Behind the trees - a crossroads with the Communist, where he meets a certain university with an unpronounceable abbreviation. And it was originally German pedagogical institute, decorated with some unfamiliar coat of arms:
The building opposite the Operetta Theater has two facades, and the facade on the Communist is much more spectacular:
Well, after another hundred meters, you finally come out to Lenin Square - a look from its opposite side. This building was the administration Autonome Sozialistische Sowjetrepublik der Wolgadeutschen,
and in his form I see
the influence is no longer of the Bauhaus, but of the architecture of the Third Reich, although of course "with a human face":
Lenin Square is huge and pedestrian. The shot above was taken from this colonnade - the Volga will already be behind the park:
On the right, a set of monuments - Lenin:
Marx and Engels in Engels:
A number of houses of Pokrovskaya Sloboda adjoin the administration:
And a square where there will be a monument to another local native:
At the western end of the square there is already a late-Soviet children's art school (closer) and a local history museum on the first floors of a residential building:
Between them you can go to the embankment - this monument to the Volga region has a very indirect relationship:
And the Volga is wide! And for some reason it blooms profusely.
View along Engels:
But Saratov is not very visible - the cities stand obliquely from each other, separated by forest islands. Nevertheless, it is clearly visible, known among the Tatars as Sary-Tau ("Yellow Mountain"), which gave Saratov its name. At its top is the stele "Cranes" of the Victory Memorial, hanging over Old Saratov:
Since my last visit to Saratov, the residential complex "Elena" (128m, 37 floors) has not yet been erected, which would automatically make it the third highest city in Russia after Moscow (over 300m) and Yekaterinburg (188m) ... However, the skyscraper is still not completed, the third and fourth places were taken by St. Petersburg and Grozny, and I have, excuse my rudeness, only one association - "like a member who grew up in the wrong place." As far as I am loyal to new verticals, but even the panorama of high-rise buildings is really spoiled here:
And it's good on the Volga! And it’s not boring - some kind of vessel constantly passes in the field of view. The Volga is the Russian River of Time, and "... down the Volga is the Golden Horde, and up the Volga the young ladies look from the shore" (according to BG). I have long been amazed at the accuracy of this image: the European path for Russia may even be true - but against the current.
A few more buildings on the embankment and Lenin Square:
36. on the right is the road to the bridge to Saratov.
Corner of Lenin Square and Gorky Street:
And here in the frame is not only a house, but the most famous product of the local industry - a trolleybus. During the war, the Raditsky Locomotive Plant (1868) was evacuated here from the Bryansk region, by 1951 it had established the production of trolleybuses, and now known as "Trolza". At least in Soviet time it was the world's largest manufacturer of trolleybuses (especially since nowhere, except for the USSR, was this transport so massive), and even now it produces several hundred cars every year, although it suffered greatly from the crisis.
38.
Trolleybuses used to (until 2004) run from here to Saratov, formally forming such a rare phenomenon as an intercity line. However, the bus connection between the two cities is more intense than in each of them near the center with the outskirts: buses No. 284 go literally one after another, every 5 minutes, but it should be borne in mind that letters are added to the numbers: in Saratov they all go from the bridge straight to the station, but according to Engels, their routes differ. I was too lazy to explore the Soviet districts of Engels (where the most interesting thing is the young monument to the salt bull depicted on the city coat of arms), but I went to the station, getting on the bus right next to this building on Gorky Street:
In 1894, the Ryazan-Ural railway came here, for the first time connecting the center of Russia with Kazakhstan. There was a railway ferry crossing between Saratov and Pokrovskaya Sloboda, and it was only under the Soviets that it came to building a capital bridge - it opened in 1935 ... but a little further downstream, and Engels found himself in a railway dead end. This is probably why the locomotive-monument stands not at the station, but on a round square a couple of hundred meters from it:
Nevertheless, the station lives - after all, on the other side of its tracks is the Engels Heavy Machine Building Plant ("Transmash"), one of the largest wagon manufacturers in Russia:
Interestingly, the station is still called Pokrovsk. I don’t know if there is passenger traffic here - the station, apparently, serves as a cargo control center. Immediately, several buses No. 284 can see the ruins of the royal station buildings:
I love the look of these desert stations.
In the 18th century, a new ethnic group of Volga Germans appeared in Russia. They were colonists who traveled east in search of better share. In the Volga region, they created a whole province with a separate way of life. The descendants were deported to Central Asia during the Great Patriotic War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some remained in Kazakhstan, others returned to the Volga region, and others went to their historical homeland.
Manifestos of Catherine II
In 1762-1763. Empress Catherine II signed two manifestos, thanks to which the Volga Germans later appeared in Russia. These documents allowed foreigners to enter the empire, receiving benefits and privileges. The largest wave of colonists came from Germany. Visitors were temporarily exempted from tax duties. A special register was created, which included lands that received the status of free for settlement. If the Volga Germans settled on them, then they could not pay taxes for 30 years.
In addition, the colonists received a loan without interest for a period of ten years. The money could be spent on building their own new houses, buying livestock, food needed before the first harvest, tools for working in agriculture, etc. The colonies differed markedly from neighboring ordinary Russian settlements. They established internal self-government. Government officials could not interfere in the lives of the colonists who arrived.
Set of colonists in Germany
Preparing for the influx of foreigners into Russia, Catherine II (herself German by nationality) created the Guardianship Office. It was headed by the favorite of the Empress Grigory Orlov. The office acted on a par with the rest of the boards.
Manifestos were published on a set European languages. The most intense propaganda campaign unfolded in Germany (because of which the Volga Germans appeared). Most of the colonists were found in Frankfurt am Main and Ulm. Those wishing to move to Russia went to Lübeck, and from there, first to St. Petersburg. Recruiting was carried out not only by government officials, but also by private entrepreneurs who became known as defiant. These people entered into a contract with the Guardianship Office and acted on its behalf. Summoners founded new settlements, recruited colonists, ruled their communities, and kept a portion of the income from them.
New life
In 1760 by joint efforts, the defiant and the state agitated to move 30 thousand people. First, the Germans settled in St. Petersburg and Oranienbaum. There they swore allegiance to the Russian crown and became subjects of the Empress. All these colonists moved to the Volga region, where the Saratov province was later formed. In the first few years, 105 settlements appeared. It is noteworthy that all of them bore Russian names. Despite this, the Germans retained their identity.
The authorities took up the experiment with the colonies in order to develop Russian agriculture. The government wanted to test how Western agricultural standards would take root. The Volga Germans brought with them to their new homeland a scythe, a wooden threshing machine, a plow and other tools that were unknown to Russian peasants. Foreigners began to grow potatoes, hitherto unknown to the Volga region. They also cultivated hemp, flax, tobacco and other crops. First Russian population treated strangers warily or vaguely. Today, researchers continue to study what legends were about the Volga Germans and what was their relationship with their neighbors.
