THE BERRY MEADOW ARCHIVE - Mountain Light School

PART ONE
Colonist Families of Yagodnaya Polyana, Russia
by Igor Plehve (2003), edited by Eugene and Barbara Rusho
The group of Germans who settled in Yagodnaya Polyana was one of the last to leave Germany
in 1766. One year later laws were passed in the Hessen principalities and elsewhere in Germany
forbidding further immigration to Russia because the population loss had eroded the tax base. Some
27,000 Germans migrated to Russia between 1763 and 1767.
The settlers who would establish Yagodnaya Polyana travelled north by land from the Frankfurt
a. M. area to the seaport of Lübeck. There were several families with the same last name and while it is
likely that they were related, this is not known for certain. Many had come from the same areas and were
known to each other and the entire group consisted of eighty families. At Lübeck they boarded three
Russian ships in September 1766. The largest vessel was called the Dipperman (de Pyerla?) and a large
number of passengers on this ship had the names Litzenberger and Fuchs. A second ship was named Cital
and the most common names on this ship were Morasch and Luft. The third ship, St. Peter, carried the
Kromm and Weitz families.
Frankfurt on the Main River
These ships sailed to St. Petersburg where it is believed the immigrants spent the winter and
became Russian citizens. They were trained in basic Russian laws, customs, regulations, and language
before they were allowed to continue on to the lower Volga region where they finally arrived at their
destination one year later on September 16, 1767. Officials from Saratov conducted a census of this group
which totaled 269 persons in eighty families.
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