Alt Danzig was a German settlement in the southern

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

, present-day

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. Its name comes from Danzig,

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

in present-day

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. ''Alt'', meaning "old", distinguishes this community from Neu Danzig, another German settlement in this area of the Russian Empire. The German colony Alt Danzig is also known as Old Danzig along with the existing local village of Karlovka ( Russian: Карловка) were united in Krupskoe (Russian: Крупское) after the October Revolution in Russia.

History

Catherine II of Russia , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

wanted to stabilize the borderlands of the Russian Empire with an agricultural population. To do this she recruited in the Danzig area of Prussia. The immigration agent George von Trappe Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (GAMEO) → Trappe, George von
/ref> led the first of the Black Sea Settlers, which consisted of 50 families. He took them first by boat to

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

; they then travelled south to

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; uk, Кременчу́к, Kremenchuk ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnipro River. The city serves as the administrative center of the Kremenchuk Raion (district) in Poltava Oblast (pr ...

by wagon. Here the party split and 29 families continued to Elizabethgrad (present-day Kropyvnytskyi in Ukraine). In 1787 they founded Alt Danzig about 15 km to the southwest on land granted to them by

Prince Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (, also , ;, rus, Князь Григо́рий Алекса́ндрович Потёмкин-Таври́ческий, Knjaz' Grigórij Aleksándrovich Potjómkin-Tavrícheskij, ɡrʲɪˈɡ ...

. By 1803 the settlement had lost 10 families that left due to the hardships involved in learning to farm (they were all previously artisans). This is when 10 new Pomeranian families arrived, whose knowledge of farming proved useful to the community. Several families from

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

arrived in 1841, followed by seven more from

Rohrbach Rohrbach or Röhrbach may refer to: Places Municipalities in Switzerland *Rohrbach, Switzerland, in the canton of Bern Municipalities in Germany *Rohrbach, Bavaria, in the district of Pfaffenhofen, Bavaria *Rohrbach, Birkenfeld, in the district o ...

in 1842. Originally Alt Danzig was called "Danzig" but when a daughter colony was established by several Danzig villagers near Nikolajew, the older village was renamed Alt Danzig and the newer village, Neu Danzig.

Geography

The land around Alt Danzig was high and rocky, making it subject to drought. The community planted a small forest on the side of the river that they owned. The land was suitable for growing grains and potatoes. A profitable water mill was in place by 1848. Cattle and sheep were also raised. The average annual rainfall in the present-day region is about 475 mm (18.7 in). The 24-hour average temperature in July is 20.6 °C (69.1 °F) and in January it is -5 °C (23 °F).

References

Historical geography of Germany German communities Merged settlements in Ukraine Germany–Ukraine relations Polish diaspora in Ukraine {{Kirovohrad-geo-stub