Drinking water is a major problem in the steppes and many colonies had to struggle with this. Water was also of poor quality, as is evident in almost all the chronicles. The wells often had salty, saltpetre or bitter water. Paul Rath ¹⁾ writes: The reason for this is in the geological makeup of the rock and its layers….
Eduard Ruscheinsky ²⁾ notes for Krasna: In general, our community had poor drinking water. It was bitter and salty. Especially the Lower Village had trouble with water

The large land area of the Krasna district had no wells suitable for a drinking water supply. As most of the communities of Bessarabia, Krasna had to depend on the usage of the groundwater. In order to get to the groundwater, wells had to be dug. They had to have been built fairly soon after the arrival of the Krasna settlers. The colonists built them as draw wells, just like the natives did. Each farm (or a group of farms) had their own well soon after the settlement.

Friedrich Ernst ³⁾ describes the hard work of digging wells: First a well shaft had to be dug, about 2 meters in diameter. It had to be dug to about 2 meters below the ground water level. A well box of about 1 meter’s height sat on it. Water was drawn with a bucket, attached to a wooden handle.

At the beginning of the century, the groundwater was taken by artesian wells dug to a depth of 60-70 meters. A chisel on a drill platform got to the required depth. The drill hole was always protected against collapse by pushing in pipe coating with a larger diameter. Several layers of sandstone had to be broken through to get to the groundwater level. Once the water was reached, pressure in the set-in pipes pushed it up to within two meters of the surface. A hand pump (Gump well) mastered the rest of the way for the water to surface. Artesian wells had better water than the regular wells. Small communities or groups of neighbors financed the wells. Eduard Ruscheinsky ⁴⁾ reports further about the water supply in Krasna: Drinking water was initially supplied by wells dug to 4 to 6 meters in depth. Over time, the water turned bad and wells had to be dug in other locations. By 1911, many communities began to establish artesian wells in the street center. The water was good, but cloudy, and the wells dried up within a few years, because the filters were not in the gravel, but in fine sand the texture of ashes. The wells turned muddy and dried up. Only one in the Lower village belonging to a neighborhood with the worst water remained serviceable, because the filter was on bedrock and could not muddy up…. This single well supplied almost the entire community with good drinking water until 1936. In that year, the village office had a well dug in front of the village chancery. Later, in 1937/1938, two new wells were dug elsewhere. A permanent solution for drinking water supply had not been found by the community until the end…

A specialist from the town of Tschernowitz in the Buchenland region came by invitation of Father Schumacher and found it would be possible to locate a well on Heuschlager Mountain and from there, the water would have to be pumped to the village via pump station. The Resettlement prevented this plan.

Image 42: Digging an Artesian Well in Krasna

In principle, there were several ways to dip the water from the well. Dipping wells with a winch and a handcrank were most common, as was the characteristic steppe well, a draw well. On a gabled support post , usually a tree branch with two strong branches, a cross beam was placed and its two levers towered sideways above it. At the end of the lever (across the well) was a long rope or chain with a bucket on the end. The other lever arm had a weight attached so water could be dipped without major effort. Moving the lever facing away from the well, the bucket filled with water was brought to the surface.

Many Krasna homeowners began establishing cisterns into which the rainwater fell from the roof (Regenbrunnen - Rain Well). The water was used for laundry. Some used it for drinking. Due to the poor water quality in their location, many farms of the Upper Village fetched their water from the good well in the Lower Village in barrels and put it into their cisterns at home.

Aside from the village wells there were cattle wells in the Krasna region. Krasna and its pastures had a total of six cattle wells, one each north of the village (the upper livestock well), south of the village (the lower livestock well) on the Hunsrück, in the Nede Valley (Türkenbrunnen), in the Lehmloch and at the cemetery, (this one is still in use today, 2007).

There, the herdsman could water the livestock at noon without having to return to the village.

Image 43: A Steppe Well Watering the Livestock