Prosperity
Time has shown that the experiment of Catherine II was extremely successful. The most advanced and successful farms were the settlements in which the Volga Germans lived. The history of their colonies is an example of stable prosperity. The growth of prosperity due to effective management allowed the Volga Germans to acquire their own industry. IN early XIX centuries in the settlements appeared, which became a tool for flour production. The oil industry, the manufacture of agricultural implements and wool also developed. Under Alexander II, there were already more than a hundred tanneries, which were founded by the Volga Germans.
Their success story is impressive. The appearance of the colonists gave impetus to the development of industrial weaving. Sarepta, which existed within the modern borders of Volgograd, became its center. For the production of scarves and fabrics, enterprises used high-quality European yarn from Saxony and Silesia, as well as silk from Italy.
Religion
The confessional affiliation and traditions of the Volga Germans were not uniform. They came from different regions at a time when there was still no united Germany and each province had its own separate orders. This also applied to religion. The lists of Volga Germans compiled by the Guardianship Office show that among them were Lutherans, Catholics, Mennonites, Baptists, as well as representatives of other confessional movements and groups.
According to the manifesto, the colonists could build their own churches only in settlements where the non-Russian population was in the vast majority. The Germans, who lived in big cities, at first were deprived of such a right. It was also forbidden to propagate Lutheran and Catholic teachings. In other words, in religious policy, the Russian authorities gave the colonists exactly as much freedom as they could not harm the interests of the Orthodox Church. It is curious that at the same time, the settlers could baptize Muslims according to their rite, and also make serfs out of them.
Many traditions and legends of the Volga Germans were associated with religion. They celebrated holidays according to the Lutheran calendar. In addition, the colonists had preserved national customs. These include which is still celebrated in Germany itself.
The revolution of 1917 changed the lives of all citizens of the former Russian Empire. The Volga Germans were no exception. Photos of their colonies at the end of the tsarist era show that the descendants of immigrants from Europe lived in an environment isolated from their neighbors. They retained their language, customs and identity. For many years the national question remained unresolved. But with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, the Germans got a chance to create their own autonomy within Soviet Russia.
The desire of the descendants of the colonists to live in their own subject of the federation was met in Moscow with understanding. In 1918, according to the decision of the Council of People's Commissars, the Volga Germans were created, in 1924 renamed the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Its capital was Pokrovsk, renamed Engels.
Collectivization
The work and customs of the Volga Germans allowed them to create one of the most prosperous Russian provincial corners. Revolutions and the horrors of the war years were a blow to their well-being. In the 1920s, there was some recovery, which took on the largest scale during the NEP.
However, in 1930, a dispossession campaign began throughout the Soviet Union. Collectivization and the destruction of private property led to the saddest consequences. The most efficient and productive farms were destroyed. Farmers, owners of small enterprises and many other residents of the autonomous republic were subjected to repression. At that time, the Germans were under attack along with all the other peasants of the Soviet Union, who were driven to collective farms and deprived of their usual life.
The famine of the early 30s
Due to the destruction of the usual economic ties in the Republic of the Volga Germans, as in many other regions of the USSR, famine began. The population tried in various ways to save their situation. Some residents went to demonstrations, where they asked the Soviet authorities to help with food supplies. Other peasants, finally disillusioned with the Bolsheviks, staged attacks on the warehouses where the grain selected by the state was stored. Another type of protest was ignoring work on collective farms.
Against the backdrop of such sentiments, the secret services began to look for "saboteurs" and "rebels" against whom the most severe repressive measures were used. In the summer of 1932, famine had already gripped the cities. Desperate peasants resorted to plundering fields with still unripe crops. The situation stabilized only in 1934, when thousands of inhabitants died of starvation in the republic.
Deportation
Although the descendants of the colonists experienced many troubles in the early Soviet years, they were universal. In this sense, the Volga Germans then hardly differed in their share from the ordinary Russian citizen of the USSR. However, the onset of the Great Patriotic War finally separated the inhabitants of the republic from the rest of the citizens of the Soviet Union.
In August 1941, a decision was made, according to which the deportation of the Volga Germans began. They were exiled to Central Asia, fearing cooperation with the advancing Wehrmacht. The Volga Germans were not the only people who survived the forced resettlement. The same fate awaited the Chechens, Kalmyks,
Liquidation of the Republic
Together with the deportation, the Autonomous Republic of the Volga Germans was abolished. Units of the NKVD were brought into the territory of the ASSR. Residents were ordered to collect the few permitted things within 24 hours and prepare for relocation. In total, about 440 thousand people were expelled.
At the same time, persons liable for military service of German nationality were removed from the front and sent to the rear. Men and women ended up in the so-called labor armies. They built industrial enterprises, worked in mines and logging.
Life in Central Asia and Siberia
Most of the deportees were settled in Kazakhstan. After the war, they were not allowed to return to the Volga region and restore their republic. About 1% of the population of today's Kazakhstan considers themselves Germans.
Until 1956, the deportees were in special settlements. Every month they had to visit the commandant's office and put a note in a special journal. Also, a significant part of the settlers settled in Siberia, ending up in the Omsk region, the Altai Territory and the Urals.
Modernity
After the fall of communist power, the Volga Germans finally gained freedom of movement. By the end of the 80s. only old-timers remembered about life in the Autonomous Republic. Therefore, very few returned to the Volga region (mainly to Engels in the Saratov region). Many deportees and their descendants remained in Kazakhstan.
Most of the Germans went to their historical homeland. After unification, Germany adopted a new version of the law on the return of their compatriots, an early version of which appeared after the Second World War. The document stipulated the conditions necessary for the immediate acquisition of citizenship. The Volga Germans also met these requirements. The surnames and language of some of them remained the same, which made it easier to integrate into a new life.
According to the law, all desiring descendants of the Volga colonists received citizenship. Some of them had long assimilated into Soviet reality, but still wanted to go west. After the German authorities complicated the practice of obtaining citizenship in the 1990s, many Russian Germans settled in the Kaliningrad region. This region used to be East Prussia and was part of Germany. Today in the Russian Federation there are about 500 thousand people of German nationality, another 178 thousand descendants of the Volga colonists live in Kazakhstan.
It has already been noted that the liquidation of the special administration of the colonies and their transfer to the subordination of local district and provincial government bodies led to the disunity of the colonists who found themselves in different districts and provinces. In the Volga region, such an administrative-territorial division of the territories inhabited by the Germans occurred more than 20 years earlier. After the separation of the Trans-Volga region from the Saratov province in 1850, only the right-bank German colonies remained in its composition, while the colonies on the left bank of the Volga went to the newly formed Samara province.
The new administrative division did not take into account the existing economic, cultural, historical ties between the population of both banks, not least the German one. Obvious miscalculations of the administrative reorganization were noted even by the local authorities. Twenty years later, the Saratov governor M.N. Galkin-Vrasky, in his report to the emperor for 1871, noted the “inconvenience” of the artificial division of the Saratov and Samara provinces, in which naturally developed economic ties are broken. The governor proposed to resolve the issue of more appropriate to the needs of the Volga region administrative unit but the call went unanswered.
By the end of the 19th century, compared with the middle of the century, the German population of the Volga region had almost doubled. According to the 1897 census, about 396 thousand Germans lived here, including 163 thousand on the “mountainous” side in the Saratov province, and 233 thousand on the meadow side in the Samara province.
