The story about a generation of Kulunda steppe Germans (PART II)
So in 1908 a few settlements named Glyaden' appeared in area of current Blagoveschensk-city. These settlements had numbers № 1, № 2, № 3 and № 4 in their names.. Glyaden' II was renamed afterwards into Ivanovka.
Being interested in this story I have found several amusing publications and met interesting people.
In 1911 a resettlement department inspector ironically recodered some facts “Germans had the best cattle, the best yield, the best grain, the best hay. They had knowledge in crop cultivation, farming, breeding cattle and husbandry. Their knowledge helped to survive in new conditions. They didn't complain about the weather when there was a crop failure, they tried to figure out what had caused the bad harvest. The most cultural and well-to-do part of Kulund steppe people were Germans, especially Mennonite Germans (protestants). Their settlements looked very attractive. It was clean and neat everywhere. Houses were placed at the same line. There were a lot of plants in gardens and around the settlements”.
In 1927 Altai satirist, poet and public figure Porphirii Kazanski also visited German settlements. After 3 years of studying the settlements, he published his travel notes “Visiting Kulund Germans” in Altai magazine . Here are some parts of that publication:
“… Kulunda… It becomes more woodless after passing settlement named "Lenki". There is a thick forest after Lenki. It is an artificial forest planted by people of all Glyaden' settlements. After the thick forest there is a new just planted wood. This is a German-Russian settlement named "Ivanovka", it is located in 320 km from Glyaden'.This is the first experience of such kind of settlement. Germans have usually settled apart from Russians. Glyaden' I comes straight after Ivanovka settlement. If you have entered the settlement, you can see on your right side, there is a cooperative with painted posters in German. On your left there is a house which look like an andowner (?what's that? Use Russian, I will help :)) mansion. It doesn’t look like a house of a peasant or even a German....
I presume there will be the third part :)))