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Speaker 1

00:01

You

Speaker 2

00:30

mhm.

Speaker 1

00:32

Hey,

Speaker 2

00:35

hello there, Kevin. How are you tonight? You just played, I used that for previous project, but you know, that's right, writes free.

Speaker 2

00:42

Yeah. You, I think you sped it up or did a, like a pitch change on it. You could have just used that as is man and it wouldn't get flagged.

Speaker 1

00:49

Yeah, I know. I sped it up on purpose because I wanted to keep it to 30 seconds and it fit with my royalty free video in the background.

Speaker 2

01:00

Oh, okay. I thought you're trying to just dodge the YouTube sensors. I'm like, for that particular piece of music, you don't have to.

Speaker 2

01:06

But anyways,

Speaker 1

01:08

yeah, no, I actually licensed it from YouTube. So,

Speaker 2

01:12

oh, wow. All right. There you go.

Speaker 2

01:15

But anyways, Kevin, looks like we're going to have a big adventure. Take a deep dive into the universe here of the American Village, right?

Speaker 1

01:25

We are So I'm sure all of you are familiar with Tim, but you know introductions anyway Tim Kirby famous American broadcaster in Russia the most American Russian

Speaker 2

01:40

that's right yeah and of course someone wants to call me right now. No, no, no, no, no. That's very nice of you, but no, no calling.

Speaker 1

01:50

Sorry, hold

Speaker 2

01:51

on. Hold on. Sorry, on a live stream. Okay.

Speaker 2

01:57

All right, there we go.

Speaker 1

01:59

Yeah, So welcome to all our regular viewers, new guys. I see some new people out there too. Tim is the front man for the American villages in Russia.

Speaker 1

02:12

So we're going to talk to them tonight about that. And if you have questions, please put them over in the comments. Put a big uppercase Q and a colon in front of it or I will miss them.

Speaker 2

02:26

So, well, we had a discussion like this about a year ago and a lot has changed or maybe it was more than a year ago. I don't know I appreciated it then and I appreciate this now because it's good to sort of go through this thing because the project is enticing especially the name but it definitely confuses people And the fact that there's a lot of myths and rumors and feelings about the project that aren't based in reality Doesn't help

Speaker 1

02:53

Yeah, and I think I from Svetlana's comment. I may have called you the most American Russian I if I did I apologize. You're the most Russian American.

Speaker 2

03:04

Yeah, yeah, that's the project. Well, that's the thing I do, my project that's in Russian for the Russian audience. Some of it gets translated into English for a lot of these travel videos, but ultimately, it's the project is just so much more successful in the Russian language that I think most of my colleagues are kind of just giving up on English or they're sort of just hanging on to it before they eventually give up.

Speaker 2

03:26

So I've already given up and I'm the host.

Speaker 1

03:33

Okay well Tim let's start out with the big 1. What is the American Village?

Speaker 2

03:39

Okay, so Kevin, this project is as it stands now in its current iteration and final iteration, at least for the moment, is it allows Western foreigners to buy land, that they normally wouldn't be able to buy because most land in Russia is inaccessible for foreigners to buy. Although, regardless, if you want to buy land in Russia, I could help you out with that because in the process of making this project, my good lawyer buddy and I, we were able to create the legal mechanisms to do that. So that's number 1, allows you to buy land in Russia and then build a house which you need to immigrate.

Speaker 2

04:15

And when you do this, it allows you to get through the migration quotas because although a lot of people are interested in moving to Russia, the system won't let them because they need some sort of legal foothold in order to gain you know, residency in Russia. And so the most classic legal foothold is being married to a Russian citizen. That gets you around the quota. Everything else is a bit more obtuse, harder to do, full of loopholes, or is even more expensive, I'll put it that way.

Speaker 2

04:48

So essentially, the project was created as a sort of nice way that Westerners who can't normally immigrate to Russia could immigrate to Russia Especially those people who are you know already married and have kids and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1

05:01

So that's the concept. Seriously. And Russia doesn't allow multiple wives just to immigrate.

