Rot-Front

42.716375.1138Koordinaten: 42 ° 42 '59 "N, 75 ° 6' 50" E

Rot-Front is a 1927 as " mountain valley " founded and named in 1931 Red Front village in Kyrgyzstan. It was created in the fall of 1927 by 25 families of landless Mennonites in Russia some 60 km east of Bishkek. The first settlers came from the four villages Köppental, Nikolaipol, Gnadental and Gnadenfeld in the Talas Valley (see Bakaiata ). For lack of land, the peasants were forced to seek new settlement places. In the early 1930s, this settlement was officially named the Red Front, but under the German or Plautdietsch remained the name of the mountain valley continues in use.

History

The relocation of the Mennonites in the late 19th century was of the Volga and from the Black Sea area of Russia to Central Asia, as some like-minded fathers had negotiated the commitment in St. Petersburg in 1879, that her sons needed to afford a military service when they are in the new connected areas of Turkestan ausreisten. In the Talas valley, they were assigned by the Governor in Tashkent country and already distributed at their settlement in 1882. More land was not present; lease by the Kyrgyz land was difficult. Over the next 50 years the number of landless increased in the villages, and the willingness to move to other places to get the country grew. The Government recognized the problem and had 1925 Country for these landless from the Chu Valley for a new village, which was named Green Field (later renamed " Thelmann kolkhoz "). The number of landless was in the German villages in the Talas Valley so great that could receive only a part of them land in green field. After further petitions the government in 1927 announced again land for the settlement of a village at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains to. This settlement was named the mountain valley.

The first school teachers gave their lessons in private homes in German language. Even after the construction of the village school, the language of instruction was German until 1938; thereafter was taught only in Russian.

In the early 1930s a collective farm was also formed in the mountain valley from the private sectors, and the village was renamed Red Front.

During the Second World War, the mountain valleys experienced the same fate that was bestowed to all Germans in the Soviet Union. Deported they were not, they were already living in an area where others were deported, but in the forced labor of the " Trud Army " came more than a third of the retracted men lost their lives. Also, women were sent to forced labor. Many children were left without parents and without care.

After the war, the lives of the citizens and the economy of the country recovered only slowly. Only in the 1960s and 1970s, came the boom; Also, the Germans were able to slowly come together again for worship. Since the majority of the residents still had relatives in Germany, since the 1980s it was possible to make an application for resettlement to Germany. From 1986, when perestroika was announced to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the vast majority of the inhabitants had submitted an application for resettlement to Germany. The collapse of the agricultural collective farms after 1991 many residents lost their jobs. The Kyrgyz language was introduced as the official language. Until 1992, moved more than half of the former 900 German inhabitants of Red Front to Germany. Today, only about 150 people of German descent living in the village. However Rot-Front/Bergtal is one of the few villages in Central Asia, where still lives a significant German minority closed. Almost all have relatives in Germany, visit each other and have the authorization to emigrate to Germany.

Current situation

Following independence, Kyrgyzstan in 1991, the remaining German residents of the village translated successfully to ensure that the settlement could also bear their old names mountain valley again and identify on the plate next to the village 's official name Red Front. Today is on the sign in Cyrillic " Rot-Front " and below in the Latin alphabet " mountain valley 1927".

German lessons were in the village school at first for some years a native Kirghiz, who had studied German as a foreign language. Through the mediation of the German Embassy in Bishkek and the Goethe Institute, the Federal Republic of Germany financed from the mid- 1990s, a German teacher from Germany in the village.

With the help of the German Embassy and the establishment of a small museum was made possible in the school house, awake to Central Asia holds with maps and photos, the memory of the migrations of Germans and makes life in the village vividly. Generous financial and material aid from the federal government for the local agricultural cooperative has been, however, seeps or abused for the most part in the sand.

Today Rot-Front/Bergtal one of the few villages in the successor states of the Soviet Union, which still have a significant German -born population. 9 October 2010 reported Michael Martens and photographer Marcus Kaufhold in the newspaper about the village.