The Baltics and Finland

1911 “Historische Karte von Alt-Livland” (Historical Map of Old Livonia)
by Leonid Arhusow. Source: DIGAR Digital Archive, National Library of Estonia. 

The provinces of Estland, Livonia and Courland along with the Grand Duchy of Finland have been added to the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations and German Settlements in European Russia maps. With this update is an additional 320 places on the maps. 

Sources and Change History have also been updated. This finishes off the Far North, Baltics and Finland layer on the map. The province maps are still forthcoming.  

The Baltic Germans are often just a footnote in Germans from Russia research, but they had lived in the region for centuries before it became a part of the Russian Empire after the Great Northern War (1700–1721). The Baltic Germans were, in fact, the earliest German Russians, although by acquisition and not intention.

How long were they there?

The Crusades (1095 to 1291) was not a subject I was expecting to encounter in this project, but I go wherever the research takes me. Germans were among the religious-military forces that carried out the Livonian Crusades (1198–1227) that conquered and Christianized the pagan people in this area during the Middle Ages. There were other Crusaders from Denmark and Sweden, and in the end, the area (then called Terra Mariana) was forcibly Christianized and no one was in charge. But everyone was answerable only to the Pope (no secular kings), so said Pope Innocent III before anything was even conquered. The medieval connection to Germans runs deep through this area, and although there were not many Germans in terms of numbers, they owned the land and manors from which many villages sprung, nearly all of which are still around today.

But were they really Germans from Russia?

In my research, yes, absolutely. While some scholars and researchers only include the German colonists, and only certain German colonists, I include all Germans who lived in the Russian Empire whether they were acquired as spoils of war, or they immigrated on their own.

As for religion, the Crusaders brought Roman Catholicism to the region. Shortly after the Protestant Reformation (1517), Germans brought Lutheranism to the region (1520-1530), and it quickly dominated. I don’t know if this was another case of cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion; or the ruler of the land decides the religion of anything living on the land), such as it was in the Germanic states post-Reformation. It might have been. Either way, by 1554, the historic region of Alt-Livonia was recognized as Lutheran. 

Here is the general information about these provinces as they were in the Russian Empire. The area covered includes in the modern-day countries of Estonia, Latvia and Finland.

Courland Province (1795–1918)

According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 674,034 inhabitants in the province of Courland, with 326,252 male and 347,782 female. Of those, 51,017 (7.57%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 23,372 male and 27,645 female.

Distribution of population by religion:
Protestant: 513,675 (of those, 507,580 were Lutheran)
Roman Catholic: 74,837
Jewish: 51,070

Estland Province (1719-1918)
According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 412,716 inhabitants in the province of Estland, with 202,409 male and 210,307 female. Of those, 16,037 (3.89%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 6,991 male and 9,046 female.

Distribution of population by religion:
Protestant: 370,925 (of those, 370,105 were Lutheran)
Roman Catholic: 2,034
Jewish: 1,403

Livonia Province (1713-1918)
According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 1,299,365 inhabitants in the province of Livonia, with 629,992 male and 669,373 female. Of those, 98,573 (7.59%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 44,770 male and 53,803 female.

Distribution of population by religion:
Protestant: 1,033,874 (of those, 1,031,016 were Lutheran)
Roman Catholic: 30,539
Jewish: 29,683

Grand Duchy of Finland (1809-1917)
The Grand Duchy of Finland was a mostly autonomous region when it was a part of the Russian Empire. As such, it was not a part of the Imperial Census of 1897, but Finland recorded similar language statistics in its 1910 census. The population was 2,943,400 with .06% reporting German as their Mother tongue, or about 1,766 people.

The Imperial Census did record the distribution of population by religion, but it was for Helsinki only:
Protestant: 785 (of those, 783 were Lutheran)
Roman Catholic: 1,768
Jewish: 579

Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing some interesting things I learned that connects the Germans from the former provinces of Estland, Livonia and Courland and the Grand Duchy of Finland to other areas in the Russian Empire, and possibly to my own family. Stay tuned.

German settlements in the Far North, Baltics & Finland

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Related Posts and Sources:

1. The Far North (posted 22 March 2026)
2. Geography of German Settlement in the Russian Empire 
   I. Introduction (posted 20 September 2025)
   II. The Baltics & Finland (posted 21 September 2025)
3. Richter, Adolf. Baltische Verkehrs Und Adressbücher, 
• [1909] Band 1 Livland [Baltic Transportation and Address Books: Volume 1, Livand]. 
• [1912] Band 2 Courland [Baltic Transportation and Address Books: Volume 2, Courland]. 
• [1913] Band 3 Estland [Baltic Transportation and Address Books: Volume 3, Estland]. 

