The German settlements in Crimea
(Translated by Peter Schoppert from the article ”Die deutschen Kolonien in der Krim,” published in the “Heimutbuch der Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland,” 1960)
The first settlements in Crimea were founded in the years 1805-1810. Czar Alexander I had supported them.
The first settlements were:
Friedental - district of Simferopol
was formed in 1806 by Lutherans
Heilbrunn - district of Feodosia
was formed in 1809 by Lutherans
Kronental - district of Simferopol
was formed in 1810 by Lutherans and Catholics
Neusatz - district of Simferopol
was formed in 1806 by Lutherans
Rosental - district of Simferopol
was formed in 1806 by Catholics
Staryj Krim (= old Crimea)- district Feodosia
was formed in 1805 by Lutherans and Catholics
(Note: Stariy Krim was a Tatarian town, on the outskirts of which some Germans winefarmers has settled down. The wine-settlement got its name from this town, and it existed until 1941.)
Sudak - district of Feodosia
was formed in 1805 by Lutherans
(Note: The name was taken from a Russian town and health resort, which was located nearby)
Zuerichtal - district of Feodosia
was formed in 1805 by Lutherans.
All the colonies were located in the Jaila-mountains of Crimea. At the beginning, the colonies were wine-farms. The following story is told about their beginnings:
During the coalition-wars against Napoleon, in which Russian had taken part, the Russian Czar Alexander I often had the wines of Wurtemberg with his meals. He liked these wines and because of them he wanted grapegrowers of Schwaben [descent] moved to the Crimea and to make wine. As result of his call the winefarmers from Schneidt, Struempfelbach, Endersbach and other villages of Remstal came to Crimea to make the same kind of wine like [they made] in Schwaben (Germany).
Only the colony Zurichtal was originated from Swiss-people. Those first inhabitants were from Afoltern by Albis and other villages near Zurich.
They knew how to make wine, too. The Crimean colonists were good winefarmers till 1941 - then [the villages] were dissolved.
Wine-growing was carried on as a sideline. And some farmers got much more money through the wine-growing than agriculture. Only the colony of Sudak has carried on only the wine-growing. They made the some of the best wines and were all known by the name "Sudakskie wina" (= wines of Sudak).They supplied the Czar with wines, too.
The original colonies were constricted between the mountains of Crimea and they couldn't be [expanded]. Because of that, the second generation didn’t have enough land. The communities have had to find new land for their sons. They found new land (prairie) in the north and west parts of the Crimean island, land which belonged to the Russian nobility. The Russian nobility sold with predilection their land to the German farmers. The resettlers from the [original] permanent-colonies founded many daughter colonies (these villages were named Chutors).
After a hundred years, there were many little villages everywhere in Crimea (look at the map of Crimea in appendix). Most little German villages were established from emigrants of the eight mother-colonies, with the exception of the Mennonites villages, which were established by Mennonites from the Molotschna and other areas of the Black Sea. Still others were established by people from Germany and latecomers from Ukraine. The inexact and very old statistics are from 1915, and were published in the "New House and Agriculture Calendar for Germans in South Russia". In this publication, (appeared in Mitsche - publishing from Odessa), there was the following table about colonies in Crimea:
District #of Colonists Inhabitants Land in Desjatin
Feodosia 51 7241 105409
Simferopol 110 13171 117367
Perekop 55 5155 69212
Eupatoria 56 5874 68064
Altogether 272 31441 360052
(Some German colonies which were established in the first ten years of the twentieth century were not on file.)
Many German manors and Germans from the city aren't on file in this statistic.
The register of colonies showed the amount of inhabitants for the years: 1918 - 28000 persons, 1926 - 30000 persons.Germans from the city were absent.
The soviets statistic from the year 1926 showed following results: 43631 Germans in Crimea. In the statistic on the top shows 13361 persons absent for the year 1926. The large part of the 13361 persons [missing in this statistic] were the Germans from the city.
A private statistic from the "Association of Germans" in the year 1918 - during the occupation of Germans troops - showed 314 German villages and 60 manors with more then 60 000 inhabitants (including the Germans from the city). This statistic is equivalent to the reality.
During the soviets regime - the quantity of Germans rapidly decreased: in 1914 - there were 60,000 Germans, 1926 - 43 000 and the statistic of 1939 showed only 14,000 Germans. The reason for this decline are the years of famine in 1920 / 22 , the mass expulsions and mass kidnappings. [This decrease was also reflected in the amount] of farmers land : the amount of land in the colonies records had a difference to the amount of land which was the property of inhabitants in this colony.
Alot of farmers had land in others villages. For example the colony Juchary-Djamin (Mergenthal) was registered with 565 Dessjatin. That was the
amount of municipal land, but the four families of this colony had four times the amount in other villages (in Alt- and Neu-Lesy, Kartmyschik, Kambar, Awel, Beschui-Eli, Barin etc.) The German property in Russian and Tatarian villages wasn’t registered. For example: a family in Juchty-Djamin had land in the Russian Village named “Tschokrak” which amounted to about 800 Dessjatin. This amount alone was more than the whole colony had (565 Dessjatin).
