A family is pioneering a project that brings 21st century farming methods to a Russian backwater, and they are reaping the rewards of their efforts.

Far away in the Kaluga Oblast, about a hundred miles from Moscow, retired armed forces captain Andrey Davydov has built his own village. At its center is a successful cattle-rearing enterprise, a model farm that is visited by agriculturalists from all over the world.

Proudly showing us around his acreage, Davydov tells how it all began: “In the 90s we made a decision to leave Russia. I had just left the army, and had earned some money selling books and matches—back then people traded in all sorts of things—and my wife Marina and I started thinking about where we should emigrate. We liked the idea of Canada. And so we went there to investigate the place for ourselves.”

While there, the couple also looked into Canadian agriculture. “I saw a dairy farm and realized I would not be able to deal with all the milking, filtering, pasteurizing, and cooling. I thought about pig farming, but it’s massively hard work, and you need to keep thousands and thousands of animals to make ends meet. It’s the same story with potato growing—we’re talking huge fields, expensive packing and sorting equipment, a lot of stress for little return.