(This description was in a letter by Rebecca Keller to Mary Hockenbarger about Rebecca's trip to Russia in 1992.)

On Sunday morning we went to Dreispitz, now called Dobrinka (which my father-in-law said is the Russian name for Dreispitz.) There are about 1800 people living there. The former homes were destroyed in 1941. There are a number of small homes being built. The former Lutheran Church is still there. They removed the steeple and made a club house out of the church.

Arrangements were made to have lunch with a family in the village. We ate in the summer kitchen and the rest of the living quarters were in another house, very neat and clean. It had a beautiful area rug and the outer edges of the floor were painted.

People have gardens, beautiful flowers beside the house and cows for milk, chickens, hogs, and goats. We saw someone herding a group of little ducks to the water. Men wore overalls and jeans and the ladies were in cotton or nicer dresses. The collective farmers...want to sell the land but aren't sure what to do. They farm 12,000 acres of land and it takes 600 people to do it. They irrigate quite a few acres. 200,000 gallons an hour of irrigation water from the Volga River is pumped into a reservoir. They grow hard red winter and spring wheat and do their harvesting in August.

We walked through the cemetary. Some graves had up-right stones with names and pictures on them. Others were cribs with metal flowers and names on them all around the inside as though all family members were buried in the same grave. The elderly couple did not seem to remember any of the people we asked about except the Christoff and Amelia Kellers and their family, Alex, Mollie (Herbel) and Dave.

(Gene Lundrin visited Dreipitz in 1993. Gene's father was Rubin Lundgrin (1905-1968), son of David (1874-1952) and Marie Elizabeth Herbel (1880-1967).

We traveled south (from Saratov) on a two lane highway which was quite rough. The scenery was like driving along I-70 from Salina to Hays, Kansas. Now I can see why my grandfather liked Russell County, Kansas. Our first stop was at Balzer where we purchased Benzine. There were no pumps, just four pipes out of the ground with a hose. The next stop was Grimm. We saw people with horse and wagon traveling on the streets. We took pictures of the old red brick school built in 1839.

As we drove, we came to a sand hill and the driver would not drive further for fear of getting stuck. Some people picked up Kelly and me and we followed two boys, each riding motor cycles with side cars. We drove on the trails through the wheat fields and came upon Dreispitz from the northwest. We found our host's house. There is a six foot wooden fence around the property. A driveway leads into the garage through a large wooden gate. South of the house is the summer kitchen. Electricity in Russia is 230 volts and operates the TV, refrigerator and electric fan. The cook stove uses propane gas and the bottle is inside next to the stove. The wash basin is outside the summer kitchen door. It has a reservoir behind the mirror for clean water and flows by gravity. Warm water is heated in a tea kettle in the summer kitchen and brought out to the basin. A bucket under the sink catches the dirty sink water.

Next to the kitchen was the wash house and work shed. Next was a shower house with a barrel of water on top. The sun heated this water. Another 50 feet, by a wooden walk, was the one-hole outhouse. Further on was a chicken house and a pig pen. On the north side of everything listed was the back yard garden. There were several fruit trees and a large potato patch at the rear of the yard by the alley. There were many colorful flowers around the walk area. Vegetables included corn, green beans, beets, turnips, radishes, cucumbers and spices.

The house had four rooms and a small enclosed porch area where you took off your shoes before entering. The kitchen was narrow and long with a table for eating during colder weather, and a refrigerator, stove and kitchen sink. Off the kitchen was a small bedroom for their daughter. The front room, with a large wool rug which left a border of about 18 inches of floor, was located on the south side of the house for the entire width. Off the front room was the master bedroom. There was a cellar under the house for storage of fruits and vegetables.

Dreispitz has about 1000 people according to the host. There is an aspalt road that runs east and west and a 18,000 acre cooperative farm on the west. About a half mile north of the church is the cemetery. While at the cemetary, a farmer with horse and wagon was pitching hay into the wagon to take to his barn. It was pitched into the hayloft by hand. The cemetary is on the west side of the gravel road. The graves have small metal fences around each family plot. The markers have pictures of the deceased with name, date of birth and death. On the south side of the cemetary are unmarked graves of those who died before 1910. The markers were made of wood and deteriorated over time.

About 50 new houses were being constructed on the east side of Dreispitz. These are being built with German goverment money. The remainder of the village was older homes and barns made of wood and are unpainted. Most houses were weather beaten. There are a number of 100 year-old houses which look like log cabin construction but the logs look more like railroad ties. The streets were gravel except the one asphalt road. There was a wooden bridge crossing the small creek which ran to the Volga River to the south. At the intersection, one block north of the Volga River, was a school house, grocery store, and an apartment for the disabled. Across from the school is a vacant lot. Two buildings south of the school was an old church in ruins and not being used.

We met David and Alexander Herbel who are brothers. Their mother (deceased) was a Lundgrin and we met Amelia Lundgrin who was 80 years old. My grandmother was a Herbel but we found no family ties. The two sisters did have a brother Fred who lived in Hooker, Oklahoma, and later moved to Irene, North Dakota, where he died some years ago.

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