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VGI Updates

Paraná

The Brazilian State of Paraná is divided in to Municipalities which function more or less like counties in the United States and include cities and towns within their jurisdiction. Volga Germans settled in several Municipalities in Paraná including the following:

Ponta Grossa Municipality

In the Municipality of Ponta Grossa, Colônia Octávio was founded by Volga German settlers in 1878. It was subdivided into smaller colonies which included (number of original settlers in parenthesis):

Brazil

In 1871, many of the privileges originally provided to the Volga Germans when they first settled in Russia where withdrawn.

Many began looking for new areas to settle where they could live undisturbed. While some looked to the Russian frontier in Siberia, where enforcement of the law was not as strict, many looked to the Americas as their best hope for the future. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, significant numbers of Volga Germans emigrated to the North American countries of Canada and the United States and thousands more looked for a new beginning in South America.

Canada

Immigration from the Volga German colonies to Canada began in the late 1880s. Most immigrants settled in the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Larger migrations began around 1900 after the homestead lands of the United States were already taken. Migration of Volga Germans from the U.S. to Canada was also spurred by rumblings of U.S. involvement in World War I. Recent immigrants had just escaped the Russian military conscription of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 and were not eager to get involved yet again in military service.

Argentina

Following the elimination in 1874 of the last vestiges of the promises that had enticed the Germans to settle along the Volga River in the 1760s, immigration began to North and South America. In 1876, a group of approximately 200 families settled in southern Brazil intending to continue raising wheat as they had in Russia, but many found the soils there while fertile to be unsuitable for wheat.

Entre Ríos

The founding of the General Alvear Colonies on 21 July 1878 established the presence of the Volga Germans in the Province of Entre Ríos. The initial wave of Volga German immigrants brought 1,625 families (about 8,000 people) to Entre Ríos.

In Entre Ríos, the term "Aldea" is used often as a reference to a colony (rather than the term Colonía), and this term is used on many maps and on the highway signs in the Province (i.e., Aldea Brasilera, Aldea Protestante, etc.).

Culver, George & Ruth

George & Ruth (née Peppler) Culver purchased the A&W Restaurant on Phillips Boulevard in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1961.  It is on this site that they opened their first Culver's Restaurant in 1984.  By the time of George's death in 2011, there were 435 casual dining restaurants nation-wide bearing his name.  George and Ruth's legacy of quality food and service lives on through Culver’s where his son, Craig Culver, is CEO.