Dreams, Promise and Reality

THE FIRST GERMANS ARRIVING at the lower Volga area found to their dismay a land quite different from the one promised them by the recruiters of the Empress Catherine. Represented in glowing colors as rich, lush and peaceful, reality was different and sobering. The frontier was unprotected, wild, uninhabited, yet open to tribal forays of Kalmyks, Kazakhs and Kirghiz. There were no military outposts keeping the peace, no police stations to prevent assault on the law-abiding. Like islands in a sea, noble owners of grand estates had carved out the occasional semi-civilized oasis that they visited in spring or autumn for the hunt, but otherwise ignored.

Muslim nomads roamed the land, hunting and herding stock. For centuries the Tsars had remanded troublemakers and undesirables into the lower Volga region as punishment. These people, often allied with the Muslim nomads, became the scourge of the region. Catherine’s agents, worried about molestation of the settlers, had admonished tribal councils, but a royal ukase meant nothing to the wild tribes, living in seventh-century cultural constructs. They’d lived here for centuries, ever since the great Mongol invasions beginning with Genghis Khan. Indeed, they were the descendants of these raiders. This was their realm. In their worldview, anyone arriving to claim ground was an intruder in need of extermination.

As terribly as the Muslim tribes ruled the land, in their defense it must be said that cruelty was a way of their life. They expected nothing better for themselves than what they dealt others. Tribal wars among their clans were always bloody and cruel. The only peoples able to withstand them were the Cossacks of the Don, the Yaik and other regions. These were brave, battle-worthy warriors, often hired by the owners of estates to defend their peasantry against the Muslim hordes.

The tragic reality of their new lives now lay fully revealed before the settlers. They would have to deal with the Muslim threat themselves, for there was no police, no army that would take up arms to defend them. They, the seekers of peace, advocates of non- violence, were suddenly left without choice but to fight, defending their families or perish.

To deal with the threat of further attacks, the village men met on a Friday night in the church. Seated on plain, coarsely made benches, they faced the sanctuary where the elders were seated. The sanctuary was a sober, stark place with few embellishments. Apart from a large wooden cross and two carved tablets bearing the Ten Commandments, a white and gold silken banner that once graced a church in Hessen, and an old leather-bound Bible and the handmade candelabra, the sanctuary was bare.

After a prayer for deliverance from evil, the deacon began the meeting by coming straight to the point – defense. There was no reason to put off the inevitable, unpalatable subject, because before him sat tired, worn men quite apt to fall asleep if matters did not proceed speedily.

“Dear brothers in Christ,” he began. “Among us, we must bespeak a matter of great importance – the safety of the people of Norka. We have heard that the horror that befell us also fell on the towns of Sosnovka, Schilling, and Golyi Karamysh, Balzer, and two settlements on the Medveditsa, unnamed as of yet.”

The deacon, a bland man of medium height, middle aged and round faced, noted with satisfaction that his mostly young audience had come alive when he mentioned the attacks on the other settlements.

Christoph sat beside his father, wearing a threadbare gray wool jacket revealing his wrists and lower forearm, a sign that the boy who had been given the garment had grown into a man. He sat erect, following the proceedings intently. His head was filled with the brutal demise of his grandparents, particularly the death of his grandmother. She had loved him with a knowing, kind and guiding love seldom found. Ute loved him fiercely, caringly, and yet knew not his depth the way Albina had.

Besides the Kirghiz attacks there had been reports of robberies by smaller Kalmyk bands. One of their neighbors, Kurt Berger, was severely beaten and left for dead in the fields. Stripped of his clothes, robbed of his horse and implements, he had been found upon the very ground he had been plowing earlier that day. Story after story had been told by neighboring villagers – some savage accounts, some almost funny, such as the tale of some Kalmyks trying to steal an unwilling bull. The enraged animal, taking umbrage, had chased the lot all over the village. That particular robbery had ended well.

