Tag #156151 - Interview #94930 (Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya)

My parents’ families come from German colonies south of Russia where in the Azov region, in Kherson steppes [present southeastern Ukraine, about 500 km from Kiev] during the rule of Catherine the Great [1] settlements of the minorities, so-called colonies were established on rich fertile lands. In the middle of the 18th century the tsarist government of Russia sent Polish, Greek and German minority groups to populate the areas that previously belonged to the Cossacks [2], who were actually exterminated. Later, in the middle of the 19th century, they deported Jews to this area.