Estonian settlements were founded in two areas of the Samara Province: southern part of the province – in the vicinity of Krasny Kut (now Saratov Region, Krasnokutsky District), northern part of the province – in the vicinity of Koshky (now Samara Region, Koshkinsky District).
The natural conditions in the Samara Province – continental climate, frequent droughts and crop failures – seriously tested the new settlers. The local fields required a greater strength application during ploughing while sowing had to be performed in the early spring. The living conditions in the southern and northern parts of the Samara Province were not the same.
In the southern part of the province the following villages were founded: Liflyandka (1859) and Goretsky (1880) by resettlers from southern Estonia and Baltika (1877) and Estonia (1885) by resettlers from northern Estonia.
The natural conditions of that area were described by August Nigol, researcher of settlements, in his book published in 1918: Southern Samara consists of flat grasslands or steppes, even as a table. For a couple of hundred versts you see nothing but the sky and the ground – neither a tree nor a bush. One would only waste time looking for natural beauty here. Going out of the village, you will indeed see an endless open space and puny yellowish vegetation that cannot even be turned into proper hay. The winter animal feed – straw and chaff. It was decided to breed mainly sheep for meat here because this animal is less demanding with its feed. The potato-growing tradition from Estonia was upheld.
It rains only rarely in the summer and that is why street-structured villages were founded next to the artificial lakes (tamp) in the steppe valleys while the bean willows in the households added a touch of green. The buildings were constructed from local materials: basic (adobe) bricks from a sun-dried mixture of clay and ground straw, the roof covered with straw. The heating material (shitwood, as the Estonians called it) was a mixture of manure and straw.
Later the families that began prospering had building timber for their houses delivered from the port cities on the Volga River. After the Second World War, as state farms grew wealthier, the sand-lime brick became a widespread construction material while roofs were covered with sheet metal and asbestos-cement.
The northern part of the province contained
two districts of Estonian settlements in relative proximity: the first included the villages of Liflyandka or Alaküla, Baltika or Vaheküla and Uusküla or Pikkula (Russian name: Средне Правая Чесноковка); the second had Kivijärve (Russian name: Верхняя Правая Чесноковка), Sabaliküla or Kõrgeküla (Russian name: Левая Шабаловка), Lohuküla (Russian name: Средняя Быковка), Lehmaküla or Oruküla (Russian name: Коровино) and Vasikaküla or Tagaküla (Russian name: Телкино). Most of these villages were founded in the 1860s and 1870s.
The local land, previously inhabited by the Kalmyks, had already been vacant when the Estonians arrived there. The ground is flat, but with very deep valleys and the wells had to be dug about 20 metres deep. The earth yields plenty of berries and mushrooms and the nature is considerably greener than in the southern part of the province.
The Estonians initially lived in mud huts (zemlyanka) on the valley brinks but the state provided efficient assistance to the new settlers. Then proper log cabins were built, although the timber had to be brought from afar. The population was not dispersed here, living in row-structured villages.
The villages built by Estonians differed from the Russian ones due to the preserved heritage – apple trees and berry bushes were planted next to the houses and the village roads were properly maintained. Later the Estonians also built their own windmills, smithies, tanneries and so on.
The Estonian villages in the Koshky area had been used in the 1930s as the basis to create the Edasi, Koit and Säde collective farms that quickly became viable.
During the first years of living away from their native land the settlers were too busy arranging the basic life necessities and paid little attention to education. Those who were Lutherans also lacked a pastor. Church services in the early years of a settlement’s existence were performed by a local villager and people tried to teach their children to read and write at home. In some settlements common basic education was organised for the children, for instance in Liflyandka settler Juhan Pallo began in 1871 teaching children to read and write, with a schoolteacher hired two years later. In 1881 the construction of a wooden schoolhouse was completed in the settlement. From 1897 a school of the Samara local assembly (zemstvo) functioned in Liflyandka and another local assembly school was established in Lohuküla in the northern part of the province.
Education evolved in other Samara Province settlements, too: by the beginning of the 20th century Estonian-language primary schools had been created in all Estonian settlements in the southern part of the Samara Province and in the larger villages in the northern part. The so-called school-and-prayer houses usually consisted of one classroom and the apartment of the pastor’s assistant/schoolteacher. Some settlements even built their own churches – for example in Baltika in the southern part of the province and in Lohuküla in the northern part. The schoolteachers assigned for the settlements and the clergymen occasionally visiting them in many cases came from Estonia.
When the Bolsheviks seized power, the church was separated from the state and the school from the church. In 1929-1930 the churches were closed altogether and some were turned into village clubs, for instance in Lohuküla. There was also a small Baptist community in Lohuküla and its members were persecuted more than believers of the Lutheran denomination. The schools were included in the state general education network and teachers of ethnic minority schools received training in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). In 1930 the universal compulsory primary school system was introduced in Russia. In 1934 even a 7-grade Estonian-language school was opened in Lohuküla, also used by young people from the surrounding Estonian villages to continue their education. Children of the better-off Estonian families went on to study at city schools. School education in the Estonian language stopped in 1937 when most of the teachers from Estonia were imprisoned.
The industrious Estonians had used the fertile Samara land to their advantage and quite soon began enjoying a more prosperous life than their neighbours. Even bad crop years did not change that as the people would survive on their own grain reserves.
Nevertheless, the settlers did meet hardships even before the establishment of collective farms: members of the more progressive and affluent families were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan, this followed by more repressions in 1936-1938 and the Second World War. After the war people of other nationalities moved to the Estonian villages.
Of the Estonian settlements in the southern part of the former Samara Province, only Baltika remains in the beginning of the 21st century, its population constantly decreasing and not more than a dozen Estonian-speakers remaining. Only the dilapidated office and shop building resembles the good old days of this once lively village – even the shop itself is now gone. The 3-grade primary school with one teacher and ten pupils is still working, as well as the house of culture under the same roof where young people gather for joint activities in the evenings. The local youths, predominantly children of mixed marriages, are in most cases Russian-speaking and cannot always define their national identity.
Teacher Antonina Kotova created a museum room at the school, containing household objects, handicraft items and old family and village photographs.
Only the site remains of the village of Estonia, four versts to the south.
In 1930 Liflyandka was merged with the Goretsky village. In Goretsky, previously boasting a hundred smoking chimneys, only one Estonian family and one Kazakh family remained in the summer of 2002. Many Estonians born in Goretsky and Liflyandka, not wishing to abandon their birthplace completely, now live in the Russian village of Lavrovka near Krasny Kut. It is the place where people gathered from smaller villages over the decades, a multinational and multilingual community. The Lavrovka Estonians are now more accustomed to the Russian language and frequently switch from Estonian to Russian in their conversations.
Two Estonian villages still existed in 2000 of the Estonian settlements in the northern part of the former Samara Province, Lohuküla (Russian name: Средняя Быковка) and Baltika. By the beginning of the 21st century almost all Estonians had left Baltika, and only one Estonian man and his Russian wife still living in this scenic location.
People still live in Lohuküla, but only four of the residents are Estonians. Access to the village is restricted in poor weather and the living conditions are hard, which is why people have been leaving it. Once an Estonian village, it has by now become a Chuvash one.
Some of the Estonians who were born in the surrounding villages now reside in the district centre of Koshky and in an inhabited locality that has emerged a few kilometres away, around the Pogruznaya railway station. The local Estonians believe: another decade and there will be no more genuine Estonians left.