Galka
Names
Galka, Galki, Meierhöfer, Ust-Kulalinka
Location
50º22' N 45º47' E
History
      Galka was founded on 12 August 1764 as a Lutheran colony by the Government. It is located at the point where the Galka River enters the Volga.
Church
      The Galka Lutheran parish was founded in 1767. A new wooden church building was built in 1880 in the Kontor-style. The church was known as St. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church.
Pastors
      The congregation in Galka was served by the following pastors:
?-1774 Pastor Bergstrom
1774-1778 Johann Kaspar Brauns
1782-1788 Jakob Alexander Topelius
1792-1794 Mag. Johann Dorn
1796-1804 Philipp Jakob Hiemer
1807-1825 Friedrich Wilhelm Schmieder
1826-1847 Johann Hasthoffer
1849-1856 Eugen Friedrich Georg Hinsch
1858-1874 Samuel Theophil Bonwetsch
1874-1881 Moses Asnaworjanz
1884-1888 Leonhard Karl Wilhelm Hesse
1889-1901 Liborius Herbord Behning
1901-1911 Eduard Lehmkul
1912-1918 Alfred Schneider
1918-1931 Alfred Rudolf Kleindienst
Population
Population Table
Year
Households
Population
Total
Male
Female
1767
64
195
1769
54
219
122
97
1773
58
240
124
116
1788
49
285
146
139
1798
65
380
191
189
1816
94
669
332
337
1834
178
1,298
640
658
1850
218
1,845
970
875
1857
176
2,004
1,037
967
1859
165
1,987
1,036
951
1886
209
1,818
915
903
1891
202
2,601
1,296
1,305
1894
204
2,894
1,411
1,483
1897
1,915*
987
928
1905
3,157
1911
3,472
1912
3,548
1920
339**
2,139
1922
1,810
1926***
376
2,037
990
1,047
1931
2,333****
*Of whom 1,883 were German.
**Of which 337 households were German.
***Of whom 2,024 were German (368 households: 982 male & 1,042 female).
****Of whom 2,322 were German.
Sources:
- Amburger, Erik. Die Pastoren der evangelischen Kirchen Rußlands (Lüneburg, Germany: Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1998): 137.
- Beratz, Gottieb. The German colonies on the Lower Volga, their origin and early development: a memorial for the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers on the Volga, 29 June 1764. Translated by Adam Giesinger (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991): 350.
- Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
- Pallas, P.S. Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs. Theil 3,2, Reise aus Sibirien zurueck an die Wolga im 1773sten Jahr (St. Petersburg: Kaiserl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1776): 621.
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 2 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2001): 19-36.
- Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, translated by Richard Rye (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 318.
- Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
- Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen, Evangelischer Teil.
- "Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 19.
External Links
Galka (Gary Martens)
Galka (Wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian
Galka on the Volga (Jane Dye)
My Visit to Galka (Dick Kraus)
Last updated 6 April 2013.
Map showing Galka (1935).


St. Peter & Paul Lutheran Church
in Galka - built in 1880.
Source: Heimatbuch der Deutschen aus Rußland, 1972.