German Homeland

Beginning in the early 1980s and accelerating after the fall of the Soviet Union many Volga Germans have emigrated to Germany by taking advantage of the German Law of return, a policy which grants citizenship to all those who can prove to be a refugee or expellee of German ethnic origin or as the spouse or descendant of such a person. This exodus has occurred despite the fact that many Volga Germans either do not speak German or have a poor grasp of the language. However, especially the older Volga German population can usually still speak the Volga German dialect, which is closely related to the modern German language. In the late 1990s, however, Germany made it more difficult for Russians of German descent to settle in Germany, especially for those who do not speak some of the Volga dialect of German.