A new Lutheran church was built of brick in Schäfer in 1906. It was one of the largest among the colonies, seating 4,000 parishners.
Schäfer was founded as a Lutheran colony on 1 August 1766 by LeRoy & Pictet.
The colony was looted by the Kirghiz in 1774. Colonists left to resettle in the Caucasus in 1780. Emigration to America began in 1877-1878 when 50 people left. Another wave of immigration occurred in 1905.
|
Year
|
Households
|
Population
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Total
|
Male
|
Female
|
||
| 1767 |
54
|
184
|
|
|
| 1769 |
50
|
189
|
101
|
88
|
| 1773 |
49
|
207
|
114
|
93
|
| 1788 |
32
|
174
|
94
|
80
|
| 1798 |
37
|
216
|
117
|
99
|
| 1816 |
53
|
343
|
180
|
163
|
| 1834 |
74
|
651
|
325
|
326
|
| 1850 |
119
|
943
|
481
|
462
|
| 1857 |
110
|
1,201
|
620
|
581
|
| 1859 |
110
|
1,234
|
638
|
596
|
| 1889 |
|
1,719
|
|
|
| 1897 |
|
1,785*
|
888
|
897
|
| 1905 |
|
2,662
|
|
|
| 1910 |
220
|
2,993
|
1,491
|
1,502
|
| 1912 |
|
1,770
|
|
|
| 1920 |
315**
|
2,320
|
|
|
| 1922 |
|
1,787
|
|
|
| 1923 |
|
1,704
|
|
|
| 1926*** |
332
|
1,887
|
897
|
990
|
| 1931 |
|
2,162
|
|
|
Lutheran
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): 352.
Diesendorf, V.F. Die Deutschen Russlands : Siedlungen und Siedlungsgebiete : Lexicon. Moscow, 2006.
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): 612.
Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Göttinger Arbeitskreis, 2008): 11, 89-104.
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 (Winter, 1990): 16.