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New Lands?

This map recently caught my attention. 

It appeared briefly in a YouTube video titled “Why the Soviet Union was obsessed with corn.” The video was about Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s desire to grow corn in “New Lands” in the Soviet Union and the Coon Rapids, Iowa farmer named Roswell Garst who wanted to sell the U.S.S.R. hybrid seed corn. The video showed Khrushchev’s visit to Garst’s farm in 1959 and gave some interesting history behind the event, and even touched on Lysenkoism, the pseudoscientific farming practices that denied the existence of genes, claimed that heredity can be changed by “educating” plants, and resulted in crop failures and famines. 

A Google image search for the map surprisingly came up with nothing, but I finally tracked it down through a footnote in one paper. It led me to a CIA report titled “Observations on Agriculture in the Soviet Union,” where the map appeared at the very end. The report, dated 23 September 1955, was a first hand account of the tour as it was reported to the U.S. government. It was declassified 12 September 2000.

The map struck me because the area labeled “New Lands” were not new or “virgin.” They are at least somewhat familiar to anyone who has looked at the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations map. The area shown in green highlight on the CIA map spans from the Volga region, up to Samara, over to Ufa, Orenburg, way over to Omsk, going as far east as Novosibirsk in Russia and spanning between Aktobe what what appears to be the Karaganda region in Kazakhstan. The CIA report occasionally referred to the the lands as “idle,” probably meaning they appeared to have been farmed before.

Of course, the lands had been farmed before, some of them as early as 1764. The lands suitable for farming were even described in detail in a certain Manifesto of 1763. The Germans and Mennonites with generations of knowledge of farming in those areas (what grew, when to plant) had been deported in 1941 to other locations in Kazakhstan and Siberia and were not allowed back to their farms after the war.

Compare the CIA map with part of the larger Germans from Russia map showing the same area with known German settlements marked.

Newspaper articles about both the American farmers’ delegation’s visit to the U.S.S.R. in 1955 as well as Khrushchev’s visit to the U.S. in 1959 are numerous, especially on Newspapers.com and a few on Chronicling America. The same newswire stories appeared in newspapers across the country. The story was no doubt also on the nightly news broadcast and on the radio, too. These events are well documented and studied by scholars. 

But what is missing in them is the reaction from the Germans from Russia communities in the U.S. about these visits. The map was not declassified until 2000, so there was no image to point to and see the obvious. Did they make the connection between our deported relatives and friends and where exactly Khrushchev thought corn would grow? 

Few German-language newspapers were still publishing in the late 1950s. However, Die Welt-Post und der Staats-Anzeiger (by then publishing as one newspaper out of Omaha, Nebraska) covered the 1959 event but not the 1955 story. And its coverage was not at all about the corn. It ran translations of American newswire stories similar to what was being published elsewhere along with critical opinion columns of Khrushchev before, during, and after the event with headlines that included

August 14, 1959 — “Unter vier Augen” (“In Private,” or literally “Under Four Eyes”)

September 25, 1959 — “Apparatschik Khrushchev” (“Apparatchik” is a full-time functionary of the Soviet Communist Party apparatus) 

October 2, 1959 — “‘Nachruf’ für Khrushchev” (“‘Obituary’ for Khrushchev”)

Does anyone who grew up in a Germans from Russia household or community in the U.S. who was alive in the 1950s remember the event, or of their parents or grandparents talking about it? I imagine those who still had family in Russia who had been deported might have had thoughts about this. Or was this something they would stay silent about, or only speak in German so the children wouldn’t hear?

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Related Posts and Sources:

1. “Why the Soviet Union was obsessed with corn,” YouTube.
2. “Lysenkoism,” Wikipedia.
3. “Observations on Agriculture in the Soviet Union,” CIA FOIA Reading Room. (archive) 
4. “Virgin Lands Campaign,” Wikipedia. 
5. The 1763 Manifesto of Catherine the Great (posted 22 July 2018)
6. 1763 Manifesto Register of Available Land (posted 23 July 2025)
7. First Colonies Established After the 1763 Manifesto (posted 22 July 2022)
8. Library of Congress Chronicling America
9. “Khrushchev Visits Iowa Cornfields,” UPI, 1959
10. “Diplomatic Farmers: Iowans and the 1955 Agricultural Delegation to the Soviet Union,” Peggy Ann Brown, 2013.
11. “American Corn in Russia: Lessons of the People-to-People Diplomacy and Capitalism,” Victoria I. Zhuravleva, 2017.
12. 1937-38 Collective Farms & Agriculture Maps (posted 4 October 2022)
13. 1955 USSR “New Lands” Map - image album from this post. 

