Marienberg
Location
50°46' N 46°25' E
Names
Besuk, Beziok, Bisiuk, Bizyuk, Krestovskiy, Marienberg, Peschanoye
History
      Marienberg was a Roman Catholic daughter colony founded in 1855 by colonists from Rothammel, Sewald, Husaren, Semenovka, Schuck, Kamenka, and Degott. It was located 505 versts from Samara and 3 versts from Streckerau. It was 42 versts to the nearest railway stop in Krasnyi Kut.
      Immigration began in 1876 and from 1876-1878, 79 colonists left for America.
Church
      Marienberg was a Roman Catholic daughter colony. It belonged to the parish headquartered in Streckerau until 1903 when it became an independent parish with a resident priest. The church was built in Marienberg in 1877.
Priests
Johannes Falkenstein
Aloysius Kappes (1910-1914)
Jakob Kayser
Population
Population Table
Year
Households
Population
Total
Male
Female
1857
1859
52
403
198
205
1883
1,623
1889
1,908
1891
1894
1897
2,385*
1,157
1,228
1905
3,187
1910
469
3,229
1,636
1,593
1912
3,310
1920
487
2,659
1922
1,340
1923
1,500
1926**
392
1,891
914
977
1931
2,084***
*Of whom 2,332 were German.
**Of whom 1,882 (906 male & 976 female) were German living in 387 households.
***Of whom 2,059 were German.
Sources:
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Dietz, Jacob E. History of the Volga German Colonists (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2005): 241.
- Klaus, A. Our Colony [in Russian] (St. Petersburg, 1869).
- Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 17.
External Links
Marienberg (wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian
Marienberg (Gary Nevard)
Last updated 8 April 2013.
Map showing Marienberg (1935).


One of many iron crosses remaining in the German cemetery in Marienberg (2006).
Source: Steve Schreiber.
Church ruins and farmer's home are all that remain of Marienberg (2007).
Source: Valery Taboyakov.

Marienberg Church in 2006. Photo courtesy of Steve Schreiber.

According to Dr. William Wiest, who visited Marienberg in 1993, the local people tell a story of the church being slammed by trucks and tanks in the Soviet era, but it would not fall.

Front entrance of the Marienberg Church in 2006

Interior of the Marienberg Church in 2006

A fading mural of Joseph leading Mary and baby on a donkey inside the Marienberg Church.

Map of Marienberg.
Source: Gary Nevard.