A Frontier Miracle

THE EMPRESS CATHERINE’S MANIFESTO, allowing the immigrants a choice of trade or calling, as well as a choice of location for such trade, had been rudely and duplicitously breached by the Tutel-Kanzlei. However, by forbidding the German artisans to compete with Russian artisans, they had unwittingly assured that each village contained a complement of specialized people.

Without these craftsmen producing workable tools, leather, shoes, and clothing, no village could have survived. Later, the artisans practiced their craft unhindered by the Tutel-Kanzlei, thereby beginning a century of great achievements.

The crafts flourished. Smiths with grand forges were now able to produce quality iron implements. Iron rimmed wheels – new on the Volga – created a wainwright industry, known for quality all the way to Moscow. Almost every village had built a flour mill, and most villages had their own wheel-rights, their blacksmiths and carpenters.

The artisans protected their newly won freedom to perform their crafts unhindered, by insisting on an apprenticeship program, equal to programs in Germany. Those wishing to become a part of the artisans’ guild were forced to commit to an apprenticeship program, ranging from four to six years.

By1850, industry was well established in Katharinenstadt. This city, well favored with a port on the Volga, had become a trading center for flour, grain and tobacco. Trading places were selling the newest farming implements, cloth (foremost the famous sarpinka), leather products, pipes and tobacco, furs and jewelry, wedding dresses and hats, ruffled and pearl adorned. Household items like pans, pots, pottery, furniture, and cabinets could be had with the right amount of money and, of course, one was able to purchase beer or other alcohol and even drink it in the shops.

Even Catherine the Great, imbued with astonishing foresight, could not have forecast the grand miracle in this frontier land, once dominated by outlaws and remnant tribes of the Golden Horde. In about a hundred years the settlers had achieved the living standard they once knew in Germany. Some – the mill owners, artisans, and grain traders, had achieved riches – more than just a comfortable living.

Why was this almost miraculous? Since the time of Ivan the Terrible, a war to contain the Kirghiz and Tartars had been fought. A few times, without success, the Tsarina Ioannovna had tried to settle and solidify the area. Three battalions of soldiers, commissioned to defend her settlement attempts, had been slaughtered by the remnants of the Horde.

As late as 1731 the government tried settlements consisting of Russians and Don Cossacks. It had been a grand mistake, for the Cossacks were not willing to plow the ground while being beset by Tartars and Kirghiz. They, instead, had thrown in their lot with the enemy and plundered with the best of them.

And so the Germans, deceived and led by false promises, had come, paying for their miserable livelihood with blood, tears, hunger and constant fear. Yet they had persevered, had prospered where the native peoples had failed, turning the region into a civilized place. It was a grand victory of gentleness and prayer over murder and lawlessness.

Katharina Meininger, at eighty-one, had seen her daughter Henrietta married to the foremost grain merchant in town, an urbane man named Heinrich Baker. Katharina’s husband, Nicholas Träger, had enriched the family tremendously. According to their station as some of the region’s foremost citizens, they contributed considerable sums to enlarge Katharinenstadt’s school and to build the new Lutheran church. The new church was a magnificent edifice, large enough to encompass the many worshippers arriving from any of Saratov’s districts.

Every Sunday, when she went to the only service she attended nowadays, she looked about and was thrilled to be seated among so many of her fellow Germans, shining with accomplishments. As always, she then prayed for Nicholas, who had passed away fifteen years ago. She thanked God that her people had been able to finally settle their inflated debts to the Russian state once and for all, allowing their overall burden to shrink.

Through the years her foremost prayer had been that the government in Saratov would cease its cruel punishments for the slightest infractions committed by the settlers. The government had treated the settlers with the same cruelty they bestowed upon their unfortunate indentured serfs. Canings, forced community labor, confining to pig pens and public execution were the means employed by the Russian overseers.

Now that their debt to the Russian government had been paid, the Germans could have the large, enjoyable weddings again, events which they had missed terribly. The Kontora had allowed only ten people at any one wedding until then. Not only that, as if the Germans had been indentured serfs, the Kontora had regulated who could marry whom, requiring notification, punishing illicit love affairs.

Katharina smiled with disdain when she thought of the asinine rules the Kontora had heaped upon the downtrodden settlers. These rules had seldom been enforceable, unless the Vorsteher, mayor, or the two Beisitzer, associate mayors, tattled to the Russians. If, however, a poor farmer had been caught breaking the stupid rules, the punishment meted out was severe. One rule in particular made everyone laugh behind the backs of the foolish bureaucrats. This rule concerned the yearly butchering of the stock. The Kontora had sincerely tried to control how many animals a farmer could slaughter, and when this had to occur.

“As if you can tell a starving person not to eat. That is crazy!” complained the villagers, unwilling and unable to comply.

This rule, together with many others running in the same vein, was challenged and eventually expunged from the register of “enforceables”.

