Yeltsin OKs Settlements for Volga Germans
Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin signed a decree Monday that will allow ethnic Germans to settle in two regions along the Volga River where their predecessors lived decades ago.
The Novosti news agency said the move was the first in a step-by-step rehabilitation of German people who in 1941 were deported by dictator Josef Stalin from their homes along the river to Siberia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
The decision is likely to be well received in Germany, which wants Russia to set up special regions for ethnic Germans, in part so that they don’t emigrate en masse to Germany.
Novosti said that about 840,000 ethnic Germans live in the former Soviet Union. German leaders put the number at 2 million, the vast majority of whom want to leave for Germany.
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Shakhrai told Novosti that Russian legislators will decide the mechanisms for establishing German districts in the Volgograd and Saratov regions of Russia. The decree “restores historical justice,” he said.
It wasn’t known how many ethnic Germans will want to return. Many have said that Germany is more appealing to them than any region of economically depressed Russia.
Shakhrai said residents of the 23rd State Farm in the Saratov region already have agreed to allow Germans to settle on their land.
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