At last, we have some idea of what our favorite itinerant Canadian-Russian family has in store for the near future. It’s difficult to pin down dates, as it’s never clear how long ago the most recently posted video was actually made; but as of Friday’s post, Arend Feenstra reported that the whole clan was packed up and headed north from Florida to Georgia.

They were on their way to visit friends there for a couple of days, stopping by a dairy farm en route.

Then they would be on to North Carolina . . . where Anneesa and the youngest six children would once again be deposited at a campground while Arend and the three eldest — Ben, Cora and Wes — would continue (presumably in Ben’s van) back to Ontario.

As I understand it, the plan calls for Arend, Cora and Wes to work for another month in Canada, then for Arend to fly down to pick up the others in North Carolina, head back to Ontario in the camper for another couple of weeks of work, finally flying back en masse to their farm in Russia. Except for Ben, of course, who was the only one old enough and smart enough not to have left Canada for Russia in the first place.

I know, I know . . . it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Why don’t they all just drive back to Canada from North Carolina in the two vehicles now, instead of making an additional exhausting — and expensive — round trip? Particularly since the whole purpose of working for the past three months has been to earn enough money to pay for the whole “vacation” in the first place.

That’s right. As Arend explains in this video, the ten round-trip airline fares between Russia and Canada cost a total of $25,000, which needs to be repaid. In addition, he has been trying to earn enough money to sustain them on the farm until — he hopes — it becomes a profit-making enterprise this year.

You see, it turned out that, once they arrived in Nizhny Novgorod a couple of years ago, got their residency and finances straightened out, and began building their farm from scratch, they discovered that their savings wouldn’t last forever, and that earning money in Russia is not as simple as it was in Canada. Arend frankly admits that his connections in his home country, and the availability of work — not to mention his ability to speak the language — make things much simpler than in his adopted country.

But he says they’re excited to return to Nizhny Novgorod and resume their lives as strangers in a strange land. I guess Canada is still too “woke” for them . . . or perhaps they simply have too much invested in their new farm to change their minds.

Or — and this, to me, is the most mind-boggling possibility of all — maybe they really do like living in Russia.

I hadn’t really considered that before.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/29/26