The Volga Germans Trip To
Russia
This web site was created
to allow me to share with my friends and family, some of the 400+ photos that I
took on my trip to Russia & Germany in July/August, 2002. I went with two
of my sisters & many Haas cousins - a group of 37 whose ancestors had come
from the Volga river region in Russia. We traveled to Frankfurt, Germany and to
Moscow, Samara & Sarotov, Russia to go back to our “roots”.
This was the place where
our ancestors settled during a period of approximately one hundred years, from
about 1763 to 1876. The history of
German settlements in Russia began with the reign of Tsarina Catherine II (Catherine
the Great) and her issuance of a manifesto in July 1763 enticing West Europeans
to settle in Russia. The manifesto of the Empress promised much to the new
settlers: freedom of religion, freedom from taxes for a five to thirty year
period, freedom from military service and generous allotments of free land to
farmers. The German settlers organized
more than one hundred colonies along the Volga River, near Saratov, Russia by
the end of 1869. Beginning in the
1870’s their special rights were gradually taken away. The colonists became subject to the military
draft, lost their right to local self-government, and the right to keep their
own German language schools. As the
conditions in Russia became less and less favorable, the Germans looked to the
New World for resettlement. Many came
to Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Colorado.
A substantial number remained in Russia, however, to face the bitter
consequences of the Russian Revolution and the World wars. Many of our
ancestors left the Volga river region in Russia in 1876.
My great grandparents
Michael & Katherine Schreiner Haas came from Wittman, Russia and left
Bremen, Germany on Nov. 28, 1902. They
came with 5 of their eight children – son Anton & wife Rosa, son Michael
Jr. and wife Catherine, daughter Martha & sons Thomas (he died at a young
age and is buried in the Antonino, Kansas cemetery) & Jacob, my grandfather
who was 10 at the time. At one point in
our journey we thought we found a granddaughter of one of my grandfather’s sisters
who stayed in Russia and was banished to Siberia. My grandfather Jacob married Pauline Dechant, born in Munjor,
Kansas in 1896. Her parents were
Catherine Rupp & John Dechant.
Catherine’s parents Conrad & Anna Eve (Spotter) Rupp left
Obermonjou, Russia in 1878. Many of us
on this journey were the grandchildren of Anton, Michael Jr., Jacob &
Martha Haas.
My great-grandfather
Isidore Reichert left Schoenchen, Russia in 1911 at the age of 41 and he
married my grandmother Agatha Wasinger who had come over with her parents John
& Dorothy Wasinger in July 1876 when she was 3 months old. My great great grandfather Anton Wasinger
had come over as a scout in 1874 to find a place for families to settle when
they came to the US. My grandfather
Isidore left 5 brothers and 1 sister in Russia and we have no information on
where they are.
We explored the land, the
villages, the churches, and the cemeteries along the Volga River in Russia and
then along the Rhine River in Germany where our ancestors had come from. We learned a lot – more than could ever be
put into a web site. These photos will give you a taste of what we experienced.
I hope that you enjoy it. Let me know
if you have questions.
I want to express a special
thanks to my husband Greg, for taking time out of his busy schedule as
innkeeper of The Astor House Bed & Breakfast, (http://www.astorhouse.com) in Green Bay,
Wisconsin (Go Packers) to scan the photos and learn how to create this web
site.
Barbara Jean Haas Reichert
Robinson
[daughter of Frank &
Martina (Haas) Reichert]
[granddaughter of Jacob
& Pauline (Dechant) Haas & Isidore & Agatha (Wasinger) Reichert]
[great granddaughter of
Michael and Katherine (Schreiner) Haas, Sr., John and Catherine (Rupp) Dechant,
Phillip and Barbara (Mertz) Reichert, and John and Dorothy (Herklotz) Wasinger]
August 27, 2002