As a result, agrarian overpopulation, which was noticeable in German villages already in the middle of the 19th century, by the beginning of the 20th century, was becoming an important factor that influenced the social economic development the edges. With the increase in the German population of the colonies, with the next redistribution of land, yard plots were more and more fragmented. In addition, the number of workers, livestock, inventory, and property decreased in each household, which especially affected the situation of poor families.
- Land Provision of Germans in Novouzensky Uyezd in Comparison with Other National Groups
It is also necessary to take into account the environmental factor, which in the 19th century began to more and more negatively affect the development of the economy of the entire Lower Volga region. Of course, even before the zone of risky agriculture, where the German colonies were located, made itself felt in winters with little snow, dry winds, and drought. But by the end of the century, the wasteful attitude to natural resources became especially noticeable. Thus, the area of forests in the Saratov and Samara provinces, which are not rich in vegetation, decreased by almost 14% in less than twenty years (from 1881 to 1899). As a result, the level of groundwater dropped sharply, numerous streams disappeared before, even the Volga became shallow. Field crops suffered from dry winds much more than before. As a result of the disorderly plowing of lands, soil erosion increased, ravines grew rapidly, taking the most fertile lands out of circulation. Since the 1880s crop failures in the Saratov Volga region are becoming more frequent and disastrous. Barren and hungry for the entire region were: 1879-1880, 1891, 1898, 1901, 1905 - 1906, 1911 - 1912.
The overwhelming majority of Volga Germans remained rural residents.
Less than 2% of them lived in cities. The main occupation of the German colonists of the Volga region remained agricultural production. By the middle of the XIX century. land relations among the Germans were already built according to the communal principle traditional for Russia, with a regular redistribution of land according to the number of souls of the male population. The development of arable farming was hindered by three-field land use characteristic of communal land use without any soil fertilization. Only in the southern volosts of the Kamyshinsky district - Ilavlinskaya and Ust Kulalinskaya, the three-field gave way to the four-field.
Thus, there were no serious differences in the cultivation of land among various categories of peasants and colonists in the Saratov province. Both of these groups of the rural population used backward extensive methods. At the same time, the colonists were able to achieve a certain technical superiority over the peasants in the use of agricultural equipment. They used an iron plow, in contrast to the peasants' wooden plows, they used more technically effective scythes in the form of a hook instead of a peasant sickle. Their winnowing machines were of high quality. The colonists of the Volga region were widely known as unsurpassed craftsmen in the manufacture of simple agricultural implements.
Although wheat production was the main agricultural activity, usually occupying about 45% of the sown area, the Germans also grew other crops. So 25% was occupied by rye and 5% by oats. From the second half of XIX V. millet and sunflower became popular among the Saratov colonists. The latter was grown in all colonies, but this crop occupied the largest areas among the villagers of the Yagodnopolyanskaya volost of the Saratov district, where it began to be cultivated from the middle of the 19th century, and by the end of the century it was sown with a sixth of all lands.
Vegetables and fruits were grown in the German colonies of the province on household plots. Preference at this time began to be given to the previously rejected potatoes. Apples and cherries were mainly grown in small garden plots, and melons, watermelons and pumpkins were grown in the fields.
A number of factors negatively influenced the economic structure of the German agricultural economy of the Volga region. And yet the main problem was the scarcity of land in the conditions of the communal nature of land use. As a result, arrears began to accumulate in German rural societies, which had not happened before. The zemstvo chief of the Ust-Kulalin volost in a report for 1899 reported that until 1880 the population of the volost did not know “even the names of arrears” at all, and at present there are more than “hundreds of thousands” of them.
Of course, the practical German farmers were looking for a way out of this situation. In particular, in agricultural villages, the Germans, if the opportunity arose, resorted to renting plots from private individuals, although to a lesser extent than Russian and Ukrainian peasants. However, this source of land use also declined significantly by the end of the century. The reasons were different: increased rent payments, the transfer of noble lands to other owners, the growth of benefits from direct cultivation of land, and not leasing it.
Suffering from lack of land and landlessness, the German peasants, thus, had reasons for discontent, however, they practically did not take part in the agrarian unrest in the Volga region during the years of the first Russian revolution. Unlike most Russian peasants, the Germans demonstrated their loyalty to the authorities by electing volost representatives to district land management commissions, which were created as part of the Stolypin agrarian reform. Among the third of the volosts that boycotted the elections of volost meetings, there was not a single German volost.
The land management commissions played an important role in the implementation of the reform. They were supposed to assist the peasant bank in selling land to the peasants, engage in the creation of individual farms by dividing entire villages or communities into farms or cuts, as well as by allocating individual householders, and resolving the issue of loans and benefits to individual farmers. The main goal of the reform was to change the form of ownership: instead of communal land ownership in the countryside, the landed property of the peasants was to dominate.
In the first years of the Stolypin reform, the German settlers of the Volga region reacted to it rather inertly. Many rural societies preferred traditional forms of management to the new order. Only a few villages risked switching to hereditary ownership of the land, strengthening it into the personal property of all householders, but the striped strip remained. At the same time, there was no serious agitation against the reform.
In June 1907, the Kamyshin Council addressed the population with a special attitude, in which it asked local gatherings to discuss the possibility of switching to the farm system. At the same time, the farm itself was described in a negative light. In some societies, the struggle between supporters and opponents of the Stolypin reform gradually began to flare up. So, in the Neu-Balzer society at the gathering in 1909, the peasants could not decide on the future fate of the community due to strong disagreements.
The turning point came in 1910, when literally within two years, seven of the eight villages of the Ilavlinsky volost of the Kamyshinsky district completely switched to bran farming (the last village of this volost joined them in 1914). Their example was followed by two more volosts - Ust-Kulalinskaya and Semenovskaya. They switched to a bran farm in in full force(14 villages). The same was done by 3 out of 6 villages of the Kamenskaya and one village of the Sosnovskaya volost. As a result, the community ceased to exist in 32 of the 51 former German colonies of the Kamyshinsky district. Of the Russian villages in the Kamyshin district, only 2 parted with the community during this time. Similar processes took place in other counties of the Saratov and Samara provinces where the Germans lived.
It should be noted that in a number of German villages there was a dull struggle between those striving to get cuts, on the one hand, and community members, on the other. Those who had passed to hereditary ownership were also drawn into it, since with allotments the whole system of land tenure came into motion. Often there were cases when land surveyors, together with those who wished, forcibly separated from the community those villagers whose fortified strips wedged into the newly created cuts. For example, in Yagodnaya Polyana, Saratov Uyezd, 140 households out of a total of 400 were forcibly removed from the community. In most cases, the allocation was also carried out against the will of the communities. Another cause of conflicts was the desire of rural societies to exclude from their membership those who left for America in order to keep the land for society.
