Germans from Russia convention set next week in Spokane

Genealogists, family historians and those interested in German customs and heritage will converge in Spokane next week for the 41st Annual Germans from Russia Heritage Society International Convention.

The list of attendees will include several area residents who are members of the Spokane chapter and whose ancestors left Germany in the late 1700s to early 1800s to settle along the Volga River and in South Russia along the Black Sea before making their way to America and settling across the nation.

The convention is July 20-24 at The Davenport Hotel and Tower.

Opening ceremonies begin Thursday morning followed by a variety of workshops on genealogy, history, cultural cooking and programs relating to technology in using DNA.

Workshops and activities will be punctuated with entertainment throughout the convention, including the regionally acclaimed OomPa’s and Ma’s, a group from Odessa that includes Ritzville area musicians.

The history surrounding Germans from Russia is unique. Those ancestors who left Germany were offered free land by the Russian government, and it was also a place of political freedom and exclusion from military drafts.

According to the Germans from Russia Heritage Society (GRHS) website, those ancestors settled into what is referred to as villages, which “represents a settlement founded by our GR ancestors in rural areas of present day Ukraine. Generally, the original villages were populated by small numbers of German immigrants in response to the invitation by Catherine the Great of Russia.”

They thrived and prospered until politics changed, and they were no longer excluded from the draft, paying high taxes or having religious freedom. It was in the late 1800s that some left for the Americas.

According to the GRHS, those that stayed in Russia soon regretted that decision as more and more hardships were placed on them, until about 1918 when the Bolsheviks began raiding their villages and killing the colonists.

The GRHS further explains that forced famines by the government as well as unjustified arrests, imprisonments and killings were common everywhere. Many of the villagers were sent to labor camps in the Ural Mountains and Kazakhstan.

More information about the convention and the GRHS is available online at http://www.grhs.org.