Chapter 4 More about Abraham Schmidt in Russia

Isolation from Russia

Catherine the Great invited the hard-working Mennonite to live in Russia

While the Mennonites from northern Europe (Switz., Poland, Germany, Alsace-Lorraine, Holland) lived in Russia, they had their own self-governing colonies. They might employ Russian servants or workers but they did not intermarry or adopt the language. If anyone did inter-marry, they lost the privileges granted to the colonists under the special charter from Catherine the Great. All of their systems -  education, government, commerce, transportation, etc. - were among their own community. In other words, they were isolated from the Russian culture.

Why do we care that Abraham wrote his diary in German?
If Abraham was able to write German he must have gone to the village "schule". This was taught by either a parent or a graduate of the new teachers' school in nearby Ohrloff. In these church-governed villages everyone went to church and all the children went to school. One must be able to read the Bible in order to find salvation.

Everyday life for a boy
I'm sure that Abraham would much rather have been fishing or catching frogs along the creek. Many of the boys his age liked to trap rabbits, mice or ground squirrels. The trapper received praise and maybe even a coin for getting rid of these pests.

 Sometimes the boys went nest-egg hunting. There were cuckoos, nightingales, turtledoves, blackbirds and owls in abundance. However, the boys were cautioned to leave the storks alone, because a stork nest on their roof meant good luck.

Since firearms were against their beliefs, only one man in the village had a rifle, to protect their flocks from the wolves.

Abraham could have explored the woods along the creek by his home village of Schardau. Literally millions of trees were planted by the settlers under the urgings of Johann Cornies, an agricultural specialist. The settlers planted nearly a quarter of a million trees a year to stop the wind from blowing the soil away and to help hold the rain.

Sundays
Abraham looked forward to Sundays when work was kept to a minimum and everyone had time to visit with friends and relatives. His mother woke him early to do his chores before he put on his "other" pair of pants and shirt which were kept for Sunday. Mama always looked nice in her special church apron. It was made of fine, white linen with a three-inch crocheted border around the edge. She would never leave the house without also wearing her "doke". Her "doke" was a dark maroon kerchief made of fine wool, embroidered with bright red flowers and green leaves. (Letter from Mary Martens, Vancouver, Canada, April 5, 1989)

Imagine little Abraham skipping along the street on his way home from church. He passes the fine picket fences and brick gateposts of the farmers with a full 175 acres, called the "wirtschaft", and then he passes the small plots just big enough for a house and a garden, which were called the "kleinewirtschaft". These were assigned to the craftsmen and widows. (Trailblazer For the Brethren, by Betty S. Klassen, 1941, p. 15)

At the end of Sunday, everyone sat down to "faspa", a simple meal that didn't require cooking. These meals included such items as cold cuts, zweiback and fruit "moos" (like stewed prunes). In most homes it was thought that Sunday couldn't come without zwieback (pronounced "twayback" in Low German). Baked on Saturday with enough for Sunday's three meals and some to begin the new week, it continues to be a favorite kind of bread. "Zwie" means two. The rolls were made by pinching off a bit of dough and placing it like a head on a larger ball of dough and then pressing it down before baking.