THE BERRY MEADOW ARCHIVE - Mountain Light School

1991. Dr. Plehve was also contacted that year by Dr. Thomas Bird of the University of Washington
School of Medicine who was conducting research on genetic founder effects. He had learned of
Plehve's work through University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill historian Donald Raleigh who
had received official permission to conduct research in Saratov that year on the city's history during the
Communist Revolution. This research led to his acquaintance with Plehve, who chaired the
history department at Saratov State University. Genealogical charts prepared by Dr. Plehve from
Russian census lists provided valuable information sought by Dr. Bird for his medical research
and represented justification for our committee's work in the event documents we were taking out
of the country were ever threatened with confiscation by customs authorities.
While going through customs in Moscow I always carried a letter on UW letterhead from
Dr. Bird to Dr. Plehve requesting assistance in his medical research in case such problems arose. I
also distributed the documents among other paperwork related to my work with the Russian
Ministry of Education in order to avoid suspicion. I was never detained by Russian customs officials
but observed numerous other problems encountered by foreigners for far lesser-offenses. The export of
any antiquarian items from Russia without special permission was illegal at this time (1990-93) and
copies of primary source documents for AHSGSR represented an undefined "gray area." Experiences at
the border in other cases recurrently demonstrated that the discovery of anything questionable
inevitably resulted in confiscation. Beginning in May, 1991 and again the following July, I began
bringing back large files of documents prepared by Dr. Plehve in accordance with the
committee's plan following my meetings with him in Moscow. He also arranged to send
materials separately by private courier to David Schmidt, Art Flegel, and me when schedules
would not allow travel to Russia. In all these cases the materials prepared by Dr. Plehve reached their
destinations in the US and were promptly forwarded to AHSGR headquarters in Lincoln.
The continued efforts of David Schmidt and Richard Rye to work with private Russian
research firms like MITEK and AROS in 1992 and 1993 also yielded significant primary
source acquisitions through the ASHGR-CIS Archive Project including the Sixth Revision (1798)
for the Volga colonies and substantial portions of the Kuhlberg and First Settler lists from the 1760s.
During same months Dr. Plehve provided substantial portions of the Eighth Revision (1834), and
a series of early Kontora documents. Our procurement through him at this time of an extensive index
of relevant holdings in the Saratov and Engels archives greatly facilitated subsequent committee
selections.
By the spring of 1994 the AHSGR-CIS Archive Project had yielded 9,343 pages of original
colonist transport and settlement lists and (census) revisions covering the period 1765 to 1834 as well as
copies of numerous limited edition publications highly relevant to our investigations including Dr.
Yerina's A History of the Archives of the Volga German Republic, A History of the Russian Germans in
Documents, and copies of rare early maps showing Russian German village locations. Total ASHGR
expenditures for this initial phase of the project from its inception in 1991 to June, 1994 were $9,361. A
new round of support for the work was voiced at the Calgary Convention by AHSGR board members Lee
Kraft, Art Flegel, Tim Kloberdanz, Nancy Holland, Leona Pfeiffer, John Gress, Margaret Freeman, Ed
Schwartzkopf, who were joined in this effort by members Bill Scheirman, Rev. Horst Gutsche, Jean
Roth, Alf Poffenroth, and many others. The abiding support of Executive Director Kathy Schmidt and
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