Sitting in her special seat in her own pew, complete with a soft cushion, cross-stitched and embroidered, she prayed with a heavy heart that enlightenment befall the government. She pleaded with God that her fellow Germans might be allowed better education in the high schools and universities from which they were virtually excluded. With the exception of a few well-off families, who had undertaken their own children’s education through private tutors, as her family had done, none of the settlers had received enough grounding in essential knowledge to even understand their own situation. Young people had grown away from the cultural wealth their parents had brought with them. Education proceeded mostly through indoctrination and rote learning, thereby depriving pupils of essential refined teachings.

And yet, despite all her misgivings, when she mused about her grandchildren, when her eyes followed them during their frequent visits, she was awed that her blood and bone had produced such a splendid crop.

Katharina’s oldest grandson, Martin, was already thirty years old. He traveled for his father throughout Russia, keeping their granaries and flour stores controlled. He spoke Russian, German and French fluently. Some of the Russian nobility still preferred to speak French instead of Russian, thinking this language coarse, uncouth.

Henrietta’s youngest child, Anna, had married a Norka farmer, Adam Döring, who did not only care for his farm but also worked for the Baker Company, looking after the Norka mill, buying up grain in the area. Anna, a very pretty, bright, accomplished young woman, taught in the village school.

Adam and Anna represented the average industrious German family on the Volga. Their greatest wealth was embodied in their four boys and three daughters. When you farmed under the Dusch system, boys became the owners of the ground and the girls they married would be the family’s helping hands.

Adam’s farm equipment was well appointed and sufficient for all his tasks. Anna insured that their house was well kept. She also ran her own little creamery, in which she made butter and cheese, mostly for home consumption, but also some for sale. They owned their own store of grain, independent of the village granary, and an adequate number of barns for their many animals. Each year they raised four beef cows, besides feeding two permanent milk cows in their stalls. Many people kept oxen for draft stock, but Adam liked horses and purchased three big Haflingers, bred from an imported German stallion.

They also kept three fleet horses to ride and run before a carriage. In winter a good troika was a must. Adam owned well-made, decorated harnesses, which he kept in top shape, to the chagrin of his sons who were regularly pressed into cleaning service. He had bought a new, beautifully painted wagon and had himself restored a well-crafted older sleigh, made to be drawn by a troika.

Katharina had been to their home many times and knew that, although they were not rich, they were comfortable. Their smoke house was filled with sausages and meat as winter arrived. Their clothes were well made, especially the critical winter clothing. They all wore sheepskin coats, fur hats, and specially made felt boots.

But most of all, they managed to have enough money to pay taxes and were able to shop at the lavka for tea, sugar, spices, accessories, pots, and other things they could not make themselves.

Katharina was content with the future her grandchildren would have. To live well one did not have to be rich. Some of the very rich were not as content with their lives, traveling discontentedly around Europe. Nicholas had traveled with her in Germany and France a few times and the godless society they saw in some places had made them always wish for home.

The Baker Company flourished. By 1885 the Volga colonies would produce 50,000 tons of flour and wheat annually. By now the large granaries shipped premium wheat flour throughout the Imperial realm. From Katharinenstadt and Saratov the shipments of the houses of the Gebrüder Schmidt could be found from Vladivostock throughout the realm, all the way to Finland.

For some – the farsighted, the enterprising, and the risk takers – the Volga region had become the Mecca of Russia. Yet when Katharina thought of her daughter Henrietta, her heart bled. Henrietta was rich. There was nothing that she could wish for. Anything material she wanted was in her grasp. Yet the thing that she had wanted more than anything, a loving marriage and a happy family, eluded her.

Wealth had ruined her husband’s character. It had undermined his faith. He came to look upon the church as a cultural icon, an anachronism to be tolerated and, on occasion, to be endured. Early on he began spending a lot of time in St. Petersburg. “Business,” he had told Henrietta, and she had believed him – believed him, until she found the rent receipts for a house in St. Petersburg, where he kept a dancer, together with the woman’s clothing bills. Divorce had been out of the question. Henrietta had informed her mother that she would make the best of her life for her children’s sake while living mostly apart from her husband. Perhaps it was because of all the heartaches in her life that Henrietta not only delighted in Anna’s marriage to Adam, but that she had actively furthered their acquaintanceship.

Katharina visited the Norka farm often, glorying in her great-grandchildren’s health and growth. She was especially taken with the oldest boy, Alexander. From the very beginning, his birth ten years ago, she had noted a spark in him that she missed in the other children. He was but two when she could reason with him about the little things that made him cranky.

“If you stop crying and listen to me, I can help you with your problem,” she had said to him when he stomped his little feet in frustration. Listening to her cool voice and the gist of her message, he would grow calm and ask for her help. Because she had always solved his little problem, she trusted her later, asking her help with his larger woes.

Sitting in her favorite church, her beautiful Katharinenstadt Kirche, thinking of the many lives in her family needing prayer, she folded her hands and quietly petitioned God for blessings upon them all.

It was Alexander who found her there one evening, after searching everywhere for hours. She was in her pew, slightly slumped forward, with a sweet smile on her face as if she’d been given a wonderful gift. She was eighty-three years old.