Share Tweet By Billy Hallowell Editor
September 3, 2024
RuslanKD is a podcaster, performer, influencer, refugee and, most importantly, a believer.
His powerful cultural commentaries are seen around social media, offering powerful, biblical takes on the issues of the day. But it’s his origin story some might not be familiar with a journey filled with pain, doubt, and eventual surrender. Ruslan’s Origin Story
“I’m … ethnically Armenian,” Ruslan recently told CBN News. “My father is full Armenian. My mother is adopted by an Armenian family in Azerbaijan Baku. So, that’s the city we come from is Baku, right in the Middle East, off the Caspian Sea.”
Ruslan noted this region is well-known for its tensions, with Armenians being mistreated, targeted, and even killed. The Armenian Genocide, which began in 1915, is one of the most horrific examples of the dire situations that have plagued the region.
The Armenian Genocide unfolded during World War I and led to Turkey which has historically denied these events occurred killing 1.5 million Armenians. Troubles for the Armenians have since persisted, with Ruslan’s family suffering amid the chaos.
“As the Soviet Union was starting to go through things in the ’80s and things are becoming tumultuous … my father, my grandfather … pretty much all the men had to get out of there as quickly as possible,” he said. “And they, at one point, borrowed police uniforms from their friends to just dress up and just try to get on the train and get out of there as quickly as possible.”
Ruslan and his mother stayed behind while his dad went to Moscow.
“And that is where we kind of saw some pretty gnarly … stuff of … soldiers coming to our house, people coming to our house, getting reports that we were Armenian,” he said. “And my mom saying, ‘Hey, no, no, we’re not Armenian. We’re Russian.’ And to the point where our physical health was in danger.”
Ruslan said “by the grace of God” they were able to get out of Baku and stayed in Moscow before immigrating to the United States in 1991 when he was just 6 years old. The family had applied for refugee status in Israel, Australia, and America, thus Ruslan said his life could have gone many different ways.
In the end, though, the U.S. became his home. He recalled being mesmerized at seeing his first grocery store in America, a place that appeared like a dream compared to what he faced in his home country.
“That’s how different America was in contrast to what we had experienced in under Soviet Baku, lining up for food rations,” Ruslan said. “I remember we would have a tub of water that we’d have to share amongst my family my dad, and my mom, and my grandparents.”
This experience and the opportunities America has afforded Ruslan have made him “substantially more appreciative” of the U.S. View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ruslan (@ruslankd) A Lack of Belief in God
Despite eventually becoming a well-known Christian influencer, Ruslan, at one point, struggled with belief and essentially rejected God.
“In Baku, we never went to church,” he said. “I don’t remember anything about church.”
But, in America, he and his family joined the Armenian Orthodox Church, which became a community hub for them. Ruslan was christened and even became an altar boy.
But something happened that shattered Ruslan’s experience. He said a group of older boys who were teenagers when he was just 7 or 8 years old abused him.
“[They] ended up showing me same-sex porn and then re-enacting the things that they saw in the videos on me when I was a child,” Ruslan said. “And that really, really jacked me up. But what jacked me up even more was the way the church responded or didn’t respond. It was kind of brushed under the rug. No one really wanted to talk about it. There was no real accountability for them.”
The teens reportedly made it seem like Ruslan, a small child, was the aggressor.
Listen to them on the latest episode of Quick Start ?
To top off the chaotic events unfolding in his life, Ruslan said his parents split up and his mother spiraled into an amalgam of alcoholism and relationships with toxic men, with additional family chaos unfolding.
The church also reportedly allowed Ruslan’s father to marry another woman despite his mother’s claims there was no official divorce, further creating contention, frustration, and confusion.
“My mom is telling me that the church is wrong for doing this,” he said. “And, so I became very, very hardened to the idea of God to the point where I’m … full-on an atheist.”
