Wehrheim, Germany, pre-Russia hometown of the Leikers

The Volga River of southern Russia

Saken Aimursaev, guide and interpreter

 

 

 

For a very long time I have wanted to visit the region around the Volga River of southern Russia, to see the area in which the German colonies had been located for 100 years. My desire was awakened during my junior year of high school in Father Blaine Burkey's research writing class. It was intensified when I looked at the work of the late Victor C. Leiker, whose research of the Leiker family remains the best and most comprehensive. In his work and the research of others I have come to know the names of my ancestors, but I also wanted to see the places they called home. For the Pfannenstiel family, I had to find Marienthal; for the Leikers, Obermunjou was my destination.

See the Family Trees of the Pfannenstiels and Leikers.

Only recently I have learned of their pre-Russia native villages. Researchers have identified Manderscheid, Germany, as the ancestral home of the Pfannenstiel side of my family. It is located in the western region of Germany, near Trier. On the Leiker side, we know that Johannes George Leiker, the first known Leiker of our family, lived in Wehrheim, a small town near Frankfurt. I had the wonderful opportunity to visit that town and its church earlier this year.

In the mid-1700's the Czarina of Russia, Catherine the Great, invited Germans to settle along the lower Volga River. Many from Germany responded, and among them were the Pfannenstiels of Manderscheid and the Leikers of Wehrheim. They were promised 100 years of exemption from taxes and military service. In 1876 that promise ended, and another journey began, taking those two families to Ellis County, Kansas.

Some family members remained behind in Russia, and the German colonies remained intact until Stalin ordered the Germans out, in retribution for the Nazi invasion of Russia during WWII. Those of German descent were brutally relocated to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Only a handful of Germans were permitted to remain in the Volga region, most of whom had joined the communist party or performed heroically in war-time Russian military service.

What remained of the ancestral villages? I was not sure, but I knew I had to go and see, even if it was just the land on which they once stood. Thanks once again to Blaine Burkey, who put me in contact with Saratov Bishop Clemens Pickel, who in turn arranged for my guide, Saken Aimursaev, I was able to realize a long-held dream. It was to be an unforgettable experience, at times shockingly memorable. The journey was daunting but worth every bit of the worry. I stood on the same soil, looked up at the same sky, and walked the same paths as did my ancestors. There were surprising discoveries and disturbing realizations.

Saratov and Marx were my introduction to the realities of the lower Volga River region.