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Valuable Foreigners: Russia Starts Accepting Migrants Using 17th Century Recipes | ||
2025-03-01 | ||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Yaroslav Karpikov [REGNUM] Over the past six months, Russian migration authorities have received almost 600 applications from potential migrants from a rather unusual category. We are talking about educated and often very successful Americans, Canadians and residents of the European Union who do not agree with the liberal "agenda", share traditional spiritual and moral values - and therefore are ready to come and live in our country.
The basis for impatriation, that is, moving to a new homeland, was the decree of Vladimir Putin adopted in August 2024. According to this document, foreigners who share the values adopted by us will be able to receive a temporary residence permit (TRP) outside the quota. The decision on each valuable - without any irony - foreign specialist is made by the headquarters operating under the federal Ministry of Internal Affairs.
If now these are people who left, among other things, because of the excessive European "tolerance", then at that time victims of religious intolerance fled to Russia. In fact, our western neighbors of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth called all non-Catholics, including Orthodox, by the word dysydent (from the Latin dissidens, "dissenting"). The departure of the Orthodox “in the name of the sovereign” was especially valued in the first half of the 17th century, since in the minds of all Orthodox Christians of the world at that time, Russia was the only country of “pious faith” among an ocean of perished people: “Luthers and Calvins,” that is, Protestants, “Papalians,” that is, Catholics, and “Mohammedans.” An example of such an “exit” is the family of the Kiev Metropolitan Job Boretsky (1620–1631). In the archives we find many extracts and petitions from the Discharge Prikaz, which tell about the relatives and service to the Tsar of this amazing man. Thus, in the extract, compiled on the basis of a certificate from the Ambassadorial Office, a description of the royal favor to the son and nephew of the Kyiv Metropolitan, who left for the Russian state to serve in the year 7138 from the creation of the world (that is, in 1630), has been preserved. "FORTY SABLES AND 50 RUBLES OF MONEY" Andrei Boretsky, the son of Metropolitan Job, and Pavel Knyazhitsky, the Metropolitan's nephew, were honored with a reception by Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich on January 13, 1631, and were "at hand" and received refreshments from the Tsar's table. Andrei himself was granted the rank of stolnik to Patriarch Filaret Nikitich (the Tsar's father), and Pavel Knyazhitsky was granted the rank of Moscow nobleman. They also received separate gifts from Patriarch Filaret. Thus, Andrei Boretsky will receive from Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich: "A silver-gilt cup worth 3 hryvnias, velvet worth 15 rubles... forty sables worth 30 rubles, 50 rubles in money from the Great Parish." From Patriarch Filaret Nikitich he received: “An icon, a silver ladle worth 2 hryvnias… 40 sables worth 20 rubles, 20 rubles in money.” Pavel Knyazhitsky also received such rich gifts. Along with the gifts to Boretsky and Knyazhitsky, they added food, drink, and feed for their horses. 15, 20, and especially 50 "rubles" were very good lifting. To understand, for a ruble in silver in the 17th century you could buy almost 220 kg of rye flour or about 30 kilograms of butter, a four-year-old bull or five or six sheep. ROYAL GIFTS FOR THE NOBLEMAN BOYARSKY In the summer of 1631, from the Russian border town of Putivl (now in the Sumy region of Ukraine), the governors Prince Andrei Mosalsky and Ignatius Uvarov sent a “rider” with the Putivl boyar’s son Grigory Gladky. It turned out to be another nephew of the Kiev Metropolitan Job - Stepan Boyarsky. Arriving in Moscow, the Metropolitan's nephew told about himself: “His father, Fyodor Boyarsky, served the king in the zhelnyr (that is, military - from the Polish żołnierz, soldier) service on five horses, and his mother, Stepanova, was the sister of the Kiev Metropolitan Job Boretsky.” Three years earlier, Stepan was sent by his father to Vilno (modern Vilnius) to learn to read and write, after which, with his father's consent, he moved to Lvov, where he studied at the local school for two years. In Lvov, the young nobleman learned "Polish and Russian literacy," after which he went to Kyiv. That same year, before Maslenitsa, his father died in Kiev, and his elder brother Ivan Boyarsky went to the Russian state. Stepan lived with his mother in Kiev for 20 weeks, after which he decided to go to Moscow to serve the Tsar. His mother remained in Kiev at the Mikhailovsky Monastery. Having finally reached Moscow via Putivl, the younger nephew of the Kiev Metropolitan Job Boretsky was received by Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich in the Dining Chamber and allowed to kiss his hand. Stepan also received large gifts for his departure to Russia: “a cup worth 2 hryvnias, velvet… damask, cloth… forty sables worth 20 rubles, 30 rubles in money…” SCOUT NOVIKOV AND HIS MISSION The same Kiev Metropolitan Job Boretsky was an active assistant in the matter of Orthodoxy and the emigration of Little Russians and Belarusians to Russia. Some of his hidden contacts were through Russian spies sent by Putivl governors to Little Russia in the 1620s and 1630s. One of these spies was the boyar's son from Putivl, Vasily Novikov. Returning to Putivl from Kiev in the autumn of 1630, Novikov told how he visited the metropolitan, who informed him of everything that was happening in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and at parting said to him: “As he… hears about all sorts of news, he will send his son Andrey Boretsky to the Tsar in Moscow.” Which, as we see, was done later. His son would later become a city governor in Yelets in Russia. In the person of Job Boretsky we see a man devoted to the cause of Orthodoxy, who perceived the Russian Tsar as the only savior not only of the body of Orthodox Christians from the “pope-mongers” of the Poles, but also the savior of the souls of those who came to serve him. Not only Orthodox Christians from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth left for Russia, as a rule, the same Russians (Little Russians and Belarusians) who remained “outside their native harbor” after the Lithuanian conquests of the 12th–13th centuries, but also Orthodox Christians from the Balkans and the East. One such case was the departure in the sovereign’s name of the prince’s son from Serbia, a representative of the Miloradovich family, whose descendants would later glorify Russia. On November 20, 1640, from Putivl, the steward and governor Grigory Pushkin (a representative of the senior branch of the ancient family that gave Russia its greatest poet) sent a foreigner “with a formal reply,” who introduced himself as Tsvei Pavlov, a native of the Serbian land. Arriving in Moscow, the visiting foreigner was interrogated, and this is what he said about himself: "Of the princely lineage of the Serbian land. His father, Prince Pavel Ilyin, son of Miloradov, serves the Turkish king from his estate among the Serbs. And his, the prince's, direct baptismal name is Prince Stepan." The story of the Serbian prince Stepan Miloradovich’s departure to Russia, which he told in the Discharge Order, is also interesting. The story begins with a family drama, when, according to Stepan, “now for the fourth year, the Turkish people deceived his brother, the younger prince Yury, and brought him from the Serbian land to Constantinople, and in Constantinople they converted him to Islam. ” The elder brother did not accept this and moved from Serbia to Istanbul to search. Arriving in the Ottoman capital, the prince found his "Buddhist" brother and took him away from the city. The fugitives reached the "Multean land" (the mountainous region of Muntenia in modern Romania), where the younger brother died. Fearing pursuit and punishment from the "infidel" Turks, Stepan did not return to his father in Serbia, but took refuge on Mount Athos in the Hilandar Monastery, where he hid for six months. At the same time, the Jerusalem Patriarch Theophanes III (who in 1620 restored the Kiev Metropolitanate after the Brest Union of 1596) was passing through the Hilandar Monastery. Prince Pavel Miloradovich, fearing for the future fate of his eldest son, turned to him with a request for protection before the Russian Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich. At that moment, Stepan had already firmly decided to leave for Moscow and went there, having received two letters - from his father and from the Jerusalem Patriarch. The young prince began his journey to the Russian state through the lands of Multyanskaya and Voloska (Wallachia), reached the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and passed the fortresses of Khotin, Kamenets-Podolsky and through all of Lithuania reached the Russian Putivl. There, the steward Pushkin had already provided him with protection. Two “letters of recommendation” were sent to the Discharge Order, and they can now be found in the archives. In one of them, Prince Paul calls Tsar Mikhail Romanov "the champion of the Divine churches" and "the second Constantine, the God-protected reigning city of Moscow." The old aristocrat wrote with sorrow about the apostasy from Orthodoxy of his deceased youngest son: "The wicked Hagarians brought my youngest son to Constantinople and defamed him with a wicked charm... infantile reason... they converted him to Turkey, alas, for the sake of sin." The Patriarch, taking advantage of the opportunity, informed the Russian sovereign about church affairs in the Middle East and recommended the young Miloradovich as “a good and honest man.” As in our time, the candidacy of the immigrant was carefully considered. A Serb who had already been naturalized in Russia, Prince Mikhail Rodionov son of Miloradov, Stepan's cousin, was summoned to the Discharge Prikaz. He informed the Duma clerks: "Serbenin Prince Stepan Miloradov is known to his father - his Prince Pavel is an honest man among the Serbs." After which the immigrant prince was presented to the tsar, and was presented with a silver ladle weighing 2 hryvnias, expensive silk fabric - damask weighing 10 arshins, "30 rubles of money" and a local salary, that is, a plot of land of 550 quarters - approximately 280 hectares. Subsequently, Prince Stepan Miloradovich will undergo the traditional procedure for all foreigners in Russia - “being sent to a monastery”, where his Orthodoxy will be tested once again and his loyalty to the traditional values of Russia will be finally proven. RUSSIA WILL NEED NEW BAGRATIONS "Relocant" Stepan gave rise to the Russian branch of the Miloradovich family, which gave the country many officers: from a colonel of the Zaporizhian Cossack army to a divisional commander during the First World War. But most of all in our history, the hero of the war of 1812 and victim of the Decembrist rebellion, the St. Petersburg Governor-General Mikhail Miloradovich, is remembered. The family name gave Russia diplomats, scientists, and officials, primarily in the Little Russian provinces. But there would have been no Miloradovichs in Rus' if not for the intelligent policy of the first Romanovs to attract valuable personnel from abroad. As we see, in Russia in the 17th century, all people who shared "traditional Russian values" were actively accepted, which at that time necessarily included Orthodoxy and the desire to serve the royal house. Despite their Orthodoxy and even belonging to the once united Russian people (the son and nephews of the Kyiv Metropolitan), foreigners who left for Russia lived for a long time "especially" in their own settlements in Moscow: Greek, Georgian, etc. Marriages were also concluded among "their own" natives. However, one should not look for reasons in the desire to preserve the usual living conditions for foreigners; this was connected with obtaining a number of privileges for such "traveling foreigners". Is the effect of the presidential decree justified in the realities of the 21st century in Russia? The answer is clear - yes, it is justified. Having such a mechanism, Russia will be able, as in the 17th century, to incorporate into its composition the faithful and devoted sons of the Fatherland (like the Miloradovichs and Bagrations ). However, it is necessary to strengthen control over the loyalty and confirmation of the fidelity of Russia of such new sons, as was done in the 17th century. | ||
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