Ruslan continued, “[I felt] there is no God. And if there is a God, he does not love me. That led me down a spiral of getting arrested at the age of 11 for breaking into homes, attempting to be in a gang … I was really a troubled preteen at that point, smoking weed, selling weed, breaking into homes, just a complete derelict of a kid.” View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ruslan (@ruslankd) Finding Jesus
In the midst of Ruslan’s personal chaos, he had to do some community service hours. It turns out a woman named Sheree the mother of his friend, Steven got into legal trouble and had to do hours alongside him. In jail, Sheree became a Christian and, in turn, started impacting her entire neighborhood.
“She ends up doing a couple years in jail, and in jail, she ends up getting radically, radically converted,” he said. “While she gets radically converted, she leads … most of our apartment complex to start going to church with her.”
While doing community service with Sheree and two other neighbors, Ruslan heard the Gospel and the seed was planted.
“They started sharing the Gospel with me, and they would tell me things like, ‘You’re going to do great things for God someday,’” he recalled. “And I was like, ‘There’s no way.’ Long story short, I finished the community service hours, we moved … and the seeds just keep being planted.”
Then, when Ruslan was a freshman in high school, he met a Christian girl. When summer came, the only way to see her was to go to church with her and her family.
“I start going to this church just as a means to see her and hang out with her, and, unfortunately, fornicate and be sexually immoral,” he said. “And, in that, I start hearing the Gospel. I start hearing about this Jesus.”
Over the next two years, he continued to ponder the messages he was hearing. Then, when Ruslan got his first job at Pizza Hut, his manager gave him a copy of Josh McDowell’s “The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict,” a book that gave him answers to his biggest questions.
“Fast forward, I end up fully surrendering my life to Jesus at the end of my junior year of high school,” Ruslan said.
The process of growth and learning continued, with Ruslan honing his music skills and becoming a popular Christian YouTuber. View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ruslan (@ruslankd) Ruslan’s Public Platform
Ruslan started dabbling in YouTube in 2015, sharing about music and vlogging. At the time, he had no interest in becoming a Christian YouTuber, though his trajectory eventually changed.
“During the pandemic, people started asking my opinion on other things,” he said. “They knew that I was a Christian, and so I was doing kind of like music reviews. I had seen some success as an independent musician, and people just started asking my opinions on other things.”
Soon, his love for the Bible, teaching, and social media coalesced. Ruslan started taking his view on the issues through a Christian lens to YouTube, and the rest is, well, history.
“[My initial videos] opened the doors for me to interview guys like Pastor Greg Laurie, and Tyrese, and all kinds of folks from all types of different walks of life,” Ruslan said. “And we kind of do a hybrid of that now, part reaction stuff, commentary on whatever’s happening day to day, and then also just podcasting and having interesting conversations with interesting people.” His Views on Culture
Ruslan’s online popularity comes as American culture faces major struggles. The percentage of Americans calling themselves Christians has declined and relativism seems to be raging.
“Perhaps the culture devolved because the faith that we had as Americans wasn’t really a faith anchored in Jesus,” he said, explaining his take on why the morals and values outside and inside the church have faltered. “I don’t know if the decay happened because of a shift in our faith versus just an honesty about what most Americans believe, whether they’re Christian, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, they kind of all believe the same core tenets of this moralistic, therapeutic deism.”
Ruslan believes the God of the Bible is personal and seeks to connect with mankind. This dynamic means people are called to live their lives based on God’s standards something Ruslan came to realize in his own journey.
“There were certain things that God had an opinion on, and it was about how I was conducting my life,” he said. “And it was in my best interest. So, when Jesus says, ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light,’ following God, and God’s ways, and God’s kingdom, and living His way, seeking His kingdom is not just to make my God happy for whatever arbitrary standards. … It’s actually in the way He designed for me to live.”
Ultimately, this is what Ruslan hopes to drive home to those who watch his videos and pay attention to his commentaries. He’s hoping to inspire them to examine their lives and cling closer to the Lord.
“What I’m trying to do with everything we’re talking about is to encourage, empower, and inspire people to live a life that blesses God,” he said. Find out more about Ruslan here.
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