Mary Hockenbarger shares a letter she received on 22 August 1992 from Rebecca Keller who toured Russia with her brother Les and his wife.
". . . On Sunday morning (we) went to Dreispitz now called Dobrinka (which my father-in-law said is the Russian name for Dreispitz). After a 3 1/2 hour drive, we met a man who was the head of the collective farms. We toured the village, country side and cemetery. There are about 1800 people living there. The village looked junky. The former homes were destroyed in 1941. They were given a twenty-four hour notice to get out of there to Siberia. Some have returned to the village. There are a number of small homes being built.
The former Lutheran Church is still there. They removed the steeple and have made a club house out of the church. . . . People have gardens, beautiful flowers beside the houses 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. About 15 people were there. They feel very reluctant about their country, and they wondered whether it will last.
At one time the collective farmers were millionares and now they are going bankrupt. They farm 12,000 acres of land, and that takes 600 people to do it. They irrigate quite a few acres near the Volga River. 200,000 gallons of water an hour are pumped into a reservoir which is their source of water. Gas is used to pump the wells. They grow hard red winter and spring wheat and do their harvesting in August. They were putting up hay while we were there. They have lots of old run down equipment.
We walked through the cemetary. Les took pictures of some of the familiar names. Some graves had upright stones with the name and picture 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. . . . Time was too short in the village. We should have gone back another day." Rebecca Keller