In the implementation of the reform, the government assigned a certain role to the peasant bank, which was called upon to provide financial assistance to small-land peasants in acquiring land. As the practice of the Saratov branch of the bank testifies, the German colonists bought land on equal terms with the Russian peasants. In particular, the Nork rural society bought 4,926 acres of land from the bank. However, in 1909, by order of the main department of land management and agriculture, operations with the colonists were suspended. A little later, due to the low demand for banking lands due to their low suitability for cultivation (poor soil quality, lack of water), local branches of banks were allowed to sell lands to German settlers, but not more than 250 cuts. In 1913, an additional 39 cuts were allowed to be sold. In the end, 302 German peasants were able to buy from the bank during the reform 364 cuts with a total area of 8920 acres of land. This was a rather insignificant part of the total sale of land to all peasants in the Saratov and Samara provinces.
The provincial land management commission carefully monitored the correctness of transactions and, in case of violation of the rules, canceled them. So, when one of the villagers of Sosnovka (Shilling), wanting to circumvent the instruction on the ban on the sale of more than one cut per family of up to 5 people of working age, made a fictitious division with his brother and bought two cuts from the bank, the provincial commission forced him to return one cut
Since 1910, the Peasants' Bank began to collect information about the situation of the "separated" peasants on the banking lands. Surveys showed that the profitability of new farms was relatively low. To a large extent, the yield depended on climatic conditions. So, in the Kamyshin district of the Saratov region in 1910-1912. out of 10 farms surveyed, only two made a profit. in the Nikolaevsky district Samara region there were no such farms at all. The losses were a direct consequence of the arid climate. A different picture was observed in the Saratov district. Here, most of the farms experienced difficulties only in 1911, while 1912 ended with a profit for two-thirds of the farms.
A certain role in the exit of the villagers from the community was played by the financial policy of the land management commissions, which made great efforts to strengthen the cut-off and farmsteads. In particular, much attention was paid to hydraulic engineering works, fire-resistant construction on cuts. Otrubniks were given loans and allowances for the construction of ponds and wells, residential and utility buildings, as well as for the fight against sands and ravines. Loans were issued for 12 years, and the payment began only after three years. Thus, in 1912, residents of three German settlements in the Kamyshinsky district were given from 50 to 300 rubles only for fire-resistant construction in cut-off plots. The total amount of the loan amounted to 21.7 thousand rubles. Refusals took place only in cases where the petitioner was found to be prosperous.
From the beginning of the 1910s. the opening of rolling stations, the creation of grain-cleaning carts, the organization of demonstration fields, gardens, the issuance of planting material, and agricultural lectures began. However, this was not enough. By 1914, with the assistance of the commission, only 7 rolling stations were opened in the Saratov province, 8 grain-cleaning carts, 10 demonstration fields and 107 demonstration plots were created. In the Zavolzhsky districts of the Samara province, there were even fewer such objects. Assistance to the cutters in the purchase of agricultural implements and livestock was also clearly insufficient. Until 1914, loans and benefits were issued to only 50% of those who asked for them, and the amount allocated did not exceed 33% of the originally requested. With the outbreak of the First World War, lending operations were curtailed due to lack of funds.
Thus, the Stolypin agrarian reform in the German settlements of the Volga region had a number of features. Firstly, the wave of exits from the community in them occurred in 1910-1914, while in the Saratov and Samara provinces as a whole - in the first three years. Secondly, in general, more than 70% of householders left the German rural communities, while the average figure for the two mentioned provinces was 27.9%. Thirdly, in the German volosts, the expansion of entire villages into cuts became widespread, which was not typical for the peasants of other volosts. The excommunication of the villagers from the help of the Peasant Land Bank should also be attributed to the features of the reform.
A significant place in the life of the colonists was occupied by handicrafts. In the post-reform period, their active development continued, which was facilitated by the seasonal nature of farming with a long period of winter inactivity. Gradually, they began to take on the nature of work on the market. Leather production is gaining significant development in the colonies, especially in the colonies of Goly Karamysh (Balzer), Sevastyanovka (Anton), Karamyshevka (Bauer), and Oleshnya (Dittel). In 1871, there were 140 leather workshops in the German settlements of the Saratov province alone.
Around the middle of the 19th century, the production of smoking pipes became widespread. In the Lesnoy Karamysh (Grimm) colony, where they were mainly produced, up to 500 thousand pipes and the same number of chibouks of 20 different varieties were produced annually. They were made mainly in winter from the roots and trunks of birch and maple. Some of the pipes and chibouks were delivered by the craftsmen to the colonies themselves, but most were sold to buyers who sold them in Tambov, Samara, Penza and other cities of Russia.
In Nizhnyaya Dobrinka, the production of threshing stones from local material was practiced.
And yet the most popular among the colonists was sarpin fishing. The production of sarpinka was most widespread in the Sosnovskaya volost of the Kamyshinsky district, where the "land hunger" and the poor quality of peasant allotments among the German colonists pushed them to look for other livelihoods than agriculture.
Simultaneously with the further expansion of the sarpin production, the Schmidt, Reinecke and Borel families begin to invest in the flour milling industry.
In the 1890s, German flour millers took control not only of flour production, but also of its sale in Russia. The first steps in this direction were taken by the Schmidt brothers, who founded the Trading House in 1888, simultaneously opening a representative office of the company in Moscow. In 1892, the Trading House "Emmanuel Borel and Sons" was established, and in 1899 the Trading House was opened by Konrad Reinecke. In the late 90s, representative offices of these firms existed in St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Rybinsk, Nizhny Novgorod and other Russian cities.
Despite the construction of a railway in Saratov, the Volga remained the main trade artery. Successful trading operations required their own ships and barges. Most of all, the firm of the Schmidt brothers, who created their own shipping company, succeeded in solving this problem. It consisted of 5 steamships: Karamysh, Josiop, Kolonist, Krupchatnik and Rusalka; 32 barges and 2 floating elevators. Borel's company owned 2 steamships "Vanya" and "Emmanuel" and 18 barges, and Reinecke - 2 steamships "Konrad" and "Elizabeth" and 17 barges.
The successes of Saratov millers at the end of the 19th century were highly appreciated at various industrial exhibitions. The first high award - the silver medal of the Imperial Free Economic Society in 1880 was received by Reinecke's company. In 1882, at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, she received the right to use the state emblem on her products. Firms Schmidt and Borel in the late 1880s were also awarded high awards at various Russian exhibitions.
In the 1890s, recognition of the merits of these firms also came from abroad. Twice, in 1892 and 1900. Reinecke received gold medal at exhibitions in Paris, and in 1897 the same in Stockholm. Schmidt and Borel also received high awards at various European exhibitions.
In 1871, in the German villages of the Volga region, there were 175 parochial schools, 220 teachers worked in them, they taught 49.8 thousand students. In the post-reform years, the problems of education received more and more public attention. An active position was taken by zemstvo bodies - first of all, county ones. Back in 1869, the Kamyshin district zemstvo assembly, in which more than half of the seats were occupied by German colonists, developed a plan for the introduction of universal public education. The regulation on public schools of May 25, 1874 gave the zemstvo the right to establish schools, allocate funds for their maintenance, recommend teachers, and generally monitor the progress of the general educational process. Under the zemstvo councils, commissions for public education were created, in which plans were developed for the development of school and beyond. school education.
