Norka a German colony in Russia Early Years
Deutscher Kolonist in Russland
The Years of Misery
In many cases it took years after the initial settlement before the town sites could be platted and the blocks sectioned off into home sites. Some early settlers learned from the Russians how to construct dugouts or zemlyanki. These were earth houses which consisted of excavated pits covered with a roof made of wagon planks, limbs, and twigs covered with a mixture of dry grass and mud.
On of the original Volga colonists, Anton Schneider, described the conditions. He stated that "throughout the winter we lived miserably and in the greatest need. The dark winter days and the eternally long nights seemed to last forever. We were separate from all other human beings, and in many cases did not even have enough to eat."
The difficult living conditions of the German settlers, suffering from constant dampness in their earthen homes, led to an alarming mortality rate, which was particularly high among infants.
Marauding packs of wolves were to be a constant threat to livestock and winter trips across the icy steppes in troikas were sometimes interrupted by the predators. For this reasons, an extra horse or colt was often tied to the sleigh and released if necessary to deter their attacks.
A drawing of nomadic tribesman attacking German colonists
In addition to the natural calamities associated with their early settlement, conflicts with indigenous peoples of the Volga also stalled colonial development. Bands of escaped Russian serfs and fugitives stalked the region, attacking and robbing the German colonists. The nomadic Mongol tribes of Kirghiz and Buddhist Kalmyks looked with suspicion upon the encroaching settlers. As early as 1764, the colonists were attacked by marauders who sought money, provisions, livestock, and in some cases enslaved their captives.
Kalmyks illustration by German graphic artist and engraver, Christian-Gottfried-Heinrich Geissler (1770-1844)
The number of German colonist families on the Volga decreased from 6,433 in 1769 to 4,858 in 1775 and stability was not established until 1785. Russian German historians have termed the period between 1765 and 1775 "Die Jahre der Not" or "The Years of Misery".
Report of Peter Simon Pallas in 1773
Peter Simon Pallas
The explorer Peter Simon Pallas (1748-1811) counted a total of 6,194 German colonist families with 25,781 people (13,441 male and 12,340 female) on his journey through the Volga colonies in 1773. The number of families was less than in 1769, but the population as a whole had grown considerably despite low life expectancy.
The drop in the number of families was probably due to migration of those families who’d proven to be unsuited to life on the land. The inspection of 1769 established that 579 families could be considered to belong to this category. Most of them remained in the villages and worked as tradesmen or day laborers. Some migrated to the cities to practice a trade there or become factory workers.
Since it wasn’t only those settlers who had proven unsuited to the agriculture life who had problems, the Russian government was forced to act. They granted the colonists further loans in 1775 to compensate for their losses of animals, implements and seed. The government also extended the term of their old loans for an additional five years.
The high reproductive rate resulted in population growth despite low life expectancy. Families with 10 or more children were not a rarity. Peter Simon Pallas wrote that there were lots of young folk to be seen in the colonies.
The author of Journey through the Various Provinces of Russia in the Years 1768-1773 also mentioned the various trades represented among the settlers coming to Russia to settle and find their fortunes. For many, the dream was not fulfilled and they had to content themselves with agriculture. Pallas commented on the artisans living in Katherinenstadt that:
One could not find more
or better artisans in any colony than here and some can survive on their
earnings from their trade, not least because of the proximity of Saratov. A good
carpenter, turner, hat makers, dyer, cloth maker, textiles weaver, knife smith,
mechanic or maker of large clocks – all were to be found here and are worthy of
mention. Simpler trades were also plentifully represented. A couple of miners
have also lost their way in the big city and now have to use their pickaxes for
plows, in order to support themselves. If more artisans could be supported in
the vicinity then this town would really be a worthwhile one. Agriculture is not
especially remunerative due to the frequent droughts and resultant bad harvests..
Pallas, a doctor and explorer was born in Berlin on 22 September 1741, and died there on 8 September 1811. He was one of the universally distinguished naturalists of his time.
While employed as a professor for natural history in Berlin, he went to St. Petersburg at the personal request of Empress Catherine II. Here he was appointed Assistant of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was commissioned with a five-year exploration through South Russia. He published a book on this journey, Journey Through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire (1771-6).
In 1777 Pallas was appointed member of the topographic department of the Academy and in 1787 he was nominated historiographer of the staff of the Academy.
In 1793-94, Pallas undertook a second trip through southern Russia during which he concerned himself primarily with the climate in the Black Sea area and the Crimea. The scientific product was a book called Remarks on a Journey through the Southern Parts of the Russian Empire in the Years 1793 and 1794, which appeared in Leipzig in 1800-1801.
Catherine II rewarded him for his services with a property in the Crimea, to which Pallas retired in 1796.
Shortly before his death, he returned to Berlin.-
The Pugachev Rebellion
Emelian Ivanovich Pugachev
The tranquility in the German colonies was shattered in the summer of 1773 by one of the greatest peasant revolts in Russian history. The Don Cossack, Emelian Pugachev, led the insurrection, posing as an escaped and still reigning true Tsar of Russia, Peter III, who intended to punish his wife Catherine II. He promised freedom from serfdom and taxation and called for the extermination of civil officials and landlords. Within months the rebellion attracted thousands of serfs, factory workers and miners, Old Believers, Tatars, Bashkirs, and others who descended in a massive campaign southeast from Petrovsk toward Saratov in the first week of August 1774. On August 5, Jagodnaja Poljana was attacked, three men were captured and later whipped to death. The following day Saratov was taken and the rebels ransacked the city, opening prisons, government storehouses and executing captured aristocrats and officials whose bodies Pugachev ordered left unburied. After three days he led his forces down along the west bank of the Volga through the German villages which he left ravaged and in ashes.
Many settlers fled to hide in the countryside, burying what few valuables they possessed while others remained in the villages. On such individual, Johann Wilhelm Stärkel, great-grandfather of Reverend Stärkel who was a leading figure in the later pietistic movement, was seized by Pugachev's men when the entered the colony of Norka. Along with others he was forced to drive the rebels' stolen wagons to a point near Kamyschin and later miraculously escaped. Continuing to sweep southward, the main force under Pugachev passed through Dönnhof and approached Kratzke where cellars, and clay pits and even wells were filled with all kinds of property and strewn with earth. The cattle were driven into the forests and canyons or tied among the reeds and rushes of the river.
A young man, hiding with others in the garret of the Kratzke schoolhouse, later related how Pugachev arrived in front of the school in a heavily escorted carriage and promptly had a gallows erected from two long poles and a crossbeam. Four bound prisoners on horseback were led in and beaten, then hung in pairs on two ropes thrown over the crossbeam. The grim scene was repeated many times as surviving colonists recalled the times when at night the horizon was bright with the lurid flames of destruction in the villages. Pugachev was finally defeated by government forces south of Sarepta and was later captured following his betrayal by fellow rebels. He was taken to Moscow where after a trial, he was executed.