Kamenka Village History

The Colony Kamenka

part of "Villages in Which Our Forefathers Lived" by Dr. Adam Giesinger in AHSGR Work Papers

"Kamenka was founded in the year 1764 by Catholic emigrants from various parts of Germany. It lies on the left bank of the Ilawla River, a tributary of the Don, and is 110 versts3 from the provincial capital, Saratov, and 70 versts from the district capital, Kamyshin.

At the general Russian census of 1788, Kamenka had 97 families, with 268 males and 267 females. Since the founding, the following have left the colony: in 1858, 40 families, with 104 males - the number of females is not given in the records — migrated to the province of Samara; in 1886 and 1887, 35 families went to America, some to the United States, others to Argentina. At the present time the colony has 399 farmyards, with 5,351 people of both sexes, all of the Catholic faith. In addition to these, there are 146 families, still belonging to this community, who have their homes elsewhere.

The village has four rows of houses, which form a rectangle 1 verst wide and 160 fathoms wide. There are 58 stone houses, 253 wooden houses and 71 houses built of clay.

Kamenka is the seat of the dean, the superior of the Catholic clergy of the Bergseite. In 1906, a new brick church was built to replace the old wooden one, which had been destroyed by fire. The village has a parochial school and two private schools, but statistics on the number of teachers and pupils were not available. 725 adult males and 729 adult females are able to read and write.

Kamenka is also the seat of the Russian land-captain and is the local government centre. It has a medical doctor, a female and two male medical assistants, a midwife, a pharmacy, and a hospital with ten beds. It also has a post office and a telegraph station. There are two annual fairs and there is a market day every Sunday. The main highway from Saratov to Astrakhan runs through here.

The colony has the following artisans: 33 shoemakers, 7 cabinet-makers, 7 carpenters, 2 tailors, 19 millers, 6 blacksmiths, 5 wheelwrights, 9 transport drivers, 1 tinker, 2 musicians and 1 weaver. There are 45 establishments dealing in manufactured goods, 9 small shops and 3 liquor stores.

The colonists own the following livestock: 1,272 horses, 119 oxen, 990 cows, 1,871 sheep, 1,155 pigs and 375 goats.

The community pays personal and land taxes amounting to 12,495 rubles annually. The community income amounts to 2700 rubles.

The land owned by this colony has an area of 11,968 dessiatines, of which 8,992 dessiatines are near the village and the rest is 14 versts away. About one-third of the land is good black earth, the other two-thirds has a clay soil with sandy subsoil. Of the total area, 8,064 dessiatines are used to grow a variety of grains, 767 dessiatines are wooded, and the rest is used for pasture.

Here, as in all the colonies of the Volga region, the land is divided among the male "souls", the division taking place every six years. The inhabitants of Kamenka sell their produce partly in Nishnaja-Panovka on the Volga, 10 versts from the colony, and partly in the district capital, Kamyshin."

Source: AHSGR Work Paper No. 16. December 1974. © AHSGR Used with permission of AHSGR.