According to register of Odessa (look to the statistic on the top) the amount of German property of land in Crimea was about 360,000 Dessjatin. As per the colonies catalog, [there was] about 413,000 Dessjatin. Both amounts are very old and wrong. In 1918 the German land wasn’t recorded, but the Germans of Crimea had approximate 650,000 Dessjatin, [so] then two-thirds of Crimean land was the property of the Germans.
Most German farmers in theCrimea were big farmers. Their farms were model farms and had a land size of 150 to 600 Dessjatin. More often [the size was] about 1000 and 2000 Dessjatin . Of course their livestock [numbers] were very high (12 to 60 horses, 20 to 70 bullock, 12 to 40 cows).
They cultivated the land using a three field system (a third sowing, a third fallow land, a third pasture).As a job on the side, most farmers had sheep, stock, and wine-farming. For example, the farmers from the colony Juchary-Djamin had “trotters” (woroneshskije rysaki) and pack horses (lomowiki), likewise sheep (meat, cheese and hide.)
Every farm had vineyard of 1 to 12 Desjatin, which, in a productive year, 6 or 8 Desjatin brought in more money than agriculture. The industry was very soft. There was one factory for an [agricultural plant] in Spat (Unruh) and many
small industrial businesses (in Dshinkoi a spinning and a weaving mill, in Spat a rope factory etc.)
Almost every big farmer had a mill with a steam or engine drive. The biggest mill was in Spat (six floors) and was the property of a Mennonite family named Langemann.
Dr. Stumpps register of colonies split by denomination are as follows:
Religion # of Colonies Inhabitants 1918 Inhabitants 1926
Protestant 215 20 839 22 045
Mennonite 37 2 792 5 233
Catholic 20 4 446 3 185
Others 40 ------- ---------
Altogether 312 28 077 30 185
Most of the population of Germans in Crimea were protestants and Catholics.
Going by gross estimates before 1914, [there were] about 48 000 protestants and about 8000 Catholics, and about 2000 Mennonites. The statistic on the top showed more Mennonites, because during the time of World War I (1914 – 18) and particularly during the years of famine (1920 – 22), many Mennonites moved to Crimea.
On the other hand looking at the same statistics for Catholics (4446 in year 1918 and 3185 in year 1926), this amount is smaller than before 1914.
The difference is because a lot of Catholics, whose didn’t register, lived in the city.
There were four parishes and one office of curator for the protestants: Neusatz (Pastor Ferdinand von Hoerschelmann), Zuerichtal (Pastor E. Cholodetzky), Hochheim (Pastor Elias Reimers), Byten (Pastor A. Hanson) and the office of curator in Eupatoria, which was open [without a curator] for most of the time. In the early years, Eupatoria belonged to the Neusatz parish and got pastoral help from there. After the foundation of the Byten parish, Eupatoria became part of this parish. The respective pastors from the office of curator in Eupatoria – like the pastors Arnold Frischfeld and A. Hanson – lived in the colony named Dschelal and therefore the records showed as such: Eupatoria – “parish Dschelal”. The main religious center of Mennonites was in Karasan and Spat, and for the Catholics it was Simferopol.
The religious and ecclesiastical centers of Germans in Crimea:
Neusatz, Zuerichtal, and Byten were for Protestants.
Neusatz and Zuerichtal had a Zentral - School (teacher-school); in Neusatz they published the local gazette of protestants (periodical) and there was
founded a yearly celebration of Mai Day with performances. Every year in Byten there was a missionary celebration.
Karasan and Spat were the religious centers for Mennonites. C/O [in each?] village a central school; in Karasan, the gazette of Mennonites “Mennonitenblatt” was published. There was a bookstore, too.
Rosental, Kronental, and the government city Simferopol were religious centers for Catholics. They didn’t have their own schools and [therefore] went to the schools of the protestants.
The “German hospital” in Simferopol (Nowyj gorod – Neustadt – new city) was famous. Germans, Russian and other people went to the hospital and liked it. Germans doctors and deaconess nurse-sisters worked there. There were these doctors: Dr. von Kossart – surgeon; Dr. Maurach – eye specialist; Dr. Lau – ear- and nose disease; Dr. Weidenbaum – inner disease etc. There was German dispensary in Simpheropol also.
The at one time opulent German farmer in Crimea, which tapped the desolate steppe area for agriculture, were annihilated through the soviets regime. Through mass expulsion and mass kidnapping (in the years 1914 – 1940) the amount of Germans went from 60 000 to 14 000. The rest were abducted (during the occupation from Germans troops) to central Asia and Siberia, where they lived in a miserable state.
Since 1941, Germans farming in the Crimea no longer exists. (look at “German colonies of Crimea”, was which published in 1954 and named “Heimatbuch der Ostumsiedler – Native Book of East[ern] Resettlers ” )
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