Ährenfeld was a Lutheran colony. A new church was built there in 1907. It's steeple was removed during the Soviet era, and today it serves as a community center.
The colony of Ährenfeld was established in 1855 on the Wiesenseite by families from Dietel, Kautz, Kratzke, Merkel, Hussenbach, Dönhof, Bauer, and Franzosen. The nearest railway stop is in Friedenfeld, 8 versts away.
Ährenfeld was given the Russian name of Kratzke (one of its Mother Colonies) and is easily confused in records that one finds both in Russia and in the Western Hemisphere. In 1915, Ährenfeld became known as Gradsko. Today, the village goes by the name of Chkalovo.
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1859 |
|
330
|
|
|
| 1883 |
|
1,103
|
|
|
| 1889 |
|
1,138
|
|
|
| 1897 |
|
1,387*
|
701
|
686
|
| 1905 |
|
2,249
|
|
|
| 1910 |
230
|
2,460
|
1,239
|
1,221
|
| 1912 |
|
2,514
|
|
|
| 1920 |
286
|
1,852
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
1,529
|
|
|
| 1926 |
238
|
1,179
|
572
|
607
|
| 1931 |
|
1,449**
|
|
|
*Of whom 1,385 were German.
**Of whom 1,448 were German.
Lutheran
Beratz, Gottlieb. The German Colonies on the Lower Volga: Their Origin and Early Development . Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1991.
Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon . Moscow, 2006.
Dietz, Jacob E. History of the Volga German Colonists (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2005): 218.
Koch, Fred C. The Volga Germans: In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977): 311.
Leibbrandt, Georg. Die deutschen Siedlungen in der Sowjetunion (Teil 5: Deutsche Wolgarepublik). Berlin: E. Meynen, 1941.
Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.
Sallet, Richard. Russian-German Settlements in the United States (Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1974).
Schmidt, D. Studien uber die Geschichte der Wolgadeutschen - Erster Teil (1929).
"Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 18.
Ährenfeld: Kratzkes Daughter Colony
Erenfeld (wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian