Zürich an der Wolga ("Zurich on the Volga")

This extension of the permanent exhibition traces the everyday life of the first German colonists in the Volga region through the example of the village of Zürich (nowadays Sorkino). The majority of the settlers here originated from German territories such as Hesse, Saxonia and Nassau, even though the colony was officially named after the Swiss canton capital. Along with their bundles of possessions, the emigrants also brought their local cultures to Russia. And so Germans became Russian Germans and the strange steppe landscape became a cultural melting pot. This was the beginning of a multicultural identity, which was brought back to Germany by the (late) repatriates over 200 years later.