Kin’s Domain Settlements or Ecovillages? Part 2

by Galina Karabinskaya | Jun 4, 2025 | Featured, Kin's Domains

← Back to the blog

– Written in 2018 by Alexey Gornaev, founding member of Kovcheg Settlement

Kin’s Domains or eco-settlements? Reasoning of the founder of Kin’s Domains at the time of July 2024.

Confucius’ dialog with his disciples:

-Teacher, if you had the power, where would you start positive change?

-From correcting names.

-Are proper names really that important?

-Very important. The right names form the right concepts. This is the only way to bring prosperity to the state.

The informational reason for writing this article was a joyful event: in the last days of June 2024, a conference of the international club “Ringing Cedars” (followers from all over the planet of the project outlined in the books of Russian writer Vladimir Nikolaevich Megre series “Ringing Cedars of Russia”) was held.*

*A comment from Gabriel Miguel:

The name of our organization is Anastasia Foundation, it’s an international community of Ringing Cedars readers.

The event being referred to was #6 in our Russia-America Exchange series, which we held with the Kovcheg Settlement as our guests. Alexey Gornaev was the main speaker. Here is the event details: https://anastasia.foundation/russia-america-exchange/one-of-russias-most-successful-old-settlements-russia-america-exchange-6/

The Russia-America Exchange series events are live question & answer sessions between Ringing Cedars readers all over the world, and our guest speakers.

I would first like to justify why we believe that this [Russia-America Exchange] event was joyful, positive and encouraging. In Soviet times, such activities were called people’s diplomacy and were actively supported by the state, in particular, central television organized teleconferences. And even now this activity is very common and welcomed.

In our case we are talking about a private initiative, but this activity itself, in our opinion, can also be classified as “people’s diplomacy”, and despite its small scale, it is very important.

In Megre’s books there is a statement of Siberian hermit Anastasia: “The war will start, but it will be stopped. It will be stopped by readers of your books. Now they are forming a worldview that has not existed for thousands of years. They will spread the good news of a new way of life all over the world. Already now in Russia there are sprouts of a new civilization. They are not visible with ordinary eyesight yet. It is they (Kin’s Domains) that will change the face of the whole planet called Earth”.

In the light of this statement, such a teleconference, where people discuss exclusively the topic of Kin’s Domains, seems to us a useful, necessary and significant, very relevant, very timely action.

In the process of live communication with the participants of the international club on all continents of the planet, first of all there was a keen interest in the Kin’s Domains movement in Russia. The questions were serious, thoughtful, very specific.

For the Russian side, i.e. for us practitioners, this communication was also very interesting, as we found out the peculiarities of Kin’s Domains perception by the residents of Western countries, which we did not even suspect. We will talk about it further

The club [Foundation] was founded in 2016 after the trip of Russian writer Vladimir Nikolayevich Megre to the USA, where he spoke with great triumph. It was that period in Vladimir Nikolaevich’s work, when he was researching the topic of ecovillages and Kin’s Domains, analyzing, looking for differences, drawing parallels. *

*A comment from Gabriel Miguel:

The Anastasia Foundation was founded by me, Gabriel, in 2014, after I had read the Ringing Cedars series in English but realized there was no way to connect with other readers. In 2015, Vladimir attended at an event at the United Nations, the NEXUS Global Summit, which was hosted by a nonprofit I used to work with. There, he spoke to an audience about Kin’s Domain Settlements: https://vmegre.com/en/events/25443/?sphrase_id=43714

In 2016, he attended the NEXUS Global Summit again as a guest, and after that event, we held a reader’s gathering / book signing event with him on July 23rd. This is the first time I personally met Vladimir. I organized the reader’s gathering with a group of friends.

NEXUS: https://vmegre.com/en/events/30305/?sphrase_id=43715

Reader’s gathering: https://vmegre.com/en/events/30788/?sphrase_id=43715

During the conversation the most interesting things became clear. And now about those facts that we did not suspect. For Americans, the word “ecovillage” has a 90% negative meaning. For Americans and Westerners in general, the word “ecovillage” actually equals “stoned hippie”.

