Memrik Colony

Founding

In 1884 the Halbstadt and Gnadenfeld districts of the Molotschna settlement bought 32,400 acres (13,100 ha) from the noblemen Kotlyarevsky and Karpov for 600,000 rubles to settle landless families. The Mennonite family-history site chortitza.org gives the same price for about 12,000 desyatinas. A total of 221 families with 1,367 people settled in ten villages. To qualify, the head of a landless family had to lead "a quiet and moral life", be industrious, and own a wagon, plough, harrow, two horses and two cows. Settlers were expected to repay their loans with interest to Molotschna within 15 years.

The ten villages, with their later Russian names, were Alexanderhof (Alexandrovka), Bahndorf (Orlov), Ebental (Nikolayevka), Karpovka, Kotlyarevka, Marienort (Kalinovo), Memrik, Michaelsheim (Michailovka), Nordheim (Marinovka) and Waldeck (Lessowka). Molotschna Mennonites also founded the nearby villages of Alexandropol (1888) and Ossokino (1890s), which were closely linked to Memrik.

Administration and economy

Memrik was at first administered by Molotschna, more than 100 miles (160 km) away. Its attempt to form its own volost failed, and in 1888 it was incorporated into the neighbouring Russian volost of Golitzynovo against the settlers' wishes. A fire insurance agency was organised in 1901.

The early years were hard, with grasshoppers, gophers and low prices. Farmers rotated wheat, feed crops and summer fallow, switching from spring to winter wheat around 1905, and kept "German Red" and later Holstein cattle. Produce was sold in Yuzovka, Mariupol and Berdyansk. Milling became the main industry, with steam mills in several villages. Julius Legin's agricultural machinery works at Waldeck, founded in 1895, produced about 1,000 reapers, 600 ploughs and 300 fanning mills a year before the First World War.

Education

Each village soon had its own school, and by 1910 most had new brick school buildings and teachers' residences modelled on those of Molotschna. A secondary school (Zentralschule) opened at Kotlyarevka in 1918 but closed after a few years. Another, opened at Ebental in 1920, was gradually taken over by the Soviet state.

War, revolution and dissolution

In 1914 the settlement's property was valued at 11,145,000 rubles. During the First World War about 240 young men served in forestry and medical units as alternative service. In 1918 Makhno's bands killed many inhabitants and seized or destroyed much property, and the fighting between Red and White armies brought further suffering, followed by drought and famine. Relief from the Mennonite Central Committee arrived in 1922. Only about 30 families emigrated to Canada between 1923 and 1927.

In 1930 many farmers were exiled to Siberia as kulaks, and in 1937–1938 about 240 men were exiled; none returned. The remaining population was organised into three collective farms. After the German invasion in 1941, men aged 16 to 65 were sent to Asiatic Russia in September, and on 5 October the remaining population was ordered to the Zhelanaya railway station and transported east. When the German army arrived, only a few Mennonites remained.