Here we try to reconstruct the route of the colonists of Krasna, who came from the Duchy of Warsaw. They were the largest immigrant group of Krasna and at the same time the founders of the colony. Other families moved in later, for instance in 1843, more than 25 families from the Odessa region.
(See 7.3, Krasna Immigrant Families)

The predecessors of Krasna of the Duchy of Warsaw heard about the tsar’s proclamation for settlement of Bessarabia in their colonies in Poland. (Text See 10.1, Documents and Reports from Government and Administration) It seemed like a relief to them, since their circumstances were deplorable. They suffered all the pain and misery of the Napoleonic Wars and Polish noblemen also made their lives burdensome. (See Immigration Reasons, 1.3, The Origins of the German Settlers of Bessarabia) The offer of the tsar was extremely generous. In addition to the proclamation - and even before its appearance - the Russians worked an intensive campaign in the Duchy of Warsaw to attract colonists. It stands to reason that recruiters (Russians or Germans under their contract) came to our Krasna ancestors. It was easy for the immigration agents to convince the poverty-stricken, abused and uncertain-of-their-circumstances people to move to a new homeland in Russia (Bessarabia) several Polish families joined them. It shows the existing misery: even Poles left their own land!

Initially, interested people were written up in a list. Kossman ¹⁾) reports in an example how this worked: In May (1814) a certain Krüger arrived and claimed to be a recruitment commissioner for colonists willing to settle in Russia and offered to make a list of all people interested in the offer. He explained to the farmers that it was sufficient to forward the requests to the Governor General; then they would receive their immigration passes for sure.

The colonists had to gather at locations designated by the Russian recruiters, for instance Lodz and Warsaw. There, they received their instructions and travel documents and were divided into columns. Several community reports of Krasna’s neighboring colonies ²⁾ (for instance Beresina, Klöstitz, Paris, Wittenberg) have similar notations.

Albert Mauch ³⁾ says: For the most part, the German immigrants had already grouped themselves by place of origin, relatives, religious conviction and common sympathies. This was very much in accordance with the wishes of the Russian government…, because it reduced a potential of conflict.

The people undertook their journey in groups/divisions, after electing a leader, the transport or migration mayor, from their own group. The migration mayors served as leaders, guides and protectors.

The migration mayors for Krasna were Peter Becker and Mathias Müller. Since the larger trains (up to 140 families) usually traveled under a Russian escort ⁴⁾ and such an escort is not mentioned by the colonists of Krasna, even though the report mentions 133 colonist families, one can assume that they did not travel in one group but in at least two groups. This is also evident for all the neighboring colonies of Krasna settled between 1814 and 1816 (Arzis, Borodino, Klöstitz, Leipzig, Wittenberg, Tarutino). The community report of the Leipzig colony of 1848 denotes especially that it happened rarely that all of the settlers of a colony arrived in one group.

One group of the later Krasna settlers is documented as coming from the Zamosc region (from Sitaniec/Schitanitz). The other group possibly came from the region of Plock-Warsaw. (See 1.3, The Origins of the German Settlers of Bessarabia) Perhaps the Russians led them together en route. It is also possible that both groups arrived separately in Bessarabia, for this assumption stands the fact of the difference in settlement dates, 1814-1816. (See footnote below and the events as they took place in the neighboring colonies. ⁵⁾

Most likely the immigrants started their difficult journey to Bessarabia in the early summer. There were no comfortable and efficient modes of transportation for the 1,000-kilometer journey, no paved roads, no trains and especially no cars. The journey, according to a Krasna community report of 1848 (See text under 10.1 Documents and Reports from Government and Administration) states: The journey happened in part on their own poor conveyances or rented wagons, many came on foot. Kern ⁶⁾ The journey on those indescribably horrid roads of Poland on horse drawn wagons, hand carts and on foot much looked like the retreat of a beaten army… Our own trek journey of 1945 from Warthegau or West Prussia (See note: 2.5.3, Flight and New Beginning after the War) can only show us a glimpse of the burdens, aside from the terror of the war we had experienced.

Today, we can hardly imagine anymore how strenuous and obstacle-filled this journey was.

The travel route in accordance with the orders of the Russian government in Warsaw and other places in Poland to the Russian border, led to the government region of Volhynia, where the people were received by Russian officials and directed onward. They continued northeast alongside the Carpathian Mountains through Podolia to the Dnjestr River to Tiraspol and from there to the settlement regions. There may have been deviations in the route by individual columns. Albert Mauch ⁷⁾: The grandfathers of the Bessarabian colonists from Poland most likely came by way of Brody, Mogiljow on the Dnjestr, Balta, Tiraspol, Bender.

According to the community report of 1848 the later Krasna people crossed the border at Utschiluk (the community report of Wittenberg mentions Uschtschiluk on the Bug (river). In 1814, the Polish river Bug formed the border between the Duchy of Warsaw and the Russian territory. Above Hrubiszew on the eastern part of the Bug is a village named Uscilug. This place is well on a direct route from Warsaw, as well as from Zamosc in the direction of Tiraspol/Bender.

Our immigrants arrived in Bessarabia after much suffering and many trials and much lack of necessities, the first of them in September of 1814 according to a community report from Krasna in 1848. What disappointment! At this point the Russian government had not completed preparation for housing the colonists; there was no housing to speak of and the land designated for their settlement was still under other leases and these leases could not be leased to our settlers until the original lease contracts ran out. According to the community report of 1848 the Krasna land was “leased to three Bulgarians named Iskro, Loto and Karpp.” The lessors, intrigued by the excellent grazing lands of the Budschak, had settled there with their herd after the Tartars left (1806-1807). The owners of these chutors, what the settlements (a collection of mud huts or branch woven dwellings) were called, paid leases to the Russian government for a specific length of time for those leases.

