Kraft was founded on 18 August 1767 by officials of Catherine the Great's government and was therefore known as a Crown Colony.
In 1876, immigration began to North America. These families settled in Kansas. Between 1879-1880, about 100 families moved to the Kuban region and settled in Orlovskaya and Michaelovskaya. In 1881, about 20 families returned because of the poor harvests.
Today, what remains of the former colony of Kraft is known as Verkhnyaya-Grayaznukha.
The Lutheran congregation in Kraft was part of the Stephan parish which had been established in 1771. A new church building was completed in 1865.
As in other Volga German colonies, worship services were discontinued in the 1930s. Today, nothing remains of the church and its former location is a parking lot.
The post-1946 cemetery contains the graves of a number of Volga German families who returned to the Volga German region following release from the "Special Settlements" in 1956.
The congregation in Kraft was served by the following pastors:
- 1771-1778 Johann Kaspar Brauns
- 1778-1778 Laurentius Ahlbaum
- 1779-1782 Klaus Peter Lundberg
- 1782-1788 Jakob Alexander Topelius
- 1798-1811 Karl Adolf Günther
Immigrated to the following locations
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
|
211
|
|
|
| 1769 |
62
|
202
|
108
|
94
|
| 1773 |
63
|
246
|
132
|
114
|
| 1788 |
58
|
362
|
180
|
182
|
| 1798 |
68
|
432
|
223
|
209
|
| 1816 |
103
|
670
|
334
|
336
|
| 1834 |
142
|
1,336
|
663
|
673
|
| 1850 |
202
|
2,036
|
1,018
|
1,018
|
| 1857 |
215
|
2,514
|
1,280
|
1,234
|
| 1859 |
173
|
2,531
|
1,275
|
1,256
|
| 1886 |
348
|
2,779
|
1,399
|
1,380
|
| 1891 |
291
|
3,967
|
2,017
|
1,950
|
| 1894 |
300
|
4,593
|
2,347
|
2,246
|
| 1897 |
|
2,664*
|
1,345
|
1,319
|
| 1904 |
|
6,387
|
|
|
| 1911 |
|
6,101
|
|
|
| 1912 |
|
6,572
|
|
|
| 1920 |
492**
|
3,391
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
2,518
|
|
|
| 1926 |
492
|
2,821
|
1,370
|
1,451
|
| 1931 |
|
3,454***
|
|
|
*Of whom 2,650 were German.
**Of which 491 households were German.
**Of whom 3,412 were German.
- 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.
- 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): 623.
- 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.
- 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 (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1972): 193.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 18.
50.481667, 45.47
Migrated From
Immigration Locations
Map showing Kraft (1935).
German houses in Kraft.