Dr. Brent Mai, Director of the Volga German Institute, will be leading a tour to Germany in 2024 that will the ancestral homes of the Volga Germans before they left for Russia in the 1760s. This tour will begin on 18 May 2024 in Munich and end on 1 June 2024 in Munich.
The tour is open to the public. Additional information including the tour's draft itinerary, application form, and costs is available at the website of Volga German Tours.
The Tour (May 18 – June 1) will visit sites of significance to the history of the Volga Germans. It will begin and end at the Munich International Airport (MUC) in Germany. We will visit German villages from which the Volga Germans immigrated to Russia in the 1760s. The itinerary will be tailored to visit the villages of interest to those who are on the tour. In addition, we will visit Büdingen (epicenter of the German migration to Russia), the medieval city of Rothenburg, Hessenpark (much like Williamsburg for Germans), the port city of Lübeck from which most Volga Germans left for Russia, the Danish colonies where many had moved before they left for Russia, the Dachau holocaust museum, Neuschwanstein (the “Disney castle”) & Hohenschwangau, the beer gardens and cathedrals of Munich, the BMW museum, and the Olympicpark (site of the 1972 Olympics).
Since 2016, we have taken twelve groups (almost 275 people) on tours to the Volga German colonies in Russia and two groups to visit the ancestral villages of the Volga Germans in Germany. Read the testimonials from some of those participants. The 2024 tour will be the third one we have taken to Germany.