German representatives in the zemstvos of Novouzensky and Kamyshinsky counties (in these counties the German population numbered from 24% to 42%) constituted a special category. Work in the zemstvo authorities required literacy in Russian, the ability to draw up reports. Therefore, hardworking, most enlightened colonists who spoke Russian were elected to the zemstvo bodies. Starting in the field of Zemstvo, many of them later held prominent positions in the provinces. These are the likes of G.H. Shelgorn, P.E. Lyauk, N.V. Garder, V.V. Kruber, K.N. Grimm and others.
The zemstvos laid the foundation for fundamentally new steps in the field of education: the organization of zemstvo schools (the first zemstvo school opened in 1871 in Upper Dobrinka); providing them with teachers of the Russian language with payment for their work; financial assistance to all types of schools (expenses for public education in the Kamyshinsky district zemstvo in 1900 they accounted for 30% of the annual budget), and then the transfer of part of the parochial schools under the wing of the zemstvo; training of teachers, organizing free libraries, providing scholarships for studying at universities and colleges.
The development of a network of zemstvo schools (in 1903, there were 213 elementary schools in Kamyshin uyezd, of which 55 were parochial and 52 zemstvo schools) created healthy competition for other types of schools. The Zemstvo school teacher became a prominent figure in the village.
The need for knowledge was dictated by life itself. The development of production and the market required more and more literate people.
Private education has risen to a new level. Since the 1870s, fellowship schools (Geselschaftisschulen) began to appear in the German colonies, created by groups of families to better educate their children. In petitions for the opening of such schools, the founders usually indicated how the school would exist, where it would be located, the estimated number of teachers and students, and so on.
The first friendly schools were opened in 1870 in the colonies of Goly Karamysh), Ust-Zolikha and Gololobovka. By the end of the 1870s, such schools were formed in all the colonies of the Sosnovskaya volost. Classes usually began in mid-August and continued until June 20. Those who entered here were exempted from attending a church school. By the end of the 1880s, the fellow schools had an excellent reputation and positive reviews from the governor, inspectors, and local residents. At the end of the 1880s, there were 27 such schools in the colonies of the Kamyshin district alone.
In general, private schools in the colonies covered a small number of children, but they gave the rich colonists the right to choose in acquiring more knowledge, especially the study of the Russian language, which the parochial school did not give, they made it possible to prepare for entering the Russian gymnasium.
The most far-sighted colonists demanded the study of the Russian language in parochial schools, because its knowledge was necessary for work in government, contacts with the Russian population increased, knowledge of the Russian language made it possible to have a conscription exemption introduced for the Germans in 1874, facilitated service in the army. The positions of the colonists and the clergy during this period were divided. Part of the clergy insisted on the introduction of the Russian language and, most importantly, focused on the training of teachers with knowledge of the Russian language from among the colonists. The other part in every possible way fueled rumors about the coming Russification, referring to the abolition of former privileges.
On May 2, 1881, parochial schools were transferred to the Ministry of Public Education. The clergy were retained the right to supervise the religious education of youth in these institutions. The order of administration changed, the trustees of educational districts were given the right to subordinate schools to the control of the director and inspectors of public schools. The organization and educational structure of schools remained unchanged. The Ministry also did not take over financial support - the source of support remained the same - rural communities.
An important factor and element of modernization processes was the growth of literacy. Census 1897 gives comparative analysis the level of literacy of the peoples of the empire. In terms of literacy rate (78.5%), Germans in Russia occupied the third place (after Estonians and Latvians), moreover, the literacy rate of men and women among Germans was almost the same (79.7% and 77.3%, respectively), and the number Germans with higher education than primary school - almost 3 times more than other nationalities - 6.37%. Census 1897 also recorded knowledge of the Russian language, it amounted to 18.92% for the Germans of the Volga region and the Ural region. The level of primary education among the Germans exceeded all other groups of the population by almost three times and amounted to almost 87%. The indicators of secondary education among Russians in general and the Germans of the Volga region were almost at the same low level, while the level of secondary education of Russians in the cities turned out to be much higher. This was due to the lack of secondary educational institutions and the mentality of the peasants who did not see the need for secondary education. For the Germans, the main reasons for the low level of secondary education were ignorance of the Russian language, which prevented them from entering Russian gymnasiums, which in turn was a consequence of the low level of Russian language teaching in the central schools that trained teachers for German schools.
The decision taken in 1871 to teach all subjects in Russian, with the exception of mother tongue and the law of God, was to be introduced gradually and assumed the voluntary nature of the study of the Russian language. But in reality, local inspectors often violated the law.
The reassignment of schools to the Ministry of Public Education, and in the localities - to the directors of public schools, the introduction of a corps of inspectors, state control over the activities of the zemstvo in the field of education, the introduction of teaching in Russian - all spoke of the fact that the state sought to include the German school in the general system of public life.
This policy as a whole corresponded to the objective development of society. Inspector reports, exam results, and zemstvo surveys of the state of school education indicated that the introduction of the Russian language was not observed everywhere. It was not possible to transfer the German school rather painlessly to teaching the Russian language to a greater extent than before, since no concrete steps were taken to increase the output of teachers in central schools and the Catholic seminary, the program for providing teachers with manuals and textbooks was not thought out, the teaching program was not reorganized The material base of the school has not been strengthened. The inconsistent steps of the government and the specific actions of the school administration provoked protests from the colonists.
The positive changes in public life that accompanied the development of the economy in the country and on the Volga ran into the traditionalism of the bulk of the German population in their attitude to school. On the one hand, there was a large group of urban Germans who were concentrated in cities of provincial and district significance and entered the mainstream of capitalist development through their capital participation in the flour milling business, grain and flour trade, etc. On the other hand, the bulk of German peasants in the Volga colonies personified peasant traditionalism, the consciousness that everything in life should remain the same as it was transmitted by parents in the process of upbringing, and this was in objective contradiction with the need for reforms and the rejection of outdated forms of existence. .
The objective processes of integration of the German colonies into the general society of the Volga region forced the government to organize central schools. (Ekaterinenstadt and Lesno-Karamysh) for the training of teachers with knowledge of the Russian language - the so-called "Russian schools". They were kept at the expense of the colonists. Only in 1833 did the real preparatory work for the creation of schools begin. But low level knowledge of students, frequent change of leadership, a set of disciplines and imperfect curricula - all these reasons did not allow graduating teachers with a sufficient level of knowledge of the Russian language. The preparation of the clergy and teachers in the Roman Catholic Seminary of Saratov proceeded more thoroughly. It was distinguished by a high level of teaching staff, a wide range of general education subjects gave the best knowledge of the Russian language. Only towards the end of the 1890s of the XIX century. schools were replenished with qualified teachers, their material base improved. Teachers were also trained by the Volsk Teachers' Seminary, Russian gymnasiums in Saratov and Samara.
In 1909-1913. passed the transformation of the central schools into city schools with the organization of two-year pedagogical courses with them. In the Lesno-Karamyshsky school he studied from 1868 to 1916. 3427 students, of which 368 left with a certificate of their graduation.
These figures indicate that both schools were constantly experiencing a shortage of personnel, material support, and most importantly, students with a good knowledge of the Russian language as the basic language for education. Nevertheless, it was these schools that gave rise to a number of well-known representatives of the intelligentsia, who subsequently occupied a prominent place in social and political life, especially after 1917 (I. Schwab, G. Dinges, A. Schoenfeld, A. Lane, A. Lonzinger and others).
By the beginning of the 20th century, the German urban population in the Volga region was steadily growing, primarily due to immigrants from the colonies. Germans could be found in almost all social groups. They were workers and employees, cab drivers and porters, handicraftsmen and entrepreneurs, teachers and governesses, engineers and architects, doctors and pharmacists, entrepreneurs and representatives of creative professions, clerics and government officials.
More and more Active participation urban Germans in the socio-economic, socio-political and cultural life speaks of the emergence in the post-reform period of a new phenomenon - the broad interaction of German and Russian cultures.
The largest German diaspora was in Saratov. And this is not accidental, since Saratov became the actual metropolis of the German colonies on the Volga. If in 1860 about 1 thousand Germans lived in Saratov, whose main occupation was craft and trade, then by the beginning of the 20th century their number had increased by more than 5 times.
On the site of the former Nemetskaya Sloboda, Nemetskaya Street arose, which became the central, most beautiful and respectable street of Saratov. On this street stood the majestic Catholic Cathedral of St. Clemens. Not far from it, on Nikolskaya Street, the Lutheran Church of St. Mary. Closer to the railway station there are buildings of the Saratov University. This ensemble of buildings, created in the neoclassical style, has become the decoration of the city. It was designed and built by the talented Saratov architect K. L. Myufke.
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Saratov became one of the largest industrial centers in the region, and German entrepreneurs played an important role in this.
At the turn of the century, to serve the local weaving industry, which was greatly developed in the German colonies of the right bank in the village of Shakhmatovka near Saratov (now the village of Krasny Tekstilshchik), the Saratov Manufactory joint-stock company founded a paper-spinning factory. One of its directors was E. Borel, a representative of the well-known clan of sarpink and flour-grinding "kings". Later, another "sarpink king" - A. Bender - became one of the main shareholders.
At the beginning of the century, Saratov became the largest flour milling center in the Volga region. His mills daily gave out 59 thousand pounds of flour, while in Samara this figure was 45 thousand, in Nizhny Novgorod - 42 thousand pounds. It has already been noted that almost the entire flour-grinding industry of Saratov was concentrated in the hands of the Germans: the Schmidt brothers, K. Reinecke, E. Borel, D. Seifert, and others.
The products of the Miller Brothers trading house chocolate factory were in great demand.
In Saratov, there were also well-known tobacco factories in the Volga region, among them the factory of A. Shtaf. She received her raw materials - high-quality tobacco from the German colonies of the left bank, located near Ekaterinenstadt.
In conditions rapid rise In the 1990s of the Russian economy, factories of the metallurgical and metalworking industries appeared in Saratov. At the very end of the 19th century, the O. Bering mechanical plant, the Gantke nail and wire plant, the E. Schiller plant for the production of mill equipment, etc. were opened.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Saratov became not only an important industrial, but also a major cultural center of the Volga region. In 1909, the 9th Imperial University was opened here - the first institution of higher education. Among the teachers and professors of the university were such world-famous scientists as the philosopher S. L. Frank, mathematician V. V. Wagner, philologist Yu. G. Oksman, physicists V. P. Zhuse and E. F. Gross, chemist V. V. Worms, biologist A. A. Richter, geologist A. I. Olli, and others.
Speaking about the intelligentsia of Saratov, one cannot fail to mention the name of A.N. Minkha, who worked for more than 20 years as a justice of the peace in the Saratov district, was engaged in literary activities, was the founder in 1886 of the Saratov Scientific Archival Commission.
The Germans also played a prominent role in the social and political life of Saratov. So, for example, in 1901 - 1903. A.P. Engelhardt was the governor of Saratov. Deputies 1 State Duma- I. Dietz and V. Schelhorn.
The Germans left their noticeable mark in the history of Samara. Until now, Lutheran and Catholic churches are the decoration of Samara.
The first Samara Germans in the second half of the 17th century. became its governor V. Ya. Everlakov, A. D. Fanvisin, A. Shele. Samara governors in different time were K. K. Grot (1853 - 1860), I. L. Blok (1906). The life of the latter was tragically cut short as a result of an assassination attempt by a terrorist.
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The rapid economic development of Samara from the second half of the XIX century. predetermined by the fact that since 1851 it became the center of the newly created province of the same name. German entrepreneurs played a significant role in this process. For example, the section of Dvoryanskaya Street from Alekseevskaya to Predtechenskaya was the center of German entrepreneurship. There were big shops here. Among them is Yu. B. Khristianzen's "Sarepta" store together with a warehouse. It traded goods from Sarepta: the famous sarpinka and no less famous mustard oil.
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The bookseller P. Grau, the pharmacist L. Greve, the photographer A. Bach, the jeweler F. F. Schwartz, and others left a good memory of themselves.
Since the end of the 19th century, large German family enterprises have appeared. The Behnke mechanical plant, the brewery of A. Von Vakano, the trading houses of Klodtov, Kenitserov, and others have already been noted.
The main sphere of activity of the German intelligentsia of Samara was the provincial administration, where a lot of small and medium-sized officials worked. A. Meisner became the first provincial architect, later this position was occupied by J. Böhm, A. Levenshtern, A. Daugel, D. Werner. The last of them made the most significant contribution to the formation of the image of the central part of the city.
Another city, the appearance of which was largely determined by the Germans, was Kamyshin, a county town of the Saratov province, near which a whole group of German colonies was located. At the beginning of the century, about 1 thousand Germans lived in it. Interestingly, more than half of them were women who were in the service. Already noted about the outstanding social activities Kamyshinets P. E. Lyauka. A. Reisikh was a well-known entrepreneur in Russia.
The German diaspora also existed and played a prominent role in such Volga cities as Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Volsk, Syzran, and Simbirsk.
It is quite difficult to figure out who the Volga German is. Some experts consider this ethnic group to be part of the German nation, others - an original nationality that was formed on the territory of Russia. So who are the history of this nation will help us understand its ethnogenesis.
Reasons for the settlement of the Volga region by the Germans
Let's look at the reasons that led to the fact that the Germans settled in the Lower Volga region.
Of course, two factors played the most important role here. Firstly, the population of the Russian Empire did not allow optimal settlement and use of the entire territory of the state as efficiently as possible. To make up for the lack of workers, immigrants from abroad were attracted. Especially often this practice began to be applied since the time of Catherine 2. The expanses of the vast Russian Empire were inhabited by Bulgarians, Greeks, Moldavians, Serbs and, of course, Germans, which will be discussed later. The Lower Volga region just belonged to such sparsely populated territories. More recently, there were nomads here, but it was beneficial for Russia to develop agriculture on these lands.
