What follows is another translation of a German article about people returning from Kazakhstan. It originally appeared in “Die Zeit”, Germany’s quality weekly. Due to its length, we only present certain passages.

By Ulla Lachauer

Russlanddeutsche cannot call anywhere home - neither Russia, nor Germany. Their biographies are fragmented, their stories resemble political arbitrariness. They come from the Kazakh steppe to Bonn, Berlin or the Black Forest; they feel like fish thrown onto dry ground. The only footing they have are their families. Our author visited some of those families. One of the many questions was: What is German?

She is from “Russia”, Maria Pauls replied to her neighbours in Kehl/Rhein and to all others that asked her where she was from. “All right then”, people said, and the conversation ended. It would have been more correct if Maria Pauls had said: “From Karaganda, Kazakhstan” But she shied away from that since once, she got herself into a situation with a lot of explaining. She wanted to tell about how she had been thrown onto the naked steppe in Kazakhstan, back in 1931; how she was a ‘Kulak child”. When she then tried to explain the word Kulak, she realised that the Germans she was talking to had no clue. When she added more and more Russian words such as ‘kollektivisatsyia’ and ‘deportatsyia’, and spoke of ’semlyianki’, pit-dwellings dug with her bare hands, and of her sister ‘Leni’, who froze to death in the river Buran, of ‘Herzeleid’ (heartbreak) and devastation, she had the feeling that the accent she spoke German with might not be understood in her ancestral home country anymore. But it wasn’t for the accent.

(…)

Karagandinski Kerch, Schwarzwald.

Around 200,000 people from Karaganda and its surrounding region live in Germany today. They are as many as there are inhabitants in Freiburg or Erfurt, as many people as banished from the Memel region after the end of the war. Like the latter, they are dispersed with the wind and you can meet them nearly everywhere, even on the small island Föhr. Before the coal mines had died out, the Ruhr area would have been the ideal place for those from Karaganda. There are some settlements, nevertheless, and they have religious reasons - you can find them near Osnabrück, Harsewinkel, Neuwied, Frankenthal and in the Black Forest.

(…)

Johannes Gudi was the head of the evangelic brothers’ parish in Karaganda. He reunited parts of what remained in Lahr (Black Forest). Gudi’s biography resembles the history of the brave underground churches in Karaganda, famous in the entire Soviet Union. He was born as a peasants’ son in 1929 on the Crimea, deported to the polar circle, later to Kazakhstan and then he spent three decades in the coal mines’ shafts. As a very young man, still during Stalin’s times, he felt ‘appointed’ and started working for the illegal parish. People met in remote houses and prayed: in German. Since German was their language of the bible, it was preserved. 32 house parishes mushroomed - until 1974, when they were allowed to build their own church. The arrests continued, as did interrogations even when Gorbachev had ‘already climbed the throne’.

(…)

Marzahn Tormosok

Many, not only bitter people, claim Marzahn (one of Berlin’s districts) is a stronghold of the homo sovieticus, who feels at ease in the biggest residential development of the former GDR. Cheap living space in up to fiveteen-storey tower blocks, with no traditions in sight. Judging from the outward appearance, Marzahn is very similar to Soviet cities. On this day in February, the illusion is nearly perfect, as snow falls steadily but not boisterously. In this scurry of snow, Mehrower Allee 46 can only be found with some effort. Regina and Anatoli came here in 1999 from Saran, a “Sputnik”, a satellite city, of Karganda. They came together with their four children. Their surname was Andriyashin over there, after him; now they call themselves Still, after her. A symbolic act of cultural change, change maybe also in the couple’s relationship.

The Stills feel like fish that has been dropped on dry ground. Learning a new language at the beginning of their fourties. But work where they could practise that language does not exist, while they would even take on any. Marzahn has an unemployment rate of 19.5% and since recently, two Russian-speaking TV channels via cable. Through the monotony of the days roars TV Moscow.

Anatoli and Regina, both born in 1957, know little about their origins. Their parents were Black Sea Germans, Regina was born during her parents’ deportation on the northern polar circle. In 1958, the Stills moved into the Kazakh steppe for work reasons. The Andriyashins were Russians from near Oriyol, Anatoli’s father was a political prisoner, exiled to Karaganda. There, he met his wife, a Tatar who lived near the camp. Each family an odyssey. In an oppressive chaos of the peoples, love was not confined to one’s own nationality anymore.

(…)

Mikhail

“And what do you miss?” - “The air.” - “How is the air?” - “Dirty, from the coal.” - “Nothing more?” - “It smells good.” And he starts telling his story, which is about the steppe and what the steppe means to him. “I wasn’t a good boy, already back then…”

(…)

“Germany is boring. All cities look the same. Gütersloh small, Hanover big”; and live consists of “work, TV, off to bed.” He feels sorry for his parents; his father, who works without break, his mother, who is a cleaner. The relatives who “build houses”; he speaks these words with disgust. He had tried to study somehow. Still, there were too many Russian-speakers in his school and after two years’ work in a training workshop, there was no regular work in sight. “Not for foreigners.” Because his step-father never officially adopted him, he does not own a German passport. Mikhail took for himself what he couldn’t buy; stole, cheated. He got into youth custody and later, for an offence he wouldn’t tell, got convicted for three years in prison.

In April, Mikhail will be released and deported back to Kazakhstan. He is happy as a sandboy about the prospect of seeing Karaganda. “Stay there? No!!! Everything is broken. Everyone is leaving.” He only intends to do his driver’s license and then work as a truck driver, “in Europe”. The enlarged, borderless Europe is an ideal space for a puteshestvennik, an adventurer.