Originally, Messer was the lead congregation in a group of Reformed parishes that included Moor, Kutter, Kautz, Anton and Balzer.
A new church building was constructed in an early form of the Kontor Style. It was completed in 1835 and built of wood. A new brick church in the Neo-Classical style was built in Messer in 1912.
Messer was founded as a Reformed colony on 7 July 1766 by the Government on the Zolicha River, near its confluence with the Goloi Karamysh. The 85 founding colonist families came from the Palatinate, Hesse, and Prussia.
A government decree on 26 February 1768 gave Messer its official Russian name of Ust-Solikha.
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
92
|
308
|
|
|
| 1769 |
85
|
329
|
175
|
154
|
| 1773 |
87
|
397
|
206
|
191
|
| 1788 |
84
|
581
|
287
|
294
|
| 1798 |
86
|
619
|
327
|
292
|
| 1816 |
112
|
960
|
513
|
447
|
| 1834 |
193
|
1,828
|
941
|
887
|
| 1850 |
190
|
2,704
|
1,340
|
1,364
|
| 1857 |
259
|
3,327
|
1,663
|
1,664
|
| 1859 |
198
|
3,403
|
1,712
|
1,691
|
| 1886 |
359
|
3,102
|
1,574
|
1,528
|
| 1891 |
326
|
4,260
|
2,152
|
2,108
|
| 1894 |
348
|
4,627
|
2,305
|
2,322
|
| 1897 |
|
3,403*
|
1,702
|
1,701
|
| 1905 |
|
5,057
|
|
|
| 1910 |
|
5,196
|
|
|
| 1912 |
|
5,295
|
|
|
| 1920 |
611**
|
4,344
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
3,425
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
3,200
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
649
|
3,716
|
1,765
|
1,951
|
| 1931 |
|
3,706****
|
|
|
*Of whom 3,375 were German.
**Of which 605 households were German.
***Of whom 3,712 were German (646 households: 1,764 male & 1,948 female).
****Of whom 3,703 were German.
Lutheran and Reformed
Amburger, Erik. Die Pastoren der evangelischen Kirchen Rußlands (Lüneburg, Germany: Institut Nordostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1998): 137.
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): 351.
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): 59.
Mink, A.N. Historical and Geographical Dictionary of the Saratov Province [in Russian] (Saratov, Russia, 1898): 1068-1072.
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.
Schnurr, Joseph, Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutschen - Evangelischer Teil (Stuttgart: Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, 1972).
"Settlements in the 1897 Census." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Winter, 1990): 19.
Messer (wolgadeutsche.net) - in Russian