That’s why in 2016, when the members of the American branch of the club “Ringing Cedars” [Anastasia Foundation] communicated with V.N.Megre, they could not understand why the Russian writer uses this word in a positive sense. For many years they have been researching this question – what Kin’s Domains are and how they differ from ecovillages. Do they differ a little or radically? *

*A comment from Gabriel Miguel:

Here, the author is referring to the audience Vladimir spoke to at the 2015 NEXUS Summit. It wasn’t Ringing Cedars readers. That event was mainly about “ecovillages”, and Vladimir was invited to speak on the subject. When he presented the idea of the Kin’s Domain Settlement, people did not fully understand it. Here’s the video where you can hear Vladimir talking about his experience speaking to that audience directly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYCA-4uYs5s

American readers of the Ringing Cedars have generally understood the differences between ecovillages and Settlements, although it’s true there is still some misunderstanding, but the general public is much more confused on the topic. I have been trying to help the differences be more widely understood and appreciated by all audiences.

According to their own statement, the article “Ecovillages or Kin’s Domains?” has brought complete clarity. They finally realized how they differ. This caused even more sympathy and interest in the Kin’s Domains movement in Russia.

*A comment from Gabriel Miguel: I found the article to be a useful explanation on the differences between ecovillages and Settlements. Link to the article: https://anastasia.foundation/kins-domains/kins-domain-settlements-or-ecovillages/

The problem of our Russian understanding is that we put a completely different meaning into the word “ecovillage”.

When a Russian pronounces the word “ecovillage”, he means the following positions – “I am good, plant trees, keep the area clean, sort the garbage”. Based on the above, we can all see that the American and the Russian put into this word completely different meanings, absolutely opposite. This only emphasizes the importance of communicating in person and accurately agreeing on the meanings attached to specific words.

Let us give an example: since the 90s, the word “tolerance” became very popular in Russia, it was understood as “broad-mindedness, tolerance to other people’s peculiarities and shortcomings”. Then it turned out that the word “tolerance” is a medical term – readiness and consent of the organism to be sick. Now this word has lost its former popularity, gone out of use.

The second example: in the late 90s, an American family came to visit our friend who was in the travel business. The table was set, everyone was sitting at the table, and the host said “bon appetito” – “bon appetit”. The Americans frowned, hung their noses and stopped talking. And so it was two or three times at the table. The host could not understand why he had offended them. It turned out! Russian words “good appetite” for English-speaking perception sounds indecent and very offensive and means – “you are a glutton, eat a lot”. In order to say good appetite in the English-speaking manner it is necessary to say quite different words – “enjoy your breakfast, lunch, dinner – “enjoy your meal…”. Then, of course, we figured it out and laughed for a long time, but at first there was resentment and a lot of resentment.

This is how important it is to negotiate meanings. The longer our Kin’s Domain residents use the word “ecovillage” thoughtlessly, as if to emphasize that there is nothing special about Kin’s Domain Settlements in relation to ecovillages, the further they will drift away from the true meanings.

The question of understanding shared meanings is very important because it projects into all spheres of human life.

Since the first article “Ecovillages or Kin’s Domains?” was written*, the differences between these two ideologies have further sharpened.

The main difference is that a Kin’s Domain is a place for permanent residence of a family, a clan. It is passed on by inheritance, aimed at improving the family over the centuries. In Kin’s Domain Settlements, a permanent change of residence is welcomed, so to speak, rotation of personnel. We know. Even people who live for a long time in any settlement, as a rule, ideologists of this Kin’s Domain Settlement recommend to move to some other settlement to expand their horizons. As you can see, the approach in this part is completely different.

The dreams of the residents of Kin’s Domains are aimed at the future: “There are your daughters and sons in different parts of the earth. Their aspirations are strong. They will return to the earth the beautiful primordial blossom.”

*Kovcheg (“Ark”) settlement is one of the oldest and largest Kin’s Domain Settlements in Russia, Kovcheg consists of 300+ families & Domains and is 20+ years old in the Kaluga region, Maloyaroslavets district, Russia.