St. Mary's Catholic Church was built in 1906-1907. Reflecting the influence of neogothic architecture, the red brick house of worship included a choir loft and an organ. Murals painted on the walls were said to have been the work of Italian craftsmen. The church was gutted during the Stalinist era. The carved oak door and ornate railings were removed and it was converted into a warehouse and tractor garage. Until about 2004, the steeple was still standing.
Kamenka was a Roman Catholic colony founded on 6 July 1765 by the Government.
Peter Simon Pallas in his travels through the Volga region in 1793 and 1794 for Catherine the Great writes, "Kamenka is one of the most flourishing and opulent among the Catholic colonies; it possesses upwards of sixty fire-places; and has, besides the brook, excellent water in wells, sunk through loam and other strata, about nine feet deep. We reposed here during the night, having suffered much inconvenience the preceding day, from the intensity of the heat, occasioned by the reflection of the sun-beams from the snow, accompanied with a keen northwest, wind, which continued during the whole of our journey from Saratov. The Volga is no more than fifteen versts distant, in a straight line from this place."
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
|
329
|
|
|
| 1769 |
69
|
378
|
187
|
191
|
| 1773* |
103
|
453
|
229
|
224
|
| 1788 |
97
|
535
|
268
|
267
|
| 1798 |
99
|
615
|
301
|
314
|
| 1816 |
170
|
897
|
448
|
449
|
| 1834 |
222
|
1,406
|
717
|
689
|
| 1850 |
258
|
2,219
|
1,104
|
1,115
|
| 1857 |
321
|
2,456
|
1,234
|
1,222
|
| 1859 |
205
|
2,508
|
1,274
|
1,234
|
| 1886 |
445
|
3,155
|
1,659
|
1,496
|
| 1891 |
399
|
4,454
|
2,237
|
2,217
|
| 1894 |
391
|
4,318
|
2,268
|
2,050
|
| 1897 |
|
3,036**
|
1,498
|
1,538
|
| 1904 |
|
|
|
|
| 1911 |
399
|
3,098
|
|
|
| 1912 |
|
3,342
|
|
|
| 1920 |
525***
|
3,197
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
2,454
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
2,662
|
|
|
| 1926**** |
560
|
2,940
|
1,447
|
1,493
|
| 1931 |
|
3,312*****
|
|
|
*Beratz reports the following numbers for 1773: 42 families; 148 total colonists (73 male & 75 female).
**Of whom 2,964 were German.
***Of which 509 households were German.
****Of whom 2,917 were German (548 households: 1,437 male & 1,480 female).
*****Of whom 3,289 were German.
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.
List of Settlements in the Russian Empire in 1859, vol. 38: Saratov Province (St. Petersburg, 1862): p.59.
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): 623.
Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 313.
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, Katholischer Teil (Stuttgart, 1980), p. 248.
"Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 18.
Kamenka (Wolgadeutsche.net)
Kamenka History by Rosemary Larson