The second important factor that caused the formation of such an ethnic group as the Volga Germans was the overpopulation of the territory of Germany, which at that time represented a group of many independent states formally united in the so-called Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The main problem was the lack of land for everyone who wanted to work on it. In addition, the Germans experienced significant economic harassment from local authorities, and Russian government offered them unprecedented benefits.
Thus, the Russian Empire needed workers to cultivate its vast expanses, and the Germans needed land that they could cultivate to feed their families. It was the coincidence of these interests that led to the mass migration of the German population to the territory of the Volga region.
Manifesto
The manifesto of Catherine II, published at the end of 1762, served as a direct signal for the resettlement of Germans and other peoples in Russia. He allowed foreigners to freely settle in the territory of the empire.
In the summer of the following year, this document was supplemented by another manifesto, which stated that foreigners themselves could choose their place of residence within the borders of Russia.
It is noteworthy that Catherine 2 herself was a German by nationality and a native of the principality of Anhalt-Zerbst, therefore she understood that the inhabitants of Germany, feeling the need for land, would be the first to respond to the call of the Russian monarchy. In addition, she knew firsthand about the thriftiness and hard work of the Germans.
Benefits for colonists
To attract the colonists, the government of Catherine II granted them a number of benefits. In the event of a shortage of money for moving, Russian residents abroad had to provide them with sufficient material resources for the trip.
In addition, all colonists were exempted from paying taxes to the treasury for various periods if they settled in certain territories, in particular, in the Lower Volga region. Most often, the period of exemption from taxes was equal to thirty years.
Another important factor that contributed to the rapid colonization of some lands of the Russian Empire by foreigners was the issuance of an interest-free loan to immigrants for ten years. It was intended for the construction of houses in new places of settlement, outbuildings, for the development of the economy.
The Russian authorities guaranteed non-interference of officials in the internal affairs of the colonists. To improve life in the colonies and their relationship with government agencies, it was planned to create a separate organization with the powers of a collegium.
Recruitment of settlers
The state authorities were not limited to simply providing the possibility of resettlement and issuing a number of attractive benefits to the colonists. They began to pursue a policy of active agitation. To do this, newspapers and leaflets with campaign materials began to be distributed on the territory of the German lands. In addition, there were persons in Germany who recruited immigrants. These people were both civil servants and entrepreneurs, the so-called "callers", who entered into an agreement with government agencies about recruiting colonists.
Over the course of four years, starting in 1763, when the flow of immigrants was most intense, about 30 thousand people arrived in Russia as colonists. Of these, about half were recruited by "callers". Most of those who wanted to go to live in Russia were from Bavaria, Baden and Hesse.
Organization of the first settlements
Initially, the colonists were taken to St. Petersburg (later to Oranienbaum, a suburb of the capital), where they got acquainted with the life and culture of Russia, and also took an oath of allegiance to the emperor. Only then they went to the lands of the Southern Volga region.
I must say that this path was quite difficult and dangerous. During this journey, for various reasons, more than three thousand immigrants died, or almost 12.5% of the total.
The first settlement, which was now organized by the Russian Germans, was the colony of Lower Dobrinka, in the German way called Moninger. It was founded in the summer of 1764 near Tsaritsyn.
In total, 105 colonies of German settlers were organized in the Lower Volga region. Of these, 63 colonies were founded by "callers", and another 42 - by state bodies.
Life in the colonies
Since then, the Volga German has firmly settled on Russian soil, began to improve his life and gradually merge into the public life of the empire, while not forgetting his roots.
The settlers brought with them many agricultural implements, until then practically not used in Russia. They also used an effective three-field turnover. The main crops grown by the Volga Germans were cereals, flax, potatoes, hemp, and tobacco. Some types of plants were introduced into large-scale circulation in the Russian Empire precisely thanks to this nation.
But the Volga German lived not only by agriculture, although this industry remained the basis of his activity. The colonists began to engage in industrial processing of the products of their farms, in particular, the production of flour and sunflower oil. In addition, weaving began to develop actively in the Volga region.
Approximately such remained the life of the German colonists in the Volga region during the XVIII-XIX centuries.
Organization of the Autonomous Republic
Fundamentally changed life in the country. This event also had a huge impact on the life of the Volga Germans.
Initially, it seemed that the arrival of the Communists promised the Germans a further expansion of their rights and opportunities for self-government. In 1918, on the part of the former Samara and Saratov provinces, the Volga Germans were created, which until 1923 had the status. This entity was directly part of the RSFSR, but enjoyed great opportunities for self-government.
The administrative center of the ASSR of the Volga Germans was first Saratov, and since 1919 - Marxstadt (now the city of Marx). In 1922, the center was finally transferred to the city of Pokrovsk, which in 1931 received the name Engels.
The main body of power in the republic was the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, and since 1937 - the Supreme Council.
German was used as a second language for office work. At the beginning of 1939, about two-thirds of the population of this formation were Volga Germans.
Collectivization
However, it cannot be said that the Volga German could enjoy life under Soviet rule. If the majority of the peasant population of Russia were former serfs and, after liberation from serfdom, at best became small-land peasants, then among the Germans there was a rather high percentage of wealthy owners. This was explained by the fact that the conditions for the colonization of the Volga region implied the endowment of people with large tracts of land. Therefore, there were many farms that were regarded by the Bolshevik authorities as "kulak".
The Volga Germans are the people of Russia, who almost suffered the most from the process of "dispossession". Many representatives of this ethnic group were arrested, imprisoned and even shot in the process of collectivization. Organized collective farms, due to imperfect management, could not work even with a hundredth part of the efficiency with which the destroyed farms worked.
Holodomor
But this is not the worst thing in the life of the German Volga region. The region was gripped by an unprecedented famine. It was caused not only by crop failure, but also by the fact that the collective farms were forced to hand over all the grain to the state. In terms of the scale of the Holodomor that engulfed the Volga region, it is comparable only to a similar phenomenon that took place at the same time on the territory of Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
It is very difficult to determine the exact number of Germans who died from starvation, but, according to estimates, the total mortality of the population in the autonomous republic in 1933 was 50.1 thousand people, while in 1931 it was 14.1 thousand people. For two years, the famine claimed, at best, tens of thousands of lives of the Volga Germans.
Deportation
The final blow that the Russian Germans received from the Stalinist regime was their forced deportation.
The first purposeful actions of a repressive nature against them began in the second half of the 1930s, when relations between the USSR and Nazi Germany heated up. Stalin saw a threat in all Germans, regarding them as potential agents of the Reich. Therefore, all representatives of this nationality, working for the defense industry or serving in the army, were at best fired, and often arrested.
The beginning of the Great Patriotic War meant a new tragic turn in the fate of the long-suffering people. During the second half of 1941 - the first half of 1942, the Volga Germans were deported from their native places to remote regions of Kazakhstan, Siberia and Central Asia. Moreover, they were given a day to collect, and only a limited number of personal items were allowed to take with them. The deportation was carried out under the control of the NKVD.
During the operation, almost 1 million Germans were taken out from various regions of the USSR, but most of them were residents of the Volga region.