Speaker 2

05:08

No, no, no, no, not yet. Not yet. So, yeah.

Speaker 1

05:13

So, okay. Well, so where is the village? This is actually a viewer question, but it's on my list too.

Speaker 2

05:21

Oh good, well that's a double time. So it's in the Moscow region. Remember Moscow the city and Moscow the region are 2 separate entities like Washington DC is not part of any state.

Speaker 2

05:31

And it's in the Moscow region and it is around Istra. So that's it by the big water reservoir. So if you look right now do a search for Istra, I-S-T-R-A, you'll probably get that as the only result and you can look and it's by the water so it's outside the city but then again there's a no traffic up there so it's easy to get into Istra and then from Istra there's a million bazillion trains that go downtown

Speaker 1

06:01

and Istra is Northwest of the city, right?

Speaker 2

06:06

Kind of northish did north northwest maybe more west kind of But yeah So it's also famous because It's really the place where all the rich guys put their dachas in the 90s because for various reasons The ecology that's west of the city is considered to be superior So during the 90s the people who are in the know who made their first, you know million dollars They all bought land out that way. So in some ways it's actually Worked out to be kind of a more top-tier area But again why that place because they had land where we knew the guy who's selling it We being my myself and my partner Tim or we know the guy who's selling it we It's all set up, you know to have the electricity and water and all this, you know, all the utilities are already there and ready to go. And that's what killed the original project was the cost of trying to get these utilities set up.

Speaker 2

07:00

It just became completely, unviable. No investor would pay that insane amount of money to do it. And so when you have everything already set up, well, you gotta go with where the wind blows you.

Speaker 1

07:13

Okay, cool. So what other infrastructure is there? I mean, how close is it to the city?

Speaker 1

07:18

Are there supermarkets and car dealerships?

Speaker 2

07:24

Well, every time I've been to the site, I've seen delivery trucks. So apparently you don't really have to go to the city anymore. This is modern Russia.

Speaker 2

07:31

I mean, I can get food delivered to my house in the woods You know what I mean? So the necessity for all that stuff is is not as important as it used to be But I believe it's like a 15 or 20 minute drive to the Easter itself Then from Easter it is what a hour and 10 or hour and 20 or something on the train. If you're driving no traffic to get downtown, probably be like an hour and a half or something with traffic. The sky's the limit baby because the traffic here can get pretty brutal so yeah.

Speaker 2

08:02

But getting to Istra again there is no traffic because essentially because of the water reservoir, the road or roads that go up that way are really all kind of dead ends and only really service the people who live there. So it kind of functions like a giant cul-de-sac. And so there's not a whole lot of cars.

Speaker 1

08:21

Well, I've got a relative who has a dacha about an hour and a half outside of Moscow, but she's out on dirt roads. So is this dirt roads or they're paved roads?

Speaker 2

08:32

Oh, no, no, no. It's it's it's an asphalt paved road, even within the actual community. It is paved roads.

Speaker 2

08:41

So, yeah, it's 100 percent paved. Like if you drove from the Kremlin to go home, it would be all 100% paved. Yeah, the days of country roads are over. And in my life, too, as of 2 years ago, they put a nice real asphalt road to my house in Czech, of which, boy, that even when you're walking and you're not driving, it made a huge difference just because it's perfectly flat and nice and all that.

Speaker 2

09:08

There are, I believe, 6 buses that go each way every day. It's like 6 buses towards the village, 6 buses from the village. Not super convenient, but public transport does exist and you can take taxis. Taxis in Russia, I think are pretty darn cheap or maybe I'm just living high in the hog, I don't know.

Speaker 2

09:27

So yeah, you don't necessarily have to drive to live there. It's 1 of the, but it'd be a perk, but it's not mandatory. Okay,

Speaker 1

09:36

oh cool.

Speaker 2

09:38

So, and also 1 thing to add, the now, previously the American village was gonna be like its own separate entity. Now it is essentially plots of land that we have access to that are within an already existing Dutch community that's been there for over a decade. And that's why, everything is set up.

