Kukkus was founded on 26 June 1767 by colonists recruited by LeRoi & Pictet. It was located on the left bank of the Volga River about 45 kilometers southwest of Pokrovsk (Engels). There were 53 families in the original founding group who came from Isenburg, the Pfalz, and Bavaria. The colony was named in honor of its first leader, Abraham Kukkus.
By edict dated 26 February 1768, the colony received its official Russian name of Volskoye. Christian August Tornow records that the colony was called Huckel for the first couple of years after it was founded.
Kukkus was plundered during the 1774 raids by Pugachev and his supporters.
During the 1921 Famine, 176 people died in Kukkus.
Following the 1941 Deportation, orphans from the Spanish Civil War (who had originally arrived in Russia in 1937) were evacuated from Moscow on 26 August 1941 [2 days before the actual Volga German Deportation Decree was published] and sent down the Volga River by ship for resettlement among the former Volga German colonies. One of these groups was settled in the colony of Kukkus. They remained there until the summer of 1944 when they were moved back to Moscow.
Today, what remains of the former colony of Kukkus is known as Privolzhskoye.
The Lutheran congregation in Kukkus was part of the Warenburg Parish; the early Reformed parishoners were served by the pastor from the colony of Messer.
Kukkus became an independent parish in 1820 with a resident pastor of its own.
A new Lutheran Church was built in Kukkus in the 1860s. It was constructed of wood in the Kontor Style typical of other Volga German colonies at the time. This building was dismantled in 1932, and its materials used for the construction of other buildings in the village.
A congregation of Baptists also developed in Kukkus.
The congregation in Kukkus was served by the following pastors:
- Johann Martin Otto (1820-1835)
- Peter August Pundani (1836-1840)
- Ernst Wilhelm David (1840-?)
- Johannes Wilhelm Michael Allendorf (1854-1900)
- Johannes Erbes (1902-1930)
- Otto Heinrich Harff (1929-1931)
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
51
|
187
|
|
|
| 1769 |
46
|
167
|
83
|
84
|
| 1773 |
44
|
181
|
100
|
81
|
| 1788 |
42
|
228
|
132
|
96
|
| 1798 |
50
|
315
|
161
|
154
|
| 1816 |
74
|
343
|
164
|
179
|
| 1834 |
110
|
826
|
407
|
419
|
| 1850 |
147
|
1,202
|
610
|
592
|
| 1857 |
134
|
1,467
|
746
|
721
|
| 1859 |
|
1,524
|
|
|
| 1883 |
|
2,226
|
|
|
| 1888 |
310
|
2,233
|
1,093
|
1,140
|
| 1894 |
|
|
|
|
| 1897 |
|
2,419*
|
1,201
|
1,218
|
| 1904 |
|
3,432
|
|
|
| 1908 |
284
|
3,610
|
1,850
|
1,760
|
| 1910 |
316
|
3,334
|
1,607
|
1,727
|
| 1912 |
|
3,796
|
|
|
| 1920 |
395**
|
2,709
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
2,228
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
3,020
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
489
|
2,731
|
1,308
|
1,423
|
| 1939 |
|
3,108
|
|
|
*Of whom 2,367 were German.
**Of which 382 households were German.
***Of whom 2,684 were German (470 households: 1,284 male & 1,400 female).
- Kukkus Families Database (Rick Felsing)
- Kukkus (wolgadeutsche.net) [in Russian]
- 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): 351.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Erbes, Johannes. Deutsche Volkszeitung (23 August 1906).
- Fernandez, A. P. "The Story of One Evacuation: Spanish Orphanage No. 1 in the Village of Kukkus" (2014).
- Orlov, Gregorii. Report of Conditions of Settlements on the Volga to Catherine II, 14 February 1769.
- 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: AER Verlag Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1978): 197.
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Immigration Locations
Map showing Kukkus (1935).
Kukkus Church built in the 1860s.
Map of Kukkus created by Andreas Busick (1983).
Originally posted to wolgadeutsche.net
School built in the colony of Kukkus in 1912. Street view taken in the 1910s.
Source: Saratov Regional Museum of Local History.
School built in the colony of Kukkus in 1912. Back view taken in the 1910s.
Source: Saratov Regional Museum of Local History.