Mennonite settlements of Altai

The resettlement of Mennonite Plautdietsch in the Altai region began after a law bill on the transfer of free lands in the district of Altai to the resettlers Office was introduced on September 19, 1906 in the Duma and the Council of State. In the years 1907-1908 the Kulunda steppes was provided ( about 1.11 acres of a dessiatine ) are available with an area of ​​over 600,000 desiatins for the resettlers.

The evacuees were granted certain benefits: reduced rail fares ( they needed to pay only 25 percent of the normal rail fare ), where children were allowed up to ten years travel free. For the carriage of a Puds goods to 100 versts a kopeck was raised, exemption from local and state taxes in the first five years ( in the next five years, only 50 percent of all taxes collected, and later in accordance with the generally applicable provisions, exemption from military service in the first three years, interest-free loan of 160 rubles for the purchase of agricultural implements, seeds, & c. When the news of this scheme reached the Mennonite colonies in the Crimea, in southern Russia and in the space Orenburg, aroused this with the landless and land-poor colonists strong interest. the price of land in the mother colonies at that time was already so high that most of the landless peasants could no longer expect an improvement in their situation. therefore for even the desire of these landless farmers to try their luck in the distant Siberia.

It should be noted that Jakob Reimer, head of the office in the government of Kherson district Sagradovka, the Mennonite colonies of Samara and Orenburg on the plans to resettle to Siberia informed. This is also the reason that the applications had arrived from the evacuees from all of these places at the resettlers office in Barnaul practically at the same time, which explains why their villages were founded later in the immediate vicinity of each other.

End of April 1907 met in Barnaul, the representatives of various Mennonite settlements and jointly submitted the application a to put them in the Kulunda steppes 60,000 desiatins country. An employee of the resettlers Office confirmed that Russian families do not settle on this land, because of the rivers and lakes were missing.

Very intense was the migration of Mennonites here in the years 1907-1909, it was not until the outbreak of the First World War on.

In the 19 municipal districts Mennonites founded initially 31 villages:

From these villages as well as from nine villages that were founded by German resettlers Catholic faith, established on 1 January 1910, the District Orlowo. In the following years, the summary of which was founded by the Catholic resettled villages took to the district of Novo- Romanowka.

In 1916, the District Orlowo already counted 34 settlements - to the above Schumanowka, Beryozovka and Tschernowka were added.

The settlers who founded this village in the Kulunda steppes, came from the colonies on the Molotschna ( the office districts Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld district Berdyansk, government Taurien ) and from the Chortitzaer colonies ( District Chortitza, County Alexandrovsk, province Jekaterinoslaw ), including its daughter colonies.

The number of settlers is estimated at about 1,200 families, the proportion of from Chortitza log ends was about 200 families. The other Mennonite colonies in the Crimea, in the provinces of Orenburg and Samara as well as in Bashkiria, etc. supplied only a small percentage of evacuees.

An extremely important role in organizing the resettlement of Mennonites in the Kulunda steppes played the settlement Sagradowka in a circle Kherson, Kherson Governorate, which consisted of 17 villages and in the first half of the 70s of the 19th century by evacuees from the colonies to the Molotschna had been established. In the years 1906-1912 they moved from this settlement of 1,847 people to Siberia, including 1,726 people in the province of Tomsk.

Something to agriculture, the applied the Neusiedler: They brought the four -field system in the Kulunda steppes to mainly grow wheat. In the first two years, the field with wheat, but the third with either oats or barley was rarely ordered. The fourth year of the field then lay fallow, so that in summer cattle grazing on it. In the fall it was plowed again with a Einscharenpflug. But also more furrow plows, Schäldrillpflüge, iron harrows, seeders, mowers with Gespannzug and sheaf binding machines were later used. Threshers for Gespannzug were still rare. Were only fertilized the vegetable gardens, because the dung was collected as fuel, because coal and wood could be brought in only by far and therefore were expensive.

Although there was no lack of diligence the settlers, it was extremely difficult for them because of objective conditions, to build a good and profitable business. This was in many ways at also that the urban population of Siberia at that time made ​​no more than ten percent of the population of the area. With an average grain harvest of 50 poods per dessiatine ( about eight quintals per hectare) produced Siberia in 1909 around 300 million poods of grain. The personal use of the region was not even half that amount. The excess grain therefore had to be sold. But the high cost of transporting the Siberian grain in the European part of Russia made ​​the sale unprofitable, which is why the price of grain in Siberia were very low. It was not unusual that the settlers brought the grain produced by him to Kamen or to Pavlodar, where he had to sell it at such a low price that with the proceeds hardly the transport cost could be covered. The transportation of grain to Puds Kamen cost about 30 kopecks, while wheat prices in Siberia were between 20 and 70 kopecks a pood. The industrial products needed by the colonists were but almost all of brought beyond the Urals and were thus quite expensive due to their long transport path. So the cost of a mower about 150-160 rubles.

Already in 1914 had all the settlements and districts who had German names are renamed in Russian. In general, the Russian name based on the terms of the settlement areas, where were the respective villages.

Alexanderkron - Kussak, Alexander Field - Griškovka, grace home - Redkaja Dubrava, green field - Čertjož, Hochstadt - Wyssokaja Griva, light field - Petrovka, Landskrone - Golenkij, Nikolai village - Djagilevka, Tiege - Uglovoje, Wiesenfeld - Stepnoj.

Some of the villages was renamed by translation of the German names into Russian: Ebenfeld - Rovnopol, Reinfeld - Čistoje, Rosenwald - Lesnoye, semi urban Polgorod, Schoensee - Sineosjornoje, Alexeifeld - Polevoje.

A number of villages got names that had no direct relation to the designation of the settlement coalfield or the German name: Blumenort - Podsnežnoje, peace field Lugovoje, Gnadenfeld - Mirnoje, Nikolaipol - Nikolskoje, Rosenhof - Dvorskoje, Schönau - Jasnoje, Schoental - Krasny Dol, Kleefeld - Krasnoje.

The municipality Orlovo was then incorporated in 1924 in the District Znamenskij and ceased to exist as an administrative unit.

In 1916 the settlements in the government of Tomsk were examined by a Commission of the inspection authority for settlers matters, including the Official District Orlowo: