I was busy surfing at work about languages (sparked by the PBS Evoluton series episode that focused on human language development). I was researching the Idioma de sinyas de Nicaragua (first link) and I came across an interesting citation that there are roughly 1 million German speakers in Kazahkstan (second link).
I was wondering how they got there (POWs from the Great Patriotic War?)
I thought they dated from the days of Catherine the Great, around the 18th century…well the Volga Germans do anyway.
From the Volga the fanned eastward.
Stalin moved many of them east to keep them away from the Nazi German front as well.
Also a lot of these “Soviet Germans” have immigrated to Germany since 1990, as they are considered “ethnic Germans”. But many, at least Volga Germans, do not speak a word of German (at least contemporary German). I am surprised that all the Kazakh Germans seem to be German speakers.
Background: My father’s family is descended from Germans from Russia (“Russdeutsch”), who, at the invitation of German-born Catherine the Great, settled newly-conquered Russian territories along the Volga and what is now Ukraine. My family was part of the large Russdeutsch community in Odessa. They emigrated to the United States from Odessa in the 1880s - as did many Russdeutsch, as Russian civil society began to fall apart. Many ended up in the Dakotas, Nebraska and Colorado, enticed by railroads advertising homesteads.
Those who remained in Russia would regret doing so. From one of the better websites:
