Abstract

Russia is consistently a top migration destination. While most migrate to Russia from other post-Soviet countries, a small but highly visible group of the Russian-speaking diaspora has returned from Europe and North America. Lauded in Russian media as ‘ideological migrants’, their narratives at first glance echo those of the state as they claim to flee liberalism and seek freedom.

Drawing on ethnographic encounters with some of these migrants in Russia and the United States since 2014, this article examines how disillusionment and geopolitical imaginaries intersect with transnational circulations of the far right to motivate migration. Through two case studies of men returning from the West, this article conceptualizes their migration as a form of moral migration, an ethical alignment of where one lives with one's values.

Ethnographic attention to moral migration has implications for understanding how individuals weigh factors beyond economic and political calculations to plan their migration and to address growing disillusionment worldwide with cultural and political liberalism.