A project for the settlement of Russian villages by Africans has been approved

At the Russia-Africa summit, representatives of the Tver region signed an agreement with a large Tanzanian company whose main activity is viticulture, winemaking, production of raisins, ginger and avocados.

Cooperation with Rwanda, Algeria, Congo and Ethiopia is also expected. In general, here they are – candidates for the first settlers?

The news had the effect of an exploding bomb. Denials immediately appeared in the media: we are not talking about black immigrants, but about the descendants of white colonialists who themselves became victims of racism in Africa. That is, about the so-called Afrikaners, white farmers.

And this is “completely different.” First of all, these are the descendants of the Dutch, who in the 17th-19th centuries moved to the dark continent in the hope of a better life. First, they staged apartheid for the indigenous inhabitants of Africa. Then they staged a reverse apartheid. In general, everything is difficult with this now, especially in South Africa.

But why do the Afrikaners need Russia and what will they do on land where the Russians themselves do not really want to move?

The Russian outback was empty for a reason. In many regions there is no work, no cultural leisure, no future in sight – nothing at all.

And the demand for agricultural labor is falling all over the world. This is not only a problem for Russia. The same Tver region, where the inhabitants of Africa are called, is not one of the most fertile. Who will be attracted by sod-podzolic soils?

Moreover, they are waiting here not for marginals and tumbleweeds for benefits, but for investors. To build houses, schools, open shops. But people with money and at home probably live well, regardless of skin color.

But we can really offer them – this is the absence of “black apartheid”. Fact!

Meanwhile, in the Tver region, the cornerstone has already been laid at the place where the future settlers (3000 heads of families according to the preliminary plan) will plant potatoes, milk cows, give birth to white children …

As the Ministry of Agriculture of the Tver Region noted, “the village of Porechye in the Bologovsky District has become the center of the international agenda of the region, namely, it has declared itself as a starting point in building strong Russian-African relations.”

The picture, to be sure, is blissful.

Yes, the Afrikaners, if they are, do adhere to a fairly traditional way of life, are patriarchal, although not to the point of fanaticism. But they have nothing to do with the Russian cultural code. And their mentality is definitely not the same as that of ordinary Russians. At home, they also periodically defend their rights. Is the Tver region ready for this? Here sometimes it is difficult to deal with our compatriots.

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I remember ten years ago I went to the Far East to the Old Believers from South Africa, who were called to Russia just to restore the society of traditional family values ​​and plow up a Far Eastern hectare.

Then it was not yet in a single line of state policy – the creation of a model world, God-fearing and patriarchal, where sex is only for childbearing and without any perversions there.

Surviving intact people from a tiny community of schismatic Old Believers from the shores of the Amazon tried to bring their idea of ​​real Russia to us.

They walked in bright ribbons and sundresses, fabrics from which they had bought from themselves, and therefore, more than our traditional ancestors, they looked like participants in the carnival in Rio de Janeiro.

To be honest, why they were called – I did not understand.

To populate empty Russian villages? But how many of them will you populate with several dozen families … To pass on advanced farming experience? But our potatoes are not their bananas for you …

As exemplary spirit-uplifting exoticism? But, except for the journalists who dangled to this village, as if to their home, these people were not particularly interesting to anyone.

You can’t understand Russia with your mind…

The village of Korfovka near Ussuriysk was the penultimate straw. The Old Believers settled in an empty five-story Khrushchev building, erected against the backdrop of picturesque hills and abandoned by previous residents. They tried to get the kids to go to school. They wanted to give the same TIN, for pensions and child benefits …

From Korfovka, the settlers rushed to the most remote taiga. Somehow dreamily hoping that they will be helped and assisted, without demanding anything from them in return. And they, having become citizens of the Russian Federation, will continue to live as they are used to.

The community members solved all everyday problems simply – they immediately wrote to the Foreign Ministry. Either they are forbidden to cut firewood in the taiga, or the generator does not pull, or they are required to pay the rent of the Far Eastern hectare …

For five years of living in Russia, the migrants, as the media wrote, gave birth to 12 new children. Not so much, in fact, if we consider that families are started here in adolescence and by the age of 20 they already become parents of many children. All those who moved, of course, obtained Russian citizenship. But they could not, as they wanted, get the land into final ownership – bureaucratic obstacles interfered. In general, no one has heard of them since the pandemic.

Perhaps the Afrikaners, just like the Old Believers, will become a public relations project in the trend of improving ties with the oppressed peoples of Africa. Just not to confuse who oppresses whom.

Expert opinions

Alexey Trofimov, farmer from Tver who oversees this project: “We are waiting for everyone – both Boers and students from Africa who are now graduating from Russian universities and speak Russian. That is, Africans who already now live in Russia and do not plan to return home.

And those who are ready to invest in housing construction and the development of their own kind of activity. We give them raw materials and sell them. For now, they will have the land on lease, and then we’ll see what and how. This project is currently a pilot one. There are many who wish.

In principle, we don’t care who it will be, the main thing is that they are good-natured and hard-working people who are ready to work on the ground.”

Alexey Raksha, demographer: “The resettlement program for compatriots of the Russian Federation has existed for many years, but it has stalled for a long time, including because at first rather depressive places were chosen for this resettlement, where few people wanted to go. But then the settlers were allowed to move to almost all regions, except for Moscow, the Moscow region, and St. Petersburg. And just before the pandemic, flows reached about 100 thousand a year.

I think that today the potential of Russian immigration to Russia has practically dried up. Most Russians in the Russian Federation can move from Kazakhstan. Others who wanted to do it, I believe, have already done it.

As agriculture continues to progress, there are fewer and fewer rural workers. Perhaps some seasonal workers are needed, like the same Mexicans who come to work in the fields in the United States, they are paid in cash, and then they return to their place. You don’t need a lot of people right now to produce a lot of food. What the visiting Africans plan to do in these villages, I don’t quite understand.

If white farmers from South Africa are waiting for us, then it is not very clear why they need us? I do not think that they live so badly at home that they are ready to give up everything and move to Russia. By the way, there are about 32 thousand white farmers engaged in commercial production in South Africa.

If not ten, but at least a couple of hundred Afrikaner families really come to us, then I will consider it a miracle.