Following their move to Russia, Leo’s family became one of the most visible examples of Western migration.
Russian state media filmed their asylum ceremony and Leo publicly thanked President Putin for welcoming them. At the time, Leo believed he was helping to pioneer what he calls “an unprecedented piece of immigration legislation”.
But the reality proved more difficult than he’d anticipated.
Within weeks of arriving, Leo says they were defrauded of 5 million roubles – about £52,000 ($66,000) – by a contact they trusted, leaving them homeless.
When I spoke to Leo earlier this year, he was living separately from his wife in the city of Ivanovo, and his older children had returned to the United States.
Asked whether Russia had lived up to his expectations, Leo describes the last two years as the best and worst of his life.
He says he has experienced many sides of Russia: working in an Orthodox monastery, staying in a high-rise apartment and later moving into a small Soviet-era flat. He eventually found work as an English tutor.
He still speaks fondly about ordinary Russians, describing them as generous and welcoming. He praises members of his church community who helped the family survive after they lost their savings and recalls one woman who invited his youngest son into her home and taught him Russian free of charge.
“My heart is just full of love for these people,” he says.
But he has also become increasingly concerned about the state of Russia’s economy and restrictions on access to information.
Leo is now reconsidering the role he played in promoting Western immigration to Russia.
“I believed in the propaganda,” he tells me, admitting that previously he was “the guy who would’ve written the script”.
Although he is committed to staying in Russia out of a sense of “destiny”, he now says he misses the freedoms that have shaped the American personality.
“[In] Russia you don’t have these human rights values.”