Speaker 2

09:55

That's why there's water already there and gas and electricity and, sewers and all that stuff, because this was all built long, long ago.

Speaker 1

10:04

Okay. So does the village project itself own these plots of land or how's all that working?

Speaker 2

10:13

No, because It is really hard to find an investor for this kind of thing. I talked to all the billionaires I know, and that was 3 conversations, and all of them liked the idea, but they didn't wanna just give me a lot of money to play with, okay? So ultimately, the way that it works Best for everyone is like I said, we know this guy who is a friend of Timur's who has these large amount of dacha plots of land in 1 particular location and It has all the utilities in place.

Speaker 2

10:42

And so when Timur kind of put 2 and 2 together he talked to his buddy and essentially he reserved for us the right to the for last year to buy up to 30 of them now this year we're down to 20 he sold 10 over the winter okay so I don't know what's going to happen That's what I tell people is like a lot of people like well I don't know maybe I'll think about this and normally normally especially before we actually started construction I would tell people you know what nothing was really sure so it's like no don't sell your house yet I don't know what's happening. You know, I'm not sure but now is that time where it's go time And that's why we're having this conversation right now because this guy I don't know maybe over the winter He'll sell another 10 or maybe he'll sell all 18 that are left We sold to 2 families are having homes being built. In fact, they're digging probably as we speak. The sun is still up judging by where I'm sitting.

Speaker 2

11:39

So, you know, that's where we're at. But the thing is then a lot of people ask, what will happen in a couple, what if I wanna do this in a couple of years? Well, the problem with Russia is you don't know is, okay, Maybe we'll be able to find location number 2 where there's a lot of land for sale That's sort of next to each other That is all nice and set up. That's also in a really nice community that's somehow still somewhat affordable Was it sounding really impossible?

Speaker 2

12:08

Isn't it? You know, maybe we'll be able to repeat this success But I can't guarantee that Kevin. I can't guarantee that what I can guarantee is there's 18 plots of land left for 2024 And whatever happens next year, you know what happens? I tried to talk to this guy and be like, you know, look how much give us another year He's kind of like you're a real nice guy and I'm happy to make this deal with you, but I want to make money on this.

Speaker 2

12:36

I was like, okay. So yeah, he's not, he's not a, philanthropist.

Speaker 1

12:42

Well, so it's typical Russia first come first served. Even you have a handshake with a guy, if you walk away and say you'll come back tomorrow and somebody brings them the cash tonight, they'll sell it anyway. Oh yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2

12:55

yeah. Yeah. That's how it is here. So there's a really, like I said, there's no guarantees.

Speaker 2

13:01

But who knows, maybe something could happen But that's why I tell people if you're gonna be sitting this thing of like maybe I don't know The other thing too is Kevin is people aren't immortal. Well, the governor of the Moscow region I believe last year or was it this no last year won the election So he's governor for another 5 years. So that's awesome. The head of Rosalyn Primakov, I believe when Putin got back in office, he was renewed as being the head of that.

Speaker 2

13:29

So that's like a 5 or 6 year window where the people we made these agreements with about the immigration side are still in their position, barring some sort of horrible scandal, they're in place. But again, you know, what if, you know, God forbid, what if 1 of those 2 people had a heart attack, and the guy who replaces them says, well, the F for you, agreement that was with him, F you pal, You know what I mean? Yeah. So.

Speaker 2

13:55

Yeah. So that's why they're after like a year and a half or 2 years of the project being something that's like, guys, wait, wait, wait, don't sell your house. Don't flip out. Wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2

14:06

Now it's the opposite. It went from 0 urgency to now like major urgency. Sorry. I know it's annoying.

Speaker 2

14:12

I know it's not a pleasant way to do this, but it's the way it is. Try to find another way to move here.

Speaker 1

14:22

So that's a big question. If somebody wants to get involved, what do they get when they invest in the project? Do they just get a piece of land or do they get a house built for them or

Speaker 2

14:35

okay so invest is an improper word investing sounds like you are putting money into something to get money back what you are doing is you are buying a life in Russia because you are buying land, you're gonna put some kind of house on it. Although some people say they just wanna buy the land and maybe do a house later, that's good because at least you're there. You're still a foreign person who wants to come to Russia.

