Germans immigrants helped colonize the Imperial Russian Empire beginning with the invitation of Catherine the Great in 1763. After the German colonists’ special privileges were revoked and military service imposed in 1872 by Tsar Alexander II, they began leaving Russia.

One of the countries to which they immigrated was the United States. It has been nearly 150 years since the first Germans from Russia arrived in America, and generations upon generations of their descendants still live there.

The research contained on this site along with the resulting map strives to answer one question about these immigrant Germans from Russia and their descendants:


Where did everyone go?