There were 1,790,439 Germans settled in Russia by 1897. Their settlements thrived. Houses,
schools and churches were erected with zeal in the lovely, rolling countryside and their new villages
dotted the landscape. They had well established patterns of trade and commerce and this continued
for almost 150 years. Desolate lands were turned into thriving villages and verdant farms. There
would be no reward for their labor.
Aside from the commonly known "Volga Germans", early German settlement in Russia dates back to
the 16th century under the reign of Vasili III when a few German craftsmen and traders established
businesses in Moscow. By 1682, 18,000 out of Moscow's 200,000 citizens were Germans or other
westerners. There were also "Black Sea Germans" ( Bessarabian, Dobrujan and Bukovina Germans)
who settled in territories on the northern bank of the Black Sea and formed a chain of colonies in the
18th and 19th centuries in what is now Ukraine on land which Catherine the Great gained for Russia
through her two wars with the Ottoman Empire (1768-1774) and from the annexation of the Crimean
Khanates (1783). These German settlers first arrived in 1787 from West Prussia in hopes that they
would weaken the less desirable native Crimean Tatar population. Later, more Germans from
Western and Southwestern Germany and from the Warsaw area also settled in the Caucasus from
the beginning of the 19th century, expanding into Crimea in the 1850s.
In 1803, Catherine II’s grandson, Tsar Alexander I, reissued her proclamation welcoming Germans,
but he required new immigrants to either have 300 gulden in cash or special skills. After the abolition
of serfdom in Russia in 1863, more Germans came to fill the labor shortage which resulted,
especially in agriculture.
A large portion of Russia's ethnic Germans migrated there from its Polish possessions. Germans had
been living in the part of Poland transferred to Russia from Medieval times. Then, through wars and
the partitions of Poland in the 18th century and the changing borders of Prussia, Germans also
widely settled in what is now commonly called Russian Poland. After the Polish insurrection of 1830,
even more Germans left Poland for Russia, leading to several German colonies in Volhynia. Speaking
a middle-German Prussian dialect similar to the Silesian, Germans remained in this central region and
managed to keep their German culture intact a long time. They are referred to as "Vistula Germans".
Other areas such as that around the Black Sea also received many German immigrants. The lower
Dniepr river area around Ekaterinaslav (Dnepropetrovsk) and Aleksandrovsk (Zaporizhzhia) was
settled with German Mennonites. Germans also opened new colonies in Altay in Russian Asia and
were still expanding in Ukraine even at the start of World War One.
Czarina Catherine the Great of Russia, worried about her unruly frontier, enticed more than 30,000
Europeans, mainly Germans, to migrate to Russia and establish 104 colonies on both banks of the
Volga river. Her first invitation in 1762 was followed by a subsequent Manifesto in July, 1763 which
promised free lands, expenses for the move, freedom from taxation for 30 years, and exemption
from civil and military service for themselves and their descendants. The empress’s agents recruited
settlers especially from the poorer German states devastated by the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763).
Thousands of war-weary colonists eagerly accepted her invitation and made the long, dangerous trek
east and across Russia to the Volga. Although many were farmers, there were also craftsmen,
clergymen, teachers and other professionals representing all major faiths.
Between 1762 and 1772. German settlement in Russia under her reign was restricted to the Volga
Region where they were expected to establish villages, farms and businesses for the benefit of
Russia. The colonists settled in the area around the cities of Samara and Saratov, which was founded
in 1590 as a defensive fortress following the Russian conquest of the Tatar khanates of Kazan and
Astrakhan. Many of the colonists that settled in the region remained in their original groups from their
respective hometowns in Germany. Over the next three centuries, Germans turned the Saratov area
into one of the wealthiest, most important cities of the Russian Empire, becoming an important center
for industry, trade, agriculture, agricultural products, fishing, salt industries and manufacturing and
metalwork. What had been a veritable desert when they arrived soon blossomed with their labor.