The voice of the deacon brought Christoph’s wandering thoughts back into the church. As always, after a while the church had grown exceedingly warm, inducing drowsiness in the tired men. The few women who had chosen to attend the open meeting sat in a cluster at the rear of the church.

“We live on a frontier without law,” declared the deacon. “Although we abhor violence, we must fight against the lawless. We, Norka, and the other villages, have complained to the authorities in Saratov, but were told that nothing could be done for us. They might send the army to avenge our dead in a short foray. However, that will not protect us long term, and the police force in Saratov is unequal to the task.”

He then explained a plan proposed by the committee of elders. “We shall designate every week a group of men for the defense of the village. When we are in the fields, there shall be another group on horseback, looking out for attackers. Work must progress communally in the fields until such time when outlaws know better than to attack us.”

For a while a spirited debate took place to determine the execution of such a plan. Consensus was derived by persuasion. The voices of reason proposed a workable plan. Some men suggested that guns should be bought in Saratov to better impress the seriousness of their defense upon the Kirghiz. However, for the moment such suggestions were discarded as too radical. Moreover, how could they afford to pay for good guns? Since they had barely enough money for their subsistence, the ownership of a gun was naught but a dream.

For a short while the settlers kept up their defense force. Yet, in the long run, the short harvest period by necessity demanded that every able body worked in the fields. As if one horrific problem was not enough for the village to cope with, another was presented by the implacable nature of the steppe. In early August a phenomenon, unknown to anyone, came upon them, killing crops they had yet to harvest. They had no name for the horrid thing that arrived over their homes and fields. On a clear, bright summer day the usually crystal-clear summer sky turned from its azure blue into a white, milky canopy. As they looked toward the horizon they saw grim, gray swathes of nebulous clouds obscuring the sky, barely penetrated by a bloody-red doomsday sun.

“Oh my God, Father, what is happening to us?” cried out Christoph, still shaken by death and horror. “Have you ever seen such a sky in your life, Father?”

“No, I never have. I do not know what this is. May God protect us from the evil it brings.”

Now Christoph was subsumed with fear. Never had his father spoken thus, never had he acknowledged that something frightened him. What then was this gray horror? As the hour wore on the gray clouds thickened, moving toward their homes. The villagers stood in the street, their gardens and the meadow by the church, watching with terror and foreboding as the gray mass approached.

The closer the mass came, the more they felt a hot, slight breeze, singing and searing as it enveloped them. It dried, crisping all vegetable matter. It sucked the moisture from their skin until it felt like parchment paper; it dried the nostrils of man and beast until the cows bellowed with discomfort.

The monster had arisen in Asia where its super-heated air had torn dust and sand particles from the soil, driving the gray awful clouds over most of Russia. Directly overhead the sky looked yellow-brown and the temperature rose to 125 degrees and more, rose to heights their poor implements could not measure.

The next morning, when the settlers arose from a sweaty bed and fitful sleep, their eyes beheld such destruction as they had never known before. All vegetable life hung limply dry and dead, and their animals bellowed, whinnied, and snorted for water.

They came to call this horrid phenomenon the Höhenrauch, the high smoke, yet this name in no way described the terror it raised in beast and men. The old people prayed ceaselessly and the young wept unashamedly, with hopeless abandon. After days of frightful terror a cool wind dispersed the awful doom, but their fields and gardens lay dead.

The attack on their village, followed by the Höhenrauch, set back their fieldwork. They were barely able to plow and seed their fields before the rains came. For once, the rains brought plenty of water for the crops; water to fill the streams and rivers; water to replenish the springs.

Unfortunately these plentiful rains were followed immediately by an immense drop in temperature, covering the landscape and the village with a sheet of ice. “What will happen to our seed?” was the anxious question on everyone’s mind. Would the germinated seed rot under the ice; had it germinated at all? They needed this crop badly. They needed a surplus, enabling them to sell a little grain to pay off loans, to purchase implements, perhaps even necessary clothing.

As if their prayers were answered, a thaw commenced after a week with night temperatures hovering slightly above freezing.