Villages & colonies

Am Trakt · Russia

Кеппенталь

Founding village of the Am Trakt colony on the Volga steppe near Köppental-Orloff.

Bergthal · Ukraine

Бергталь

A daughter colony north-east of Mariupol. Nearly the entire colony emigrated to Manitoba in the 1870s — the Bergthaler.

Cayo · Belize

Спаниш-Лукаут

Belizean colony founded from Mexico in 1958; it supplies much of the country's dairy and poultry.

Chihuahua · Mexico

Manitoba Colony · Swift Current Colony · Куаутемок

From 1922 thousands of families left Manitoba and Saskatchewan for Chihuahua, to keep their own schools. The campos around Cuauhtémoc are still Plautdietsch-speaking.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Хортица · Khortytsia · Verchnia Khortytsia

The mother village of the Old Colony, founded in 1789 by the first families from the Vistula delta — the beginning of Mennonite settlement in the Russian Empire.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Кичкас · Kichkas

On the Dnieper crossing at Kichkas; the village was flooded when the Dnieper dam was built in the 1930s.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Широкое · Shyroke

A large Chortitza village on the steppe south of the Dnieper bend.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Павлівка · Остервик

Founded in 1812 as the colony grew beyond its first ring of villages.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Розенталь

Neighbour village to Chortitza, known for its mills and its schools.

Chortitza · Ukraine

Шенвизе

Grew into an industrial suburb of Alexandrovsk — today part of Zaporizhzhia.

Durango · Mexico

Colonia Patos · Нуэво-Идеаль

The Durango settlement, founded two years after the Chihuahua move.

East Reserve (Manitoba) · Canada

Randolph

One of the first East Reserve villages, named after the mother colony on the Dnieper.

East Reserve (Manitoba) · Canada

Штейнбах

Founded in 1874 by Kleine Gemeinde families from Borosenko; today a city, and home of the Mennonite Heritage Village.

Fernheim · Paraguay

Fernheim · Филадельфия

Capital of Fernheim, founded by refugees who escaped the Soviet Union through Moscow in 1929–30.

Friesland · Paraguay

Itacurubí · Фрисланд

An eastern Paraguay colony founded by families who left the Chaco for better soil.

Kansas · USA

Хиллсборо

Kansas town settled by the 1874 migration from the Molotschna, which brought Turkey Red wheat with it.

Menno · Paraguay

Menno Colony · Лома-Плата

Centre of the Menno colony: families from Canada who broke the Chaco open in 1927.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Александрволь

The whole congregation emigrated together to Kansas in 1874, and took the village name with them.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Гнаденфельд · Богданівка

A village of readers and singers; the Mennonite Brethren movement of 1860 had roots here.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Молочанськ · Molochansk · Гальбштадт

Administrative centre of the Molotschna colony, with its schools, its Waisenamt and its factories.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Орлово · Orlove

Home of one of the first secondary schools in the colony.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Руднервейде · Розівка

Gave its name to one of the congregations that later settled in Manitoba.

Molotschna · Ukraine

Вальдгейм · Владівка

Known for its machine works, which built ploughs and threshers for the whole steppe.

Neuland · Paraguay

Neuland · Нойланд

Founded in 1947 by the refugees of the great trek west at the end of the Second World War.

Orenburg · Russia

Донское · Deyevka

Part of the Orenburg colony, settled from the Molotschna and Chortitza mother colonies in the 1890s.

Paraná · Brazil

Витмарзум

Brazilian colony named after the Frisian birthplace of Menno Simons.

Santa Cruz · Bolivia

Рива-Паласио

One of the large Santa Cruz colonies; Bolivia now has one of the fastest-growing Plautdietsch populations.

Saskatchewan · Canada

Хейг-Ослер

The Old Colony reserve north of Saskatoon, with village names carried over from Chortitza.

Siberia (Barnaul) · Russia

Славгород

Centre of the Siberian Mennonite settlements founded during the Stolypin land reforms.

Vistula Delta · Prussia

Stogi Malborskie

One of the largest Mennonite congregations of West Prussia, near Marienburg.

Vistula Delta · Prussia

Nowy Dwór Gdański · Тигенхоф

Market town of the Great Werder, in the marshland our families drained and farmed before the move east.

West Reserve (Manitoba) · Canada

Альтона

Sunflower town of southern Manitoba, settled from the West Reserve villages.

West Reserve (Manitoba) · Canada

Рейнланд

A West Reserve street village that still shows the old Strassendorf layout.

West Reserve (Manitoba) · Canada

Винклер

Grew up around the railway; one of the places where Plautdietsch is still heard in the shops.

Germany

Детмольд

A centre of Plautdietsch life in Germany since the great Aussiedler migration of the 1970s–90s.

Germany

Эспелькамп

One of the German towns where post-war refugees and, later, Aussiedler families from the Soviet Union settled.