To Arend, Anneesa, and the eight younger Feenstras: I don’t know whether you have time to read other people’s social media sites, with all that you have to do each day. Between tending the farm and the new animals, the ongoing construction work, cooking, cleaning, sewing, studying, developing new business enterprises, driving miles to do your essential shopping or visit a doctor . . . just thinking about it is exhausting.

And still you find time for your almost daily video presentations. You must be the most organized people in the world!

But, just in case word of this letter does reach you — perhaps through a friend who may have stumbled onto my site — I would like to share with you something that happened the day before yesterday that has me gobsmacked. And it has to do with you.

My blog, which I share on Facebook, has a very small readership. An average day might bring 10-15 views; a good day is 20-30; and a really good one can go as high as 40-50 views. And that’s fine. I write for pleasure, and just knowing that someone out there is interested in what I have to say is reward enough. I never expected my little blog to go viral.

But by 11:54 p.m. on Tuesday of this week, for some reason I cannot fathom, an amazing thing happened: I had topped off at 292 views — an incredible number for a site that is clearly of interest to a limited audience. And those 292 views were from 169 “visitors” in 13 countries: by far the most from the U.S., but others ranging from the U.K. to Kenya, and from New Zealand to Canada.

My blog site also provides data on the specific articles that were read each day, and . . . this is where it gets really interesting . . . out of 18 different articles going back as far as six months, 13 of them were about your family. And the total number of views of those articles was an astonishing 277.

In short, you — the Feenstra family of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia — are international stars!

But perhaps you already knew that. That is, after all, the purpose of your social media programming, isn’t it? To tout the alleged superiority of life in Russia over life in Canada (or anywhere else)? To promote Vladimir Putin’s drive to increase his country’s dwindling population by importing large, conservative families such as yours? And, in so doing, to secure your family’s comfortable future there?

I began writing about you when I first read of your arrival in Moscow. In the beginning, I thought you must have been incredibly stupid to have made such a move. But I have learned, over the past year, that that is not the case. I believe you — your whole family — are very decent, intelligent, certainly hard-working, but unfortunately gullible people who were so anxious for a better life that you swallowed Putin’s propaganda . . . hook, line and sinker.

I know you’ll never be able to admit that openly. And perhaps I’m wrong . . . perhaps you really do believe you’ve found nirvana. For your sakes — all ten of you — I hope so. I’m just not convinced.

In any event, I plan to keep following you, watching your beautiful children grow, and seeing your farm expand. If nothing else, you’ve given me something more pleasant to write about than the daily horror of the world’s news.

Всего доброго.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/6/25