After following the Feenstra family around Crimea for several days during which they visited numerous farms and took a break to soak up the sunshine and local culture in the Black Sea resort city of Sevastopol, I am left with that not-quite-satisfied feeling of hunger I experience after eating a healthy salad and no dessert.
Their final episode consisted of a climb into the mountains to an ancient monastery-cum-tourist-attraction. The scenery was amazing; the narration, less so. Arend spoke about their appreciation for the wonderful opportunity they’d been given to expand their knowledge of farming methods.
Unfortunately, his knowledge of the creation of our physical world proved itself to be somewhat less than his skill at farming, due to his literal interpretation of the Bible. While at the mountain-top monastery, he had a discussion with an individual who explained that the local mountain ranges had been formed over millions of years. Arend stubbornly argued that, according to calculations based on the stories in the Bible, they could be no more than 4,000 to 4,500 years old. So strong is his religious belief that he is able to completely disregard any scientific evidence that contradicts his chosen, 2,000-year-old source of all knowledge.
But it is that faith that carries this family through even the most difficult of times. In the next video, we see them back on the farm in Nizhny Novgorod, where they have just taken delivery of a new mower — after a number of frustrating delays and ultimately being given a different, poorer quality machine than the one they had bought and paid for.
And that was it. Two months of waiting and wondering, only to be shown videos that presented an idealized vision of Crimea — a beautiful corner of Ukraine that, despite all of the public relations drivel, is nonetheless a war zone, illegally occupied by Russian forces. The whole thing was propaganda at its most basic level, all wrapped up in a series of well-edited, idealized videos by a Canadian family who chose to live in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
But in truth, I really shouldn’t have expected otherwise.
Just sayin’ . . .
Brendochka
7/21/26
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 
How many times did he talk about John Deere tractors? What if Finley that was riding in the cab doesn’t want to be a farmer? What if none of the kids want the farm? Does he understand he will be paid in rubles and not dollars when he sells his milk and vegetables? Will he go to Canada every year to work? So many questions. So many animals. So much work to farming. I continue to watch.
LikeLiked by 1 person