Speaker 2

15:00

So if you wanna buy the land now and build later that works that works It might not be as good cost-wise because the more people you have at the same time the easier it is to make it happen But anyways, that's that's not bad. But what essentially you're doing is you are buying the opportunity to have a life in Russia. That's what you're doing. So it's not an investment.

Speaker 2

15:18

It is, I am getting a place in the immigration quota. I am gonna get temporary residency through a Tumor's skills in our numerous agreements. And that's it. And you're gonna get a life in Russia where you actually have a place to live.

Speaker 2

15:31

And it's nice, unlike certain people in this conversation, Kevin, who came to Russia with absolutely nothing like our Uzbek and Tajik friends and had to claw his way towards having real estate here.

Speaker 1

15:45

Yeah So you say it gets them in the quota system. Do they actually get a quota through the village? Or does it qualify them for it?

Speaker 1

15:56

Or what's the deal

Speaker 2

15:57

with that? Yes, we have all the documents and writing. It gets you the, of course, in Russian legalese, it gets you the opportunity to apply for temporary residency which you will and which it'll succeed because you have a place the quota so it's basically your gateway to temporary residency but that has to all be filed with Timur and this that and the other and you still have to do the language tests there's no getting around that so you have to have that very very ultra basic minimum knowledge of Russia the tests people over blow them we've talked about this many times Kevin so I won't like I talked your ear off with a conversation we've had 12 times, but they are way easier than people tell you and Russian especially at that level is way easier than idiots online will tell you so don't worry too much about that.

Speaker 2

16:44

But yeah.

Speaker 1

16:45

Yeah and and I'll point out to people that the Opportunity to get a quota is a big deal because there aren't a lot of ways you can get a quota Particularly in the Moscow region because there's a limited number every year. So this is actually getting you a quota. It's giving you a way to get the quota and you're getting 1 of those slots.

Speaker 2

17:10

Well, there's a limited number for every state in the union, as we would say. And Some of the quotas are teeny tiny. So even if you think, oh, well, you know what?

Speaker 2

17:19

Why don't I just go to some region no 1 has ever heard of? First off, they're not gonna be very happy to see you. Secondly, you're not gonna get through the bureaucracy. And thirdly, you know, there are some regions in Russia where the quota is 20.

Speaker 2

17:30

And that is pretty easy to fill. You know what I mean? From people from the former Soviet Union or whatever. So, yeah, it is essentially the methods to to do this, to get into Russia.

Speaker 2

17:43

Immigration wise, They're sort of they sort of exist but they're all very difficult like the whole thing about the okay I'm gonna start a business and I'm gonna pay myself to run the business though The the lawmen are really clamping down on that. Maybe that still works I don't know a few people have gotten through with that, but it's still expensive. And ultimately, what do you get from it? You got the opportunity to pay yourself a very high salary and pay taxes on paying yourself.

Speaker 2

18:09

So, you know, that's the thing where in Russia, everyone, you know, you need a place to live. And since real estate taxes here are so teeny tiny, I really recommend to everyone who invest in real estate. This is not Russia is not a country where you buy a house and yet pay tons of money for it. You know every year of your life and your retirement really depends on your house here.

Speaker 2

18:30

There's no I don't know. Maybe there is a Russian 401k but it doesn't seem to be very popular haven't heard of it me either so yeah but what I do know is rich people in Russia or at least people who are upper middle class have large real estate portfolios and they rented out the suckers and that's what their retirement package looks like.

Speaker 1

18:53

Yep. There you go. So grassy know, we will get to the question shortly. So We will go through the list.

Speaker 1

19:01

Yes, we will give you some numbers.

Speaker 2

19:04

That's interesting. Now there, there's a grassy knoll, but now will there be like, like steel barn, like cause now we have this like second, magical location. I don't know.

Speaker 2

19:15

Well, anyways,

Speaker 1

19:17

I, I should have, uploaded the, where's Joe picture.