In the interim, the colonists were quartered in Moldavian villages. The travel descriptions of this period are scarce (community reports, etc). There is a lot of confusion about the events of the journey for this segment. Some sources say that the colonists crossed the Dnjestr at Bender (coming from the east). Did other columns cross the border in the north or the west? Were they sent directly to the Moldavian villages or did they have to report somewhere, as the Black Sea Germans had to do (for example the Kutschurgan colonies)? These colonists all had to go to Odessa first. Many researchers believe in the thesis that all other Bessarabia settlers had to initially report to Odessa to be directed further from there. We have to leave this question unanswered for Krasna for now because of lack of evidence. It is a fact, however that Krasna people were quartered with Moldavians ⁸⁾ in the Kischinev/Bender area. The birth of some of these later Krasna people in these villages is documented.

While the Krasna community report only mentions Kischinev and Bender by name, reports from other colonies talk about other places, for instance for Tarutino ⁹⁾ the places Golbin or Galbin, Tischimischligo or Tschimischlija, Mardar, Koperach, Tschurgrik, Borrogan or Boragan, Kopanka, Krichan, Tomai and others. For Klöstitz, Mammel ¹⁰⁾ and “Kainari and surroundings” are listed.

We do not know if Krasna families were quartered in these villages. Eduard Ruscheinsky says: The largest part of them was temporarily housed in quarters in the Moldavian villages. Kischinev and Tighana also had people assigned there.

Housing the people so far from the place of settlement (It is 100 kilometers’ distance from Kischinev to Krasna) probably stems from the fact that there were no suitable places close to Krasna. The entire south back then consisted only of Bender, Akkerman, Ismail and some tiny villages as settlements. The rest of the land was a grassy plains-land, only criss-crossed by nomad Tartars and their sheep herds.

The stay in the Moldavian villages and the primitive living quarters were hard. Mutschall: ¹¹⁾ Official documents refer to them as quarters. Living together with the natives has often caused strife and many a house was stricken with sickness and death. They received little or no support from the governor in Kischinev and therefore the colonists were forced to earn a living as day laborers for the Moldavian farmers or landlords. The little money they had as savings was soon used up.

Time in these quarters lasted anywhere from several weeks to many months. Eduard Ruscheinsky: Some of them moved to their settlement area in the fall of 1814, they were probably the more well-to-do. (Remark of the author: it is more likely to assume that they were just the first ones to arrive.) The rest of them left their Moldavian quarters only in the spring of 1815. According to a Krasna community report of 1848, the other 43 families did not arrive until spring of 1816.

After the lessors cleared the pertinent land areas (See above), the colonists were given their future land. Albert Mauch ¹²⁾ describes the event: Mostly the settlement districts were already surveyed and bordered before the colonists arrived, the individual district borders established and the village sites marked, surveyed and numbered. As soon as a group arrived, led by an agent, they were given the right to choose their place of settlement there.

The Krasna pioneers were treated the same way, because Eduard Ruscheinsky states: When they arrived, our ancestors had three locales to choose from, namely

1. The current settlement on the Kogälnik River,
2. The land area of Kulm, and
3. The land of Hoffnungstal.

These three areas of land back then belonged to a Russian General of Polish nationality ¹³⁾. Our ancestors chose the Kogälnik location… (See 3.1, The village of Krasna, its Location and Appearance)

In compliance with their wishes, the Krasna people received land parcel number 7 as their place of settlement plus the field markings. (See 3.4, The Perimeters of the Colony of Krasna). This piece of land measured 8,012 and was divided into 133 farms of 60 Desjatines, each. (See 7.4, The Move to Katzbach by Evangelical Settlers) Only married couples received farms, not single people. For this reason, many colonists got married enroute to receive the right to a farm as a family.

According to Eduard Ruscheinsky, the first colonists arrived at the site of the future Krasna in 1814. Together with Tarutino and Borodino, Krasna therefore belongs to the three oldest German settlements of Bessarabia. All three of them were founded in 1814. The baptismal records of Krasna acknowledge the foundation year. The entries there start November of 1814 with the number 1. (Birth 11/15; baptism 11/21.) The first priest of Krasna, Father Paschowsky, has acknowledged November 1814 as the time of his arrival in Krasna. ¹⁴⁾

Once the long and strenuous journey had been completed, the colonists were confronted with a number of new difficulties. What did they find? As far as one could see there was a barren monotonous steppe land: just shrubs and tall grass. No house, no tower, no tree to catch the eye; there were only several artificial bowling-pin-shaped hills (Kurgans) here and there dotting the seemingly endless area. The land designated for the colonists was a void. No preparations had been made for the arrival of the colonists; the promised infrastructures did not exist.

The small sums of money, brought from Poland, were soon used up. Some colonists had brought some animals, but some of them had perished. Many a cart was broken down. One was totally at the mercy of state aid. First, the winter had to be survived, somehow. Only in the following spring the first colonization labor could begin: plowing, sowing, harvesting, and the building of homes. For protection against the weather winter would bring, emergency shelters had to be constructed. According to a community report from Tarutino the settlers designated for the area found 100 primitive sod huts. The community report of Krasna does not mention such shelters. One can assume that the colonists themselves erected simple shelters, huts and soddies (Semljanki in Russian). ¹⁵⁾ These shelters were primitive and unhealthy.
There were no trees and therefore no firewood. One made do with “Burian” (According to a lexicon of the 19th century, a tall steppe plant, similar to a grass. The word is of Ukrainian origin.) (See 7.2, Krasna Dialect)

Several of the new arrivals did not survive their first winter in the new homeland. Many succumbed to the cold, an epidemic or pneumonia. Some died already either through illness or in accidents on the burdensome journey to the new homeland, or during the stay in the Moldavian villages.