Kautz

Alternate Names
Kautz,
Kauz,
Vershinka,
Werschinka
Gallery
Church

Originally, the congregation in Kautz was part of the Reformed parish headquartered in Messer . It later became part of the Lutheran parish headquartered in Dietel where there was a resident pastor.
A wooden church with a metal roof was constructed in Kautz in 1887.

Type of Settlement
History

Kautz was founded on 20 May 1767 by Baron de Boffe as a Reformed colony. There were 28 founding families, all of whom came from the Palatinate. The colony was named after its first Vorsteher (mayor), Georg Jakob Kautz. By decree on 26 February 1768, the colony received its official Russian name of Vershinka.

Population
Population Table
Year
Households
Population
Total
Male
Female
1767
 
107
 
 
1769
28
110
61
49
1773
30
141
74
67
1788
28
179
98
82
1798
36
223
119
104
1816
53
392
185
207
1834
86
672
343
329
1850
87
1,007
491
516
1857
127
1,316
647
669
1862
101
1,360
685
675
1886
180
1,428
722
706
1891
166
1,757
863
894
1894
180
2,089
1,011
1,078
1897
 
1,583*
769
814
1904
 
 
 
 
1911
 
1,559
 
 
1912
 
2,800
 
 
1920
224**
1,695
 
 
1922
 
1,511
 
 
1926***
244
1,657
811
846
1931
 
1,790
 
 

*Of whom 1,556 were German.
**Of which 221 households were German.
***Of whom 1,655 were German (242 households: 809 male & 846 female).

Priests or pastors
Resources

Censuses for Kautz are available for the following years: 1767, 1798, 1834, & 1857.

Sources

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.

Mink, A.N. Historical and Geographical Dictionary of the Saratov Province [in Russian] (Saratov, Russia, 1898): 120-122.

Orlov, Gregorii. Report of Conditions of Settlements on the Volga to Catherine II , 14 February 1769.

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): 622.

Pleve, Igor R. The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century , translated by Richard Rye (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 2001): 319.

Preliminary Results of the Soviet Census of 1926 on the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Pokrovsk, 1927): 28-83.

"Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Win

Surnames with Confirmed Pre-Volga Origins