Speaker 2

19:21

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2

19:22

Now we, you know, we don't know what's up with them.

Speaker 1

19:26

So happy joy. I have had this discussion with many people in the last 2 days about this. The Russian language is not easy.

Speaker 1

19:39

With all the nuances that Lana is actually telling people this in the chat. The language test is easy. The temporary residency 1 is extremely easy, but I recommend people just go right for the permanent residency test because it covers you for both and you only have to take 1. Yeah, I

Speaker 2

19:59

mean these Questions are so basic where it's like in English should like I blank you it would be like you know, I love you I work you I Unabridged you you know, which 1 is correct like It's that level of just like absolute bare minimum. 1 thing is a happy joy, is this person, are they a foreign person or a Russian? Do you know?

Speaker 1

20:23

I don't know. Happy joy, why don't you put in the comments? Are you American, Russian, where you from?

Speaker 2

20:28

It's nice to know how you know that the tests are so hard because they're not, they really aren't. Yeah.

Speaker 1

20:35

Yeah, you get a picture, you have to describe what's going on in the picture. You have to write a short paragraph saying, you know, hi, Joe, I started a new job doing this and they don't pay attention to whether you can conjugate things, whether you get the genders correct. If you can say, yeah, gov, re power, Ruski, you are.

Speaker 2

21:03

Yeah. So it's pretty, it's pretty merciful. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1

21:07

So, okay. So what are the biggest, Well, we talked about the benefits for people rather than just buying something somewhere else. So this is the question that everyone keeps asking is what does it cost?

Speaker 1

21:27

What if they want to people land? What if they want to build the house?

Speaker 2

21:30

Hold on. Let me open my files here. I'm bad at remembering numbers.

Speaker 2

21:34

So I have to have everything written Let's see It was in this folder. I Love having a big desktop computer. Isn't it amazing? So anyways all the all the parcels of land that are there are from between 4 to 5000000 rubles.

Speaker 2

21:53

So the minimum size is something like 1, 530 square meters And the maximum biggest 1 is 1922 square meters However, many of them are next to each other so you could buy a double plot of land if you so wanted to so land is 4 to 5000000 and the thing is about the houses That is a complex thing that a lot of people don't understand is because I have a good buddy who owns a construction company. I just kind of talked to him about this issue. And so he's our he's our builder. Right.

Speaker 2

22:28

And so I sort of looked and I was like, OK, we're going to use your series of houses that he calls the next series so basically to build a stock next house the smallest next house which is 72 square or 70 excuse me 76 and a half square meters on the inside it's about 11 million rubles but there's a lot of ways you can bring that price down You cannot finish the outside which in Russia is a very normal thing to do There's a lot of things you could do on the inside do it more cheaper or more simply and bring the price down for the house to be more something like 8 million rubles. So the construction company is very excited about this project. They really like doing it. And so they're super duper excited to talk to people and try to, let's just say, find the ideal price point.

Speaker 2

23:20

But ultimately it is really hard to find anything cheaper than that, that's a house. There's this particular base plan has an option for an extension. So you could sort of, if you take the base small house we have you could extend it later from the same construction Company and it would add 63 more square meters which almost you know doubles it so in terms of square feet the base house is 820 and the extension is 680 But again, this is being made by their proprietary cinder blocks and the walls are real big and real thick and real solid. And the whole thing is very, very solid.

Speaker 2

24:00

And they promise you'll have the lowest energy bills you have ever heard of. So that's what it is. It's a, it's a, it is an expensive offer. It works out to be then something like 4 and a half for the land.

Speaker 2

24:12

Then for the house, something like 11. So you're thinking like, well, that'd be for a 15 and a half million. Rubles, something like that. Maybe less again, if you want to cut corners, you could squeak it down to being something like 13 maybe.

Speaker 2

24:27

So that's what it works out to be. But unfortunately guys, I really wish that I could do it for cheaper, but because of COVID and the war, construction prices have exploded. The price of construction has doubled since COVID, literally. So you're getting, if I could have been able to do a project like this before the war, when people were less interested in moving to Russia, or especially before COVID, it would be 1 half the price.

Speaker 1

24:53

Yeah and for our western friends and US dollars that comes out to about 170 to 180 thousand US dollars.

Speaker 2

25:04

Yeah. So let me try to,

Speaker 1

25:06

yeah, which let me point out in Moscow is not expensive.

Speaker 2

25:12

No, no. I'm actually, actually the problem is, is everything, you know, everything sounds expensive, but this is really actually very good pricing for what you're gonna, you know what I mean? Like for what you're getting.

Speaker 2

25:27

Because Timur and I looked into, and I do not like stick frame. I think it's something that's a little bit antiquated, but it is cheap. Okay, I can't deny that. There's a reason why stick frame exists.

Speaker 2

25:40

I'm trying to find the company's specific page about their next homes. But anyways,

Speaker 1

25:46

well, I'll tell you this. I know at least in Crimea, we were going to do the new building that we're building stick frame. The wood cost us more if we were going to do it that way than buying gas block.

Speaker 1

26:00

So we bought the blocks for less money than the wood.

Speaker 2

26:02

Oh, the wood. Well, you're in the Crimea. So that's a little bit of a different thing.

Speaker 2

26:06

But I'll put this way, Kevin, if we were to make these houses out of wood, which obviously means they're less energy efficient, you're You know what I mean? A wooden house can only last so long. This that and the other,

Speaker 1

26:19

right?

Speaker 2

26:19

It would really only save like 2 million rubles, which maybe for some people that could Be a big game changer, but it's not like it reduced the price by 60% It was more like by 15 and at this point why sell someone and in you know, I don't want to sell something inferior. Yeah. So yeah, if you look at that n domes, that are you, that's part of the next project.

Speaker 2

26:41

And you can see if you have the money, I mean, if money is no object, They have a lot of different versions of their next homes. Obviously, it's written in Russian Maybe you can have the computer translated, but they have all sort of different sizes However, they're only have 1 option with 2 floors because they're big advocates for 1 story construction in russia because it is better for your heating bills and they're basically the guy who owns it. He could go a whole spiel about it, but he's a big, big fan of the single story home. So they'll have 1 option, 2 floors.

Speaker 1

27:12

Yeah. So There you go guys. There's the site to go to to look at the houses. I agree with you Tim.

Speaker 1

27:21

Actually the only reason we were going to do stick frame here is like I say, it is or like you said, it's Crimea and we can get away with it here, But the blocks were better, which actually I prefer anyway.

Speaker 2

27:34

Oh, yeah, and it's gonna last Barring some sort of horrible earthquake, you know, god forbid It's that house is gonna last for a long especially the blocks are gonna last for a long a long long long time

Speaker 1

27:47

Yeah So, True Let's look at our list of questions here.

Speaker 2

27:55

Or take some from the audience. I'm not opposed.

Speaker 1

27:57

That's what I'm, that's what I'm getting. Okay. Mr.

Speaker 1

28:02

Wonderful said he applied about a year and a half ago and he hasn't heard much about it since I, you know, I'll, I'll let you say a word about that Tim, but I would say if you aren't following the American villages, telegram channel, Which I should have a banner for but I don't.

Speaker 2

28:21

Here I could just send you the link here. Unfortunately the name of it worked out to be very bad because now it was American Village, but it's not going to be in Serpukhov anymore. But anyways, If you could put that link up on the screen anyone is free to go there and they can follow Some news about the project as it develops.

Speaker 2

28:41

However, I'll put this way This is just a telegram about the the page like the project. It's not like a really interesting telegram that's gonna have really good daily content Like it's just specifically about this project of things relating to it and nothing more

Speaker 1

28:55

Yeah, and Tim's got some other channels you should go check out as well. I can give those to you later. Put them down in the comments.

Speaker 1

29:05

I've got them in my banner somewhere, but I'm real bad about clearing them out. So that's the Telegram channel and under Tim's name, somebody asked that in the questions, Is actually the website of the project?

