to flourish as it has in this evil and this corruption and all this sort of stuff everywhere, because we do have a short memory. But if we look back, we know where we came from. You got the liberal presidents who push really hard, and then you have a so called conservative president that allows kind of the right wing to catch up to where everybody else has been pushed to thinking things are going to change and then they don't change. And in fact, then we just get ramped up and ready to go for the worst thing. A great example in Trump is when Biden passed this so called whatever, homo bill or whatever that was. I think we've kind of forgotten that it's illegal to say that two guys can't say that. To say that they're not married is illegal, that you can do prison for that. I mean, that's in the bill. And Trump throws a party at Mar A Lago and says, oh, that was me. I'm responsible for, for that. I was working on that. That was, that was me. That's, that's the kind of stuff that he defends. He's. No, you know, I, again, I'm not saying that people are saying that he's necessarily a savior, but gosh, you know, when I'm looking out here on Twitter and stuff like that, and Trump is posting a prayer to St. Michael, like, do people really believe that that is like him? I mean, that's really just kind of naive, I think. And it's very, it's very sad to me when I see that. And I think that regardless of what's going on in the world, we are, we look back to what we were 20 years ago. We would never have accepted half the stuff that existed. I mean, we would go to war. I mean, that's, we would be threatening at least to go to war. Maybe we wouldn't actually go to war because, you know, we've kind of unfortunately lost the will to fight, like physically. But you know that we would have rebelled against that every fiber of our being. How dare you. No, you won't do. And, but we let it all happen. And we've, we've, we've, we've. You've slowed down, sadly. And I think on the other side of that, that I just want to make sure that I put in there is. We know again, as Catholics, we have, we have a particular advantage as Catholics. The Catholics that hold on to traditional values and the beliefs of 2000 years, etc. And I mean that literally, to anybody who holds on to those beliefs as Catholics, that Our lady of Fatima told Sister Lucia that there was going to be a decisive battle between the devil and her. And I always thought it was. I thought about it after, after I read this fairly recently, actually, and I, she, she said it as a battle. We know that Christ is going to win the war eventually. Christ will win the war. But she did say a battle instead. You didn't say that it was a war. And she gave two possibilities, like one side will lose and one side will win. And she did not say that she would win this battle. She said eventually, my. My Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end, but she didn't say this battle. Right. So we can still very, very much lose that. And this is what I, I think any Catholic would find it very, very hard that had their head screwed on straight that we are not living during a time of this, of clear battle, not just spiritual battle. It's right out there in your face, all of it, full 360. Certainly spiritual, spiritual, certainly physical. It's both. And we are going to dark places in the world right now. And in, from my perspective, seeing that, I know that that is what the future is. Things are getting worse. You reach out to you, you talk to other people who have spoke about the Third Secret, who have read the third Secret. There's very explicit references to, you know, Russia, there's very explicit references to the war in Ukraine even being referenced in this. And I just don't want to be one responsible for the loss of my children's souls. So I want to protect them as much as I can, and I want to be on the right side of history. And as a Catholic, I don't have. I have a first responsibility to my faith and to my family before anything else. That's the most important thing to me. And I do believe that we are living in these times, don't know how long they're going to last. But I see a great opportunity here from my family. We've absolutely loved it, haven't regretted a moment of it. Certainly there have been difficult, challenging times along the way. But once you're outside of the fishbowl, I guess you would say we just, like, look back, we're like, we used to live there. Like, can you believe that we used to live there? And if I was still living in America, I wouldn't think like that. But now that I'm outside, looking back, I'm like, wow, that's crazy that we were. That we were putting up with that. That's really crazy. Not that we didn't like it. We were always against it and all that sort of stuff, but, you know, like, I didn't somehow just want to just, you know, go and do something about it, you know? Right, right, right. That's it. So that's. That's my story. [01:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah, this. This has been fascinating. Like I said, as soon as I saw your video you put out, I guess was about a year ago or something like that, I was like, okay, this guy is. I got to talk to him. So this has been great. I appreciate you coming on the channel and talking to us. Now, your YouTube channel is probably the best way people can kind of follow you. Is that correct? [01:24:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Or by telegram channel, people can reach out to me directly, but they're. They're both at home in Russia. Russia. So, yeah, either. [01:24:28] Speaker B: Okay, Yeah, I think I actually subscribed to your telegram channel as well. So I will put a link to both the YouTube channel and the telegram channel as well. And you can just, on the telegram channel, just kind of skip over the Russian people speaking in Russian and, you know, listen, if you don't know. So. Okay, great. So I will put links to that so people can follow you in those various places. And, you know, God bless you. And I. I hope everything continues to work out well for you in Russia. I mean, I think it's. It sounds great for what's going on for your family and I, but, you know, it continues to go well for you. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Thank you very much, Eric. God bless you. Thank you so much. [01:25:04] Speaker B: Okay, everybody, until next time. [01:25:05] Speaker A: God love.