Galka was founded on 12 August 1764 by colonists recruited directly by the Tsarist government and therefore called a Crown Colony. It is located at the point where the Galka River enters the Volga.
Johannes Maierhöfer is recorded as the colony's first mayor (Vorsteher) on the 1767 census. The colony was sometimes called Maierhöfer in his honor.
Today, what remains of the former colony of Galka is still called Galka.
The Galka Lutheran parish was founded in 1767. A new wooden church building was built in 1880 in the Kontor style. The church was known as St. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church.
Today, the church structure no longer exists in Galka.
The congregation in Galka was served by the following pastors:
- ?-1774 Pastor Bergstrom
- 1774-1778 Johann Kaspar Brauns
- 1782-1788 Jakob Alexander Topelius
- 1792-1794 Mag. Johann Dorn
- 1796-1804 Philipp Jakob Hiemer
- 1807-1825 Friedrich Wilhelm Schmieder
- 1826-1847 Johann Hasthoffer
- 1849-1856 Eugen Friedrich Georg Hinsch
- 1858-1874 Samuel Theophil Bonwetsch
- 1874-1881 Moses Asnaworjanz
- 1884-1888 Leonhard Karl Wilhelm Hesse
- 1889-1901 Liborius Herbord Behning
- 1901-1911 Eduard Lehmkul
- 1912-1918 Alfred Schneider
- 1918-1931 Alfred Rudolf Kleindienst
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
64
|
195
|
|
|
| 1769 |
54
|
219
|
122
|
97
|
| 1773 |
58
|
240
|
124
|
116
|
| 1788 |
49
|
285
|
146
|
139
|
| 1798 |
65
|
380
|
191
|
189
|
| 1816 |
94
|
669
|
332
|
337
|
| 1834 |
178
|
1,298
|
640
|
658
|
| 1850 |
218
|
1,845
|
970
|
875
|
| 1857 |
176
|
2,004
|
1,037
|
967
|
| 1859 |
165
|
1,987
|
1,036
|
951
|
| 1886 |
209
|
1,818
|
915
|
903
|
| 1891 |
202
|
2,601
|
1,296
|
1,305
|
| 1894 |
204
|
2,894
|
1,411
|
1,483
|
| 1897 |
|
1,915*
|
987
|
928
|
| 1905 |
|
3,157
|
|
|
| 1911 |
|
3,472
|
|
|
| 1912 |
|
3,548
|
|
|
| 1920 |
339**
|
2,139
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
1,810
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
376
|
2,037
|
990
|
1,047
|
| 1931 |
|
2,333****
|
|
|
*Of whom 1,883 were German.
**Of which 337 households were German.
***Of whom 2,024 were German (368 households: 982 male & 1,042 female).
****Of whom 2,322 were German.
Galka (Gary Martens)
Galka (Wolgadeutsche.net) in Russian
My Visit to Galka (Dick Kraus)
- Amburger, Erik. Die Pastoren der evangelischen Kirchen Rußlands (Lüneburg, Germany: Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1998): 137.
- Beratz, Gottieb. The German colonies on the Lower Volga, their origin and early development: a memorial for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers on the Volga, 29 June 1764. Translated by Adam Giesinger (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 350.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Erbes, Johannes. Deutsche Volkszeitung (23 August 1906).
- List of Settlements in the Russian Empire in 1859, vol. 38: Saratov Province (St. Petersburg, 1862): p.59.
- Pallas, P.S. Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. Theil 3,2, Reise aus Sibirien zurueck an die Wolga im 1773sten Jahr (St. Petersburg: Kaiserl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1776): 621.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Der Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 19-36.
- Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, translated by Richard Rye (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 318.
- Praetorius, Max. Galka: Eine deutsche Ansiedlung an der Wolga. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Leipsiz (1912). [Online]
- Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
- Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen, Evangelischer Teil.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 19.
50.376333, 45.798333
Migrated From
Immigration Locations
Map showing Galka (1935).
St. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church in Galka - built in 1880.
Source: Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1972.
St. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church in Galka.
(early Soviet period)
Another photo of the ruins of the Galka Lutheran Church from the Soviet era.
Source: Bill Doos.