Chess Master Sonja Graf-Stevenson was born in Munich Susanna Graf, daughter of Volga German parents Joseph Graf and Susanna Zimmermann, on 16 December 1908. She won the Women’s World Sub-Champion and was a two-time winner of U.S. Women’s Chess Championships.
Gabriel Heinze, son of Jorge & Titina Heinze, was born 19 April 1978 in Crespo, Argentina. He is an Argentine footballer who has played with Manchester United, Real Madrid, & Marseille.
His Volga German ancestors came from the colony of Preuss.
Over the years following the deportation in 1941, many Volga German descendants moved to Krasnoyarsk.
Gerald F. "Jerry" Seib is the Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. He is responsible for the Journal’s news and analysis from Washington. He also developed the digital edition of the Washington bureau that includes his own column and commentaries, a real-time version of Washington Wire and other features and columns.
Born into the family of a shoemaker in Kamenka, Saratov province, in 1886. He had a high school education and worked as a school teacher in southern Russia; in 1908 he became an associate of a private firm and an official of the Russian-East Asian Mission in Saratov. From 1914 he served at the Front; after demobilization in 1918 he returned to Saratov and was a member of the Collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Food from the Volga German Republic.
Eugene (Evgeniĭ) Gross lived in Saratov; from 1918 he was an active member of the German Catholic Youth Association on the Volga. At the end of the 1920s he was a student at Saratov University. In 1930 he was arrested in a case against German Catholic clergy and laity. Convicted (?). Fate thereafter unknown.
Born in Saratov in 1901. Had a high school education; lived in Saratov, worked as a cashier and was a parishioner of the local church [St. Klemens]. In 1930 – arrested in the case against German Catholic clergy and laity and convicted. Fate thereafter unknown.
Samara, located on the left bank of the Volga River, is the capital of the Samara Province. It was founded in 1586 to protect Russia's southern border from the nomadic tribes in the area.
From 1935 to 1991, Samara was known by the name of Kuybyshev.
Emma Schwabenland was born in Portland, Oregon, on 2 February 1907, to the Rev. Johann Conrad and Dora (Miller) Schwabenland. Pastor Schwabenland was born in Straub and came to the U.S. in 1891. He served German Congregational Churches in North Dakota, Washington, Oregon, California, and Colorado between the years 1898 and 1939. Dora Miller had come to America from Norka with her parents and their family in 1887.
When the Volga German colonies were founded, Engels was known as Pokrovsk. It was a commercial center located on the left bank of the Volga River across from Saratov.
Pokrovsk was founded in 1747 by ethnic Ukranians, and it is referred to as the Pokrovsk Ukranian Quarter in the 1798 Census of the Volga German colonies.
Over the years, Pokrovsk became the center of much of the German culture on the Volga and was known by the German name of Kasakenstadt. It had a population of 22,000 in 1897.