Speaker 2

29:22

Yes So yeah, you can take a look at our very simple site made by me, which is always scary I hate making websites is my least favorite design thing to do but yeah, that's the site and it should Explain things maybe it's not that good of a site because I tell people to look at it and no 1 I'll put this way people leave the site and they have They basically ask questions that are where everything is just written on the site. I don't know I don't even know what to say anymore. It's it's yeah, so I kind of feel like the site is pointless, but yeah

Speaker 1

29:55

Yeah, so these are these are the guys that are running the project Yes to more who is the immigration lawyer Tim and father Joseph Gleason real good guy

Speaker 2

30:07

Yes, And Father Joseph will at some point in time, he is trying to do the same project in the Yadislavskaya region. So at some point, who knows when there should be an American village is somewhere in the Yatslavskaya region in theory. But again, I don't like to talk about theoreticals.

Speaker 2

30:28

I like to talk especially right now about what we have right now that is guaranteed 100%. You know, that's that's what I want to chit chat about.

Speaker 1

30:37

Yep. And Tim was mentioning you do need the language lessons. I'm going to go against my wife and advertise Tim's deal instead. But This is on the website so you can go there you can click for details use Tim's code and you get a 25% discount.

Speaker 2

30:59

Yeah it is a little bit of a long course, but the discount is definitely to your benefit and They have probably the best like materials I've seen because most of the materials when they try to teach teach foreigners Russian all suck They have their own like proprietary Textbooks and stuff and the materials are not really good They're like legit good. It's shocking So that's why that's why I endorsed them

Speaker 1

31:26

Okay, and Why they're getting away with on me with the questions. So Mr. Wonderful again, he's asking, you and I had this discussion the other day in the Telegram channel.

Speaker 1

31:38

All you had to do is apply and get a free acre of land. It doesn't happen here. Nobody is going to give you free land and citizenship.

Speaker 2

31:49

Well, you're kind of mixing up a few things. Now there's those government programs where they give Russian citizens the opportunity to apply for a free acre or actually it's a little bit, I think it's works out to be a bit more than an acre. Oh man, how many hectares or acres in a hectare, like 3 and a half or something.

Speaker 2

32:06

So like 3 and a half acres, but that's only for citizens. At the initial part of the project, the land was, Yes, the land around Serpukhov was and couldn't theoretically could have could still be free if I knew an investor who'd be willing to pay an insane amount of money to get all the utilities put in. So with Serpukhov, the land was free. The utilities were insane.

Speaker 2

32:36

So insane that they killed that project. So the land was not so free ultimately.

Speaker 1

32:41

Yeah. So.

Speaker 2

32:45

And again, that's why I feel bad because the Serpukhov option, when I first was sort of doing the math on this, and I was promised that getting the electricity to go to the village there would have been free. And then once it hits the border, then you have to sort of set it up and buy a transformer and all that stuff, which is actually not that expensive in Russia. And I thought, great, that is gonna be awesome.

Speaker 2

33:04

This is not gonna be too expensive. We're gonna be able to have homes that are gonna be like 6000000 rubles or something crazy cheap. It's just gonna be brilliant. But ultimately that didn't happen because the cost of putting the utilities on that particular piece of land was so insanely expensive.

Speaker 2

33:19

And that's probably why we had access to it for free, because there was something wrong with it. It's in a very weird location where it would require 8 kilometers of dedicated electric lines in order to build a town in that location. And apparently the cost of that is just astronomical. Yep.

Speaker 1

33:46

Okay. So, Timothy, while I can appreciate this as a safe place to ease Westerners into Russia, how will it help them to integrate into, I assume the rest of his question is integrate into society.

Speaker 2

34:05

Okay, well, at the very most, you could have 20, well, there would be 19 minus yourself. At the very most, you could have 19 units of family units of foreign neighbors. The other 300 or whatever houses are not filled with foreign people in that particular location.

Speaker 2

34:25

Also all the other little Dutch communities around it are not filled with foreign people. East Thra isn't filled with foreign people. Moscow isn't either. So, you know, it's gonna give you this nice, safe sort of landing pad and maybe some neighbors that you have, you know, things in common with, but there's no way that you're not going to get integrated into society.

