Catherine II
, 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 Anha ...
sought to attract German settlers (so-called
Volga Germans
The Volga Germans (german: Wolgadeutsche, ), russian: поволжские немцы, povolzhskiye nemtsy) are ethnic Germans who settled and historically lived along the Volga River in the region of southeastern European Russia around Saratov ...
) to expand crop production in southern Russia and defend against the invasions of Kalmyk,
Kazakh
Kazakh, Qazaq or Kazakhstani may refer to:
* Someone or something related to Kazakhstan
*Kazakhs, an ethnic group
*Kazakh language
*The Kazakh Khanate
* Kazakh cuisine
* Qazakh Rayon, Azerbaijan
*Qazax, Azerbaijan
*Kazakh Uyezd, administrative dis ...
, and
Tatar
The Tatars ()Tatar in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different tribes. Its name comes from Sarepta in
I Kings
The Book of Kings (, '' Sēfer Məlāḵīm'') is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Kings) in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the book ...
17:9-10 and here derives from that of the Sarpa river, which flows into the
Volga
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...
nearby.
The city was renamed Krasnoarmeisk in 1920, and became a district of
(then Stalingrad) in 1931.
A set of eighteenth century buildings in Sarepta that escaped the bombing during the
Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...
is since 1990 an open-air museum called the Old Sarepta Museum of History and Ethnography.
When the German Lutheran church made efforts to bring Old Serepta under its influence, some of the Moravian Brethren emigrated to Canada and founded New Sarepta.
References
* Lächele, Rainer ''Die Herrnhuter-Kolonie Sarepta und die Mennonitensiedlung Chortitza''. Wolgograd, 2001.