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Russia far-right sect tries to get foothold in Europe
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Ines and Norman Kosin, who is sometimes known online as Felix Kramer, or Felix von Elysion, show banners of various projects as they speak to AFP journalists at their home in Austria on February 16, 2023. (AFP/Joe Klamar)
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nes and Norman Kosin left everything behind to follow the teachings of Anastasia, a far-right Russian sect that preaches a return to the land.
They used to work on Sylt, a trendy holiday island in the Baltic off northern Germany.
"Our life was very secure, but our heart was not happy," said Ines, a pastry chef and chocolate maker.
"Something was missing," she said.
So three years ago they set out to found a New Age Anastasian community on an isolated farm in the bucolic Burgenland of eastern Austria.
Interest in the movement -- whose teachings reject much of modern medicine, contain anti-Semitic tropes and qualify democracy as "demonocracy" -- surged during the pandemic.
The neo-pagan sect began in Russia in 1996 inspired by a series of bestselling books called the "Ringing Cedars" by Russian entrepreneur Vladimir Megre.