Speaker 2

34:49

Russia doesn't work like that. There's no way to live here unless you're ultra wealthy and be isolated from the rest of society. It's just not gonna work that way because your kids are still gonna have to go to school. You know, 1 of the things I noticed as an adult is probably the best way to make friends as an adult is through your kids, like on playgrounds and stuff, if you really want to.

Speaker 2

35:09

And so, yeah, your kids are going to spend time with local kids. And they'll get integrated into the school system. That's also part of the program. But the other thing, too, is remember, is the way the person just phrased that question he was like well why should I live in your sort of community that's kind of far away I can see the benefits of it but then how do I integrate in Russian society If you don't participate in this program, you're not coming here at all.

Speaker 2

35:34

You see what I mean? That's the thing that people don't, that's why I started the thing, but I really have to kind of like people don't get. It's not like a lot of countries you've heard about. You have to have some kind of legal foothold in order to live here.

Speaker 2

35:48

And if you are already married with kids, the likelihood of you somehow through some sort of magic getting a place in them, either the migration quota legit way or getting through the immigration bureaucracy by yourselves, it's not gonna happen. You have to have some way to get through the system. And this is 1 of those very few ways. And it's probably the most beneficial for you because ultimately you'll have to buy a place to live at some point anyways.

Speaker 2

36:17

So yeah.

Speaker 1

36:19

So, okay. Somebody asked if Timor is the immigration lawyer. Yes, he is.

Speaker 1

36:25

Correct. And for the other person who's asking if there's immigration lawyers they can work with, you can work with Timur.

Speaker 2

36:32

Yeah, because Timur is the 1 who organized all the wonderful agreements that would give you a place in the American village. This is another thing where I get it, where people want to have control over things and I get that, But a lot of people are like, well, Tim, I want to do the American village thing, but I want to build the house. I want to find a construction company.

Speaker 2

36:52

I want to build the house that I want. And it's like, you could do that, or you could get completely fucked over. I know Kevin, we've talked about how you got really screwed over by construction companies in the past personally. And it's like, no, don't do that.

Speaker 2

37:07

How are you going to go to a country where you don't speak the language and get a quality house built and not get screwed over by all these con artists and stuff? No, don't do it. No.

Speaker 1

37:18

So, so Svetlana is doing her normal thing which is disagreeing with me. She said Moscow has become very dangerous because of all the foreigners. Okay, so.

Speaker 1

37:29

And she told me to tell about Crimea and she'll tell about Moscow. I spend a lot of time in Moscow. I don't find it to be dangerous.

Speaker 2

37:37

Well, okay, there is nowhere in Russia that's dangerous at all. There just isn't. Okay, the second thing is that when I'm talking about this person asked a question from the context of being an American I assume I presume or a Western person who's gonna live in a with other Western neighbors, and he was asking about integration You you're not Uzbeks and Tajiks don't count towards that Yeah, you know she's referring to a different type of foreigner of like the gas that are by 30 foreigners, right?

Speaker 2

38:09

She's not referring to Western foreigners, so I don't think she quite understood the logic of the question

Speaker 1

38:16

Yeah So okay, so Well,

Speaker 2

38:20

I'll put this way Kevin. There are not French crackheads waiting outside the metro to knife you for your wallet. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2

38:27

That's yeah. Those kind of foreigners aren't in large numbers in Moscow. Yeah,

Speaker 1

38:34

so Jay is asking about the Russian history Tests and language tests you answered that already. Yes. You still have to pass the tests,

Speaker 2

38:43

but they're super easy Critics will buy it where well back go back. I heard the ghetto in the ghetto Yeah, I'm from the ghetto so I should know I'm an expert I have a lived life experience IIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Speaker 1

39:17

don't know where it is.

Speaker 2

39:19

Oh, you know where it is. But I embrace questions that are a little bit toxic. That's no fun.

Speaker 2

39:23

I hit my stupid jokes and got to hit my hit my jokes.