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Out of Office

This site will be on hiatus for a while as I deal with some personal business following the death of an old friend who was like family. Thanks for your understanding. 

Sandy

The Far North

Updates have been made to the Germans from Russia Settlement Locations and German Settlements in European Russia maps to show where Germans were known to have lived Far North region of the former Russian Empire. As with the other regions, the provinces listed are those that were in existence around 1914, near the fall of the empire. In addition to the provinces of the Far North, this region will include the Baltics and the Grand Duchy of Finland in future updates. 

For now, the provinces included in this update are the following. Individual maps for each province will be created once the entire region is complete. 

Arkhangelsk Province (1796-1929). According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 346,536 inhabitants in the province of Arkhangelsk, with 163,784 male and 182,752 female. Of those, 309 (.09%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 118 male, 191 female.

Novgorod Province (1727–1927). Moved from Great (Central) Russia with updates and additions. According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 1,367,022 inhabitants in the province of Novgorod, 651,901 male and 715,121 female. Of those, 4,188 (.64%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 2,104 male, 1,994 female. Novgorod was a known location of many German Daughter colonies from the Mother colonies in Saint Petersburg province. 

Olonets Province  (1801-1922). According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 364,156 inhabitants in the province of Olonets, with 171,718 men and 192,438 women. Of those, no inhabitants reported speaking German as their Mother tongue. However, EWZ records from the 1940s indicate that there were Germans living in the city of Vytegra as early as 1900. 

Pskov Province (1722-1927). Moved from Great (Central) Russia with updates and additions. According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 1,122,317 inhabitants in the province of Pskov, 539,632 male and 582,685 female. Of those, 3,885 (.35%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 1,886 male, 1,999 female.

Saint Petersburg Province (1708-1927). Moved from Great (Central) Russia with updates and additions. According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 2,112,033 inhabitants in the province of Saint Petersburg, with 1,121,048 men and 990,985 women. Of those, 63,457 (5.66%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 28,992 male, 34,465 female. St. Petersburg was home to many early German colonists who came from the same places and arrived along with those who would go on to the Volga region. In addition to colonists who settled around St. Petersburg for agricultural purposes, there were many Germans living in the city who were professionals—architects, engineers, merchants, scholars, musicians, etc.

Vologda Province (1796-1929). According to the Imperial Census of 1897, there were 1,341,785 inhabitants in the province of Vologda, with 635,664 men and 706,121 women. Of those, 226 (.02%) reported speaking German as their Mother tongue, 118 male, 191 female. 

Those provinces in this region not mentioned above did not have any evidence of German habitation and were therefore left off. 

In total, this update includes 120 locations, either new or updated. The full list is in the Change Log. 

Up next: the historical provinces of Estland, Kurland, and Livonia.

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Last updated 22 March 2026

Remembering the German Settlements in Ukraine 2026

Today marks four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

Between 1766 and 1944, Germans lived in over 3,000 places within the borders of Ukraine today, in both urban and rural settlements, in the former imperial empires of Austria, Hungary and Russia. These places—whether they still exist today or not, whether their names are the same or not—remain in the hearts of the descendants as one our ancestral homelands.

This is the fourth year I have posted this illustration map, or some variation of it. This year, it shows the frontline of the war as it was yesterday, 23 February 2026. At present in Ukraine, there are over 600 former German settlements in Russian-occupied territory. View the updates in the change history. 

The first time I compiled and posted this illustration was a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. There were many questions and comments about it, both positive and negative. What are all the pins? What do the colors mean? All the Germans are gone, so why does it matter? Up to that point, I had not shown a map of former German colonies focused in a modern country’s borders. The image above seemed to be a revelation to many German descendants, and it was a teachable moment—one of those moments that arise from curiosity that present an opportunity to have a conversation, in this case about the present events and our collective past. 

Since then, I carried that moment forward in a class I taught two years later about Germans in Ukraine. The maps below are from that class. 

German settlements in historical imperial Austrian, Hungarian, and Russian provinces/regions on a modern map of Ukraine. 

German settlements in historical Soviet Republics on a modern map. 

Still standing with Ukraine.

Slava Ukraini!
🇺🇦🌻

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Last updated 24 February 2026