Current position
Most of the repressed Volga Germans were never able to return to their homeland. They tried to organize their autonomy in Kazakhstan in the late 70s, but met resistance from the local population. Attempts at a mass return to the Volga region after the collapse of the Soviet regime were also doomed to failure, since the houses in which the Volga Germans once lived were now inhabited by new residents who did not want to return them to their former owners. Therefore, many ethnic Germans left for Germany. Only a part of them managed to return to the city of Engels. The Volga region is currently not a place of compact residence of representatives of the mentioned ethnic group.
Now about 500 thousand Volga Germans inhabit various regions of Russia, about 180 thousand continue to live in Kazakhstan, but many have left for Germany, the USA, Canada and Argentina.
culture
The Volga Germans have a rather distinctive culture, which is equally different from both the customs of the Russians and the culture of the indigenous population of Germany.
The vast majority of representatives of this nation are Christians of various denominations, mainly of the Protestant direction (Lutherans, Baptists, Mennonites, etc.), but quite a lot of them are Orthodox and Catholics.
Despite years of deportation and separation, many Volga Germans still retain their culture and language. It can be said that over the centuries of being outside Germany, they have become a separate ethnic group, which, however, is related to the nationality that now lives in the historical homeland of all Germans.
The flow of migrants from Europe that flooded into Russia in the 1860s changed the usual picture of Russian life. Among the settlers were Danes, Dutch, Swedes, but still the overwhelming majority of them were Germans.
great migration
On December 4, 1762, Catherine II signed the Manifesto, allowing foreigners to freely settle in the uninhabited territories of Russia. It was a far-sighted step of the empress, which allowed to develop the free lands of the “spacious Empire entrusted from God”, as well as to multiply “inhabitants in it”. Probably, there is no doubt that the Manifesto was primarily addressed to the Germans: who, if not the Anhalt-Zerbst princess, should know about the hard work and economy of this nation.
Why did thousands of Germans so suddenly begin to move from their homes to the uninhabited steppes of the Volga region? There were two reasons for this. The first was the very favorable conditions that Catherine II provided to the settlers. And this is the supply of travel money to the colonists, the choice of places for settlements at one’s discretion, the absence of prohibitions on religion and the practice of rituals, exemption from taxes and military service, the ability to take an interest-free loan from the state for the improvement of the economy.
The second reason is related to the fact that in their homeland many Germans, primarily residents of Hesse and Bavaria, were subjected to oppression and restriction of freedoms, and in some places experienced economic needs. Against this background, the conditions proposed by the Russian Empress seemed to be a solution to pressing problems. Not the last role here was played by the propaganda work of the “callers” - read, recruiters who were sent to the German lands.
The German settlers had to make a difficult and long journey to discover the Russian terra incognita, which promises to become a new home for them. First, they traveled by land to Lubeck, from there by ship to St. Petersburg, then moved to Moscow, and again a waterway awaited them - along the Volga to Samara, and only then the colonists' roads diverged throughout the Volga region.
economy
In a new place, the Germans are trying to recreate their traditional way of life and do it with their inherent methodical and thoroughness: they build houses, plant vegetable gardens, acquire poultry and cattle, and develop crafts. An exemplary German settlement can be called Sarepta, founded in 1765 at the mouth of the Sarpa River, which is 28 miles south of Tsaritsyn.
The village was fenced with an earthen rampart, on which cannons towered - protection in case of a Kalmyk raid. Wheat and barley fields spread around, saw and flour mills were installed on the river, and water supply was connected to the houses.
The settlers could use an unlimited amount of water not only for household needs, but also for abundant irrigation of orchards planted around.
Over time, weaving began to develop in Sarepta, which spread to other settlements: in addition to using peasant labor, factory production was also launched there. Sarpinka, a light cotton fabric, for which yarn was delivered from Saxony, and silk from Italy, was in great demand.
Lifestyle
The Germans brought their religion, culture and way of life to the Volga region. Freely professing Lutheranism, they, however, could not infringe on the interests of the Orthodox, but they were allowed to convert Muslims to their faith, and even take them into serfs. The Germans tried to maintain friendly relations with neighboring peoples, and some of the youth diligently studied languages - Russian, Kalmyk, Tatar.
Observing all Christian holidays, the colonists nevertheless celebrated them in their own way. For example, on Easter, the Germans had a funny custom to put gifts in artificial nests - it was believed that the "Easter Bunny" brings them. On the eve of the main spring holiday, adults built nests from which they could, secretly from children, put colored eggs, cookies, sweets, and then sang songs in honor of the “Easter Bunny” and rolled colored eggs down the hill - whose egg is farther, he won .
The Germans easily adapted to the products that the Volga land gave them, but they could not do without their cuisine. Chicken soup and schnitzel were cooked here, strudel was baked and croutons were fried, and a rare feast was complete without “kuhen” - a traditional open pie with fruit and berry filling.
Hard times
For more than a hundred years, the Volga Germans enjoyed the privileges granted to them by Catherine II, until the unification of Germany took place in 1871. This was perceived by Alexander II as a potential threat to Russia - the abolition of privileges for Russian Germans was not long in coming. Of course, this did not apply to the grand ducal families who had German roots.
From now on German organizations the public use of their native language is prohibited, all Germans receive the same rights as Russian peasants and come under general Russian jurisdiction. And the universal conscription introduced in 1874 also applies to the colonists. It is no coincidence that the next few years were marked by a massive outflow of Volga Germans to the West, up to North and South America. This was the first wave of emigration.
When Russia entered the First World War, the already popular anti-German sentiment intensified. Russian Germans were willingly accused of espionage and complicity with the German army, they became a convenient object for all kinds of ridicule and mockery.
After the October Revolution, collectivization came to the Volga region, especially prosperous German households suffered from its consequences: those who refused to cooperate were severely punished, and many were shot. In 1922, famine broke out in the Volga region. Assistance from the Soviet government did not bring tangible results. With renewed vigor, the famine struck in 1933 - it was the most terrible year for the Volga region, which claimed, among other things, the lives of more than 50 thousand Germans.
Hoping for the best
The movement of supporters of German autonomy, which intensified with the advent of Soviet power, bore fruit on October 19, 1918. On this day, the first autonomous region of the Volga Germans in the RSFSR was formed, although it was not destined to exist for long - 23 years. Soon, the vast majority of Germans had to leave their homes.
In the late 1930s, repressions touched the Volga Germans, and with the outbreak of World War II they were subjected to mass deportation - to Siberia, Altai, and Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, the Germans did not give up hope of returning to their native lands. Almost all post-war years right up to the collapse of the USSR, they tried to restore their autonomy, but the Soviet government had its own reasons for not moving forward with resolving this delicate issue.
In August 1992, a referendum was held in the Saratov region, in which the majority of the population opposed the creation of German autonomy. The German “law of return” arrived just in time, which made it possible to obtain German citizenship as soon as possible - this opened the way for the Germans to their historical homeland. Who could have foreseen that the process of the great German migration to the Volga region, launched by Catherine II, would be reversed.
