Click on the picture to see a larger photograph. Use the back button on your browser to return to this page. David is standing in an old part of the Kraft cemetary. The headstones are missing. The building in the back is a diary barn. There were many flowers on the graves,   Newer area of the Kraft Cemetary   Cemetary is on the south side of Kraft.   One of the houses built since the Germans returned to Kraft. One family lived in one end and another family lived in the other end. A typical side street in Kraft.   Grocery store in downtown Kraft. There were few groceries available. One of the old houses in Kraft, Most were destroyed during the war.   Main street in Kraft   V-shaped item in back is the village well. David Siegwardt is on the right.

So many people come back from a trip to Russia telling how nice and prosperous it is. I'm afraid they did the tour that went to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev. The German villages are a much different story.Colleen and I booked our tour with John Klein of Lincoln, Neb., in June of 1995. We had 13 people in our tour including John. We flew on TWA from Denver to JFK airport in New York, and from JFK on Finnair to Helsinki, Finland. After a 4 hour layover we boarded an Aeroflot airliner for the flight to Moscow. We checked through customs (no easy task) and passport clearance, and then boarded a bus for the cross-town from the international terminal to the airport for domestic flights inside Russia. We flew on Domodedodo Airline to Saratov. They fly mostly large airplanes used for overseas fights. We flew on one of their smaller planes that reminded us of a Greyhound bus with the rubber straps holding in the carry-on luggage. The food they served was very good. The airport in Saratov is very small and dirty considering the size of the city. From the airport we took a bus to our hotel in the center of Saratov located on German Street.

Saratov is the hub city for all the German villages. The city had only been an open city for two years when we were there. It had been a closed city and people needed special permission to go there due to the space program in the area. It has a population of about one and one half million. We stayed at a very old hotel called the Volga. We are sure that when it was built it was the finest accommodations in the city. We were very fond of the hotel even though it was run down and rag tag. The help were all wonderfully friendly and helpful. There was no air conditioning and if you were lucky you had hot (rusty) water to bathe in. All our meals were prepared at the hotel and someone must have told them that Americans like chicken, because we had it twice a day. One morning for breakfast we had a real treat, a fried egg. It had been fried, fried, and fried some more, making it quite chewy. However, they made us very comfortable and welcome.

Every morning we sat on an iron bench in front of the hotel and watched the ladies sweeping the street with their willow brooms, and saw the people walking to work. Savatov has many, many Germans still living there. One evening we all went to the German House for a program of folk dancing and music put on by a group of young people. We also got to visit with some German people that were from some of the other villages. One afternoon one of our drivers, named Svelta, made arrangements for us to take a cruise on the Volga River. We went up river to a point where they are building a new bridge over the Volga, about fifty miles north of Saratov.

Another afternoon, four of us went to the marketplace. It was a huge building with lots of stalls (like a flea market) selling all kinds of foods and flowers. This is where everyone does their shopping in the area around German Street. They have beautiful flowers in Russia, roses as big as coffee cups. They have meat and fish and chicken and everything lying out on uncovered tables. I'm sure it wasn't too healthy as the temperature was in the high 80's and the flies all seemed healthy and lively. They had cheese and butter in very large blocks and you ordered what you wanted and they sliced it off of the block The sights in the market could suppress your appetite to some extent.

John arranged for us to have a car, driver and interpreter for two days. We wanted to go to the villages. Everyone in our group had a different ancestral village they wanted to visit, so we all went our separate ways and then compared notes every evening at dinner. On our first day we went to Frank and Kolp. Our driver the first day was not friendly or talkative but our interpreter, Irene, was a real gem, very bright and energetic.

Frank was the best village we saw for being repaired. The streets were unpaved but were smooth. We met two really nice friendly German ladies, Erna and Estra. They were sisters. They both had very large and beautiful gardens. As Erna said, they had to be, because they needed them to be able to eat in the wintertime. She invited us into the house and we found it spotlessly clean though sparsely furnished. She introduced us to her husband who is Russian. As with all the German families, we were offered something to eat and something to drink. We declined, as we wanted to go to Kolp to see my Aunt's family's village. Her maiden name was Adler.

Kolp was a very run down village. Irene asked around and found an old German gentleman. He was very friendly and happy to see us. Of course, we were invited into his house and his Russian wife served us rye bread, fish, and a glass of kvas ( a homemade alcoholic drink that is very mild and has very little alcoholic content). He was very proud of his place and his orchard, which consisted of fifteen apple trees. We took pictures of his wife, granddaughters and him. They were all very happy to pose for the pictures. While talking to the old man, we saw a horse drawn two wheeled cart coming back from getting a bucket of milk. One passenger held the bucket at arms length to keep from spilling any of it. The streets in Kolp are the worst we saw in any village. We had to go back by way of Frank and stopped by a group of people having a wedding party. Once again we were treated royally and asked to come back for a visit at a later date. We would be welcome to stay at any one of their homes for a couple of weeks or longer. We said if we ever came back to Russia we would be most happy to stay with them.

The next day we went to my mother's village, Kraft. For our trip to Kraft we hired a driver, car and interpreter at the Hotel Volga. Our tour operator told us he was going to go with us. We did not leave until about 9:30 AM. We rode with a lady named Svelta, known by all the other drivers as the crazy driver of Russia. Our interpreter was a very nice young lady named Irena. She was an excellent interpreter. Most Russians in Saratov know very little about the German villages or how to get to them. Many stops were made to ask directions.

John Klein had been to Kraft, so we had very little problem with getting there. The main highway from Saratov to Kraft is a fairly good highway that leads to Volgograd but it does have a lot of big chuckholes. Svelta didn't mind them very much as she had no problem driving her almost new Lada at 130 to 140 kmph. That is 70 to 80 mph. The road from the highway into Kraft is maintained fairly well. That is the direct opposite of the streets in Kraft. There is no upkeep of the streets. There are many low spots in them as well as high spots. If the high spots were graded into the low spots the roads would be pretty good. After we arrived in the village, Irena asked a person on the street where a German family lived. They said there were still several in town and directed us to a newer house on the southern edge of town.

Main highway from Saratov to Kraft. There are thousands of acres of good rich farmland. None is farmed because there is no equipment.

David Siegwardt lived in one end of a large house and his son lived in the other end with a high fenced back yard. They built this house after they returned from Siberia after 1956. It is a very nice brick house, but the yard is not maintained nor is the street. When David came out to greet us, I asked if there were any Reichert families left in the village. He said he did not know of any in the village. After taking a few pictures of David, his house, and his grandchildren playing in a sand pile in the yard, I asked David where the cemetery was and how to get there. He could still speak German and by now my German was coming back to me, so we conversed as we walked about a quarter of a mile to the cemetery. He told of his life in Kraft before WWII and after. He and his family were sent to Siberia when he was six years old. While in Siberia his mother died. She was buried in a shallow grave wrapped in a blanket. In the bottom of the grave was about 18 inches of ice water. A very sad story.

His father remarried and both he and his wife are buried in the Kraft cemetery. The cemetery is very well taken care of. All the graves of the people that have passed away since 1956 have gravestones. As the custom was years ago in the villages, there is a picture of the deceased on the headstone. There is also a wrought iron fence around each family plot and all the fences are maintained. There are flowers planted in each plot. Other people take care of the graves of the deceased that no longer have family in the area. The people who died prior to 1956 are on the east side of the cemetery and these graves (probably our ancestors) are totally unmarked and no one knows who is buried in which grave. The mounds of dirt are still visible but cannot be identified, During WWII the Russians crushed the granite headstones and used them for roadbeds. They removed all the iron markers to be melted for use in the weapons of war. I know my great grandparents and other ancestors are buried there, but do not know where in the cemetery. The Russians are buried in a separate section on the west side of the cemetery. We did not go to that side.

It seems David has not forgiven them for what they did. He said a few German swear words and a very loud "NO" when I asked him if he married a Russian. Just inside the gate of the cemetery David said, "look here, this is a Reichert buried right here." Then he translated the headstone. It was a Kristine Reichert born in 1917 and died in 1993. I told David she could have waited two more years so I could talk to her. He said, "Yes, but she had no choice." He did not say if he knew her. I don't think he did. She may have been married to one of my cousins.

On the way back to the village, we passed the community well. It is operated as it probably has been for many years. It is a long pole held up by two a-frames with a rod thru the long pole. At one end are a long rope and a bucket, and at the other end a counter weight. A person pulls the pole down dropping the bucket into the water in the well and when it is full, he pulls up the bucket and empties it into a container. This is a community well, as Kraft doesn't have a water system. To the east side of town is a large dairy barn where people go to buy their milk by the bucketful. David's wife works in this barn. There are several barns on the south side of the village. I do not know what they are used for, but I believe they had some kind of farm equipment stored inside. David said there were only two tractors in the village, a couple of cars, and several motorcycles. David and some of his family have since moved to Germany and when he last wrote he said he goes to Kraft once in a while to visit his daughter. The last letter in 1996 said she is getting her papers to go to Germany also.

After leaving David's house, where we were invited to have a bit to eat and drink and declined, we drove around the village. There really aren't any streets as such. They are all full of hills and holes. There are wide spaces between the house where there used to be streets. There are a few newer houses built since WWII. There are many older houses from the early 1900's or the late 1800's. All the houses are unpainted and in disrepair. Some of them have fences around them but they are also in very bad condition, unpainted and falling down, in most cases. All around the town are piles of rubble that at one time were houses. They have collapsed, and have never been removed. One can tell by the boards and bricks and dirt in the rubble. I saw no sign of a church in the village. On the main street in the center of the village is the only store in the village. It was closed the day we were there, so I was unable to get inside--some sort of a holiday. Usually it is open only in the morning and closes at 1:OO PM. David had told us there was very little in the store, canned goods, staples and candy--only the bare necessities. I don't know where they do their big shopping. They may possibly go to one of the other villages or all the way to Saratov.

We left Kraft shortly after noon, as John wanted to take a look at Muller on the bank of the Volga River. We got stuck in the sand before we got to Muller, and John and Svelta walked about a half mile to a rise overlooking the village. They came back saying there was nothing there except some foundations. No standing buildings at all. After shoveling for an hour in 90-degree weather we headed back to Saratov. The roads we traveled are marked highways on the map. The one from Kraft to Muller looked to me about the same as the path we used to follow to the beet field along the fence line. The paths go through the weeds and are very rough. It is hard to tell where the road is. There are no edges or markings. I don't know how Svelta knew where to drive.

On the way back to Saratov we were stopped by the Russian Police. Svelta said they do that in hopes you will pay them off instead of waiting until they are ready to let you leave. However, clever Svelta told them she had some very important people in the car that had to be back in Saratov by 6:00 PM, and he had better let her leave to get them back, or he would be in a lot of trouble. He told her to leave, and we wasted no time in doing that.

After our stay in Saratov we went to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They were fun to see, but Saratov and the German villages were the places we fell in love with. We would have liked to stay in Kraft for a week or so and really learn about the village. The people all made us feel so welcome and treated us like family. They could understand my rusty Volga German, so we could communicate. We enjoyed a few more days in Saratov and departed for Moscow.

It was a wonderful feeling to know I had finally been able to visit Kraft and walk on the same ground as my mother and my ancestors. I would go back anytime I have the opportunity to do so.
Richard Bowland (Reichert)

Village of Kraft