Beideck was founded on 10 August 1764 by 76 families who had been recruited directly by agents of Catherine the Great's government. They came from the German regions of Isenburg, Darmstadt, and Hanau.
The colony was named after its first leader, Martin Beideck. By executive decree, it was given the Russian name of Talovka on 26 February 1768.
The 1767 census of Beideck has not been located. Based upon the 1775 census of Beideck, Idt & Rauschenbach have created a list of those early colonists based upon other documents.
The 1775 census records that a number of houses and other buildings were destroyed by fire in 1770.
The Lutheran magazine Friedensbote was published in Beideck frorm 1885-1915. A home for the elderly (called "Bethany") was founded there in 1891. An orphanage (called "Nazareth") was founded there in 1895.
Since the deportation of the Germans in 1941, the former colony of Beideck has been known as Luganskoye.
The parish in Beideck was founded in 1767. It served as the lead congregation for 11 area parishes, and was the residence of the pastor. A stone church was built in 1846 and a new one was constructed in 1907. That building still stands, but it has been used as a civic center since the early Soviet days.
The Lutheran parish in Beideck was served by the following pastors:
Georg Christian Seyer (1767-1770)
Laurentius Ahlbaum (1771-1778)
Johann Martin Otto (1793-1820)
Lukas Cattaneo (1821-1828)
Heinrich Köpke (1828-1828)
Alexander Haken (1830-1836)
Christian Gottlieb Hegele (1836-1850)
Karl Dönhoff (1852-1858)
Felician Joseph Dittrich (1859-1880)
Hugo Julius Günther (1883-1901)
Liborius Behning (1887-1888)
Gotthold Eduard Hahn (1890-1892)
Johann Georg Schwartz (1895-?)
Johann Romann (1896-?)
Eduard Seib (1900-1903)
Johannes Nikolaus Blum (1901-1905)
Waldimir Thumin (1908-1910)
Arthur Woitkus (1911-1913)
Herbert Julius Günther (1918-1929)
Emil Pfeiffer (1929-1934)
The following pastors are "sons" of the congregation:
Herbert Julius Günther
Gustav Ferdinand Otto
Immigrated to the following locations
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
|
1767 |
|
|
|
|
|
1769 |
76
|
298
|
144
|
154
|
|
1773 |
75
|
360
|
185
|
175
|
|
1788 |
74
|
519
|
254
|
265
|
|
1798 |
92
|
581
|
311
|
270
|
|
1816 |
126
|
942
|
485
|
457
|
|
1834 |
196
|
1,574
|
825
|
749
|
|
1850 |
201
|
2,471
|
1,298
|
1,173
|
|
1857 |
288
|
3,112
|
1,583
|
1,529
|
|
1859 |
228
|
3,210
|
1,640
|
1,570
|
|
1886* |
496
|
4,117
|
2,141
|
1,976
|
|
1891 |
371
|
5,809
|
2,961
|
2,848
|
|
1894 |
426
|
5,797
|
2,944
|
2,853
|
|
1897 |
|
3,890**
|
1,952
|
1,938
|
|
1904 |
|
6,428
|
|
|
|
1910 |
|
7,519
|
|
|
|
1912 |
|
7,054
|
|
|
|
1920 |
589***
|
4,338
|
|
|
|
1922 |
|
3,906
|
|
|
|
1923 |
|
3,668
|
|
|
|
1926**** |
721
|
4,210
|
2,042
|
2,168
|
|
1931 |
|
4,307*****
|
|
|
*Along with 195 households 'permanently absent.'
**Of whom 3,824 were German.
***Of which 584 households were German.
****Of whom 701 households (4,123 individuals: 1,994 male & 2,129 female) were German.
*****Of whom 4,266 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): 348.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Idt, Andreas and Georg Rauschenbach. Einige Kapitel aus der Geschichte des Kolonisationsprojekts von Katharina II: 1763-1775 (Moscow: Idt & Rauschenbach, 2021): 544-562.
- List of Settlements in the Russian Empire in 1859, vol. 38: Saratov Province (St. Petersburg, 1862): 59.
- Orlov, Gregorii. Report of Conditions of Settlements on the Volga to Catherine II, 14 February 1769.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): 622.
- 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: AER Verlag Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1978): 191.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 19.
The 1767 census for Beideck has not been located.
The following censuses have been located and translated into English: 1775, 1798, 1834, and 1857.
51.170833, 45.663333
Migrated From
Immigration Locations
Map showing Beideck (1935).
During the Soviet era, the former church was used as a community center and today houses the community library.
Photo courtesy of Steve Schreiber (2001).
The Friedensbote: Monatsblatt für das Christliche Haus was a monthly magazine published in the colony of Beideck from 1884 to 1915. This issue was published by Pastor Günther from Beideck (Talowka).