Bergseite - The "Bergseite" is a German geographical term referring in general to the territory occupied by the Volga German colonies on the west side of the Volga River. Translated, it means "mountainous side" or "hilly side" of the river.

Colonies on the Bergseite include: Alexandertal – Anton – Awilowo – Balzer – Bauer – Beideck – Bergdorf – Brunnental – Degott – Dehler – Dietel – Dobrinka – Dönhof – Dreispitz – Erlenbach – Frank – Franzosen – Friedental – Fritzendorf – Galka – Göbel – Grimm – Grundt – Hildmann – Holstein – Huck – Huckertal – Husaren – Hussenbach – Josefstal – Kamenka – Kautz – Köhler – Kolb – Kraft – Kratzke – Kukkus – Kurnawa – Kutter – Leichtling – Marienfeld – Merkel – Messer – Moor – Mühlberg – Müller – Neu-Balzer – Neu-Dönhof – Neufeld – Neu-Frank – Neu-Kraft – Neu-Messer – Neu-Moor – Neu-Müller – Neu-Norka – Neu-Straub – Neu-Walter – Norka – Oberdorf – Pfeifer – Pobochnaya – Rosenberg – Rosenfeld – Rothammel – Schilling – Schuck – Schwab – Sewald – Semenovka – Shcherbakovka – Stephan – Streit – Swesda – Unterdorf – Volmer – Walter – Wissenfeld – Yagodnaya Polyana

Wiesenseite - The "Wiesenseite" is a German geographical term referring in general to the territory occupied by the Volga German colonies on the east side of the Volga River. Translated, it means "plains side" of the river.

The following colonies are/were located on the Wiesenseite:

Ährenfeld - Brunnental - Eckheim - Friedenfeld - Marienfeld - Wiesenmüller

Mother Colony - Between 1764 and 1772, 106 colonies were established along the Volga River near Saratov. Historically, these colonies became known as "Mother Colonies".

Daughter Colony - When the German colonies were established along the Volga River in the 1760s, each colony was alloted a certain amount of land. This land allotment changed little over time. During the early years, the land was periodically redistributed according to the number of men of the colony who were of a certain age. Consequently the amount of land allotted to each person decreased substantially as the colony’s population grew.

By the 1850s, this land shortage was becoming critical. Additional land was allotted east of the Volga and east-southeast of the original settlements for expansion.

Volost - (Rural Area) is an administrative concept of a few villages, that share the same administrative office. For example, about 4 neighbouring villages would make up a “volost” or “rural area”.

Uezd - a district or county.

Guberniya - a province.

Pud - is 16.38 kg or 36 pounds.

Ruble or rouble – the common currency of Russia. 

Masloboi - means ‘butter-beating'‘ or ‘creamery’, but is also means “oil-mill”.

Papirossy - are cigarettes with Mundstueck/ mouthpiece of cardboard, which elegant people smoked.

Makhorka - is very cheap tobacco for the masses.  The Russian State decreed that any tobacco factory that made expensive cigarettes must also produce a certain amount of cheap tobacco for the poor. (This piece of egalitarian legislation, incidentally, nearly bankrupted the Stahf cigarette factory)

Posad - is a “free trading village”

Slaboda - as in Pokrovsk/Engels, means a settlement of “free people” – non-serfs.

Solovezki Islands - a group of islands in the White Sea of which six of the larger are inhabited. The islands lie about 530 kilometers north of St. Petersburg and 160 kilometers south the polar circle. When Alexander Solzhenizyn coined the term Archipelago Gulag, he thought of the archipelago Solovezki. This prison camp there was Russia's first large prison camp, a model used as the Soviet prison system developed.

GULag - an acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerej [Chief Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps].

OBPU - an acronym for Ob'edinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie [Joint State Political Directorate]. The OGPU was responsible for the creation of the GULag system. The OBPU was succeeded by the NKVD as the secret police agency of the Soviet Union.

NKVD - an acronym for Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del [People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs]. The NKVD is best known for the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB) which succeeded the OGPU and the Cheka as the secret police agency of the Soviet Union.

Last updated 10 March 2009.