The Lower Volga Villages
Bauers and Krafts of Shcherbakovka
In a letter of 31 May 1994, Anna Bauer Mollenkamp writes that her father was Conrad Bauer, born 4 August 1891 in Shcherbakovka. The Bauer family lived just south of the church in Shcherbakovka which had a population of about 3,800 at that time. Southeast of the village was the Valdeck Forest and on the northwest was the Barech Volt. Bears inhabited this area until one day they unaccountably disappeared. Wolves sometimes came down to the village for food. Just before Conrad Bauer left the dorf for America, a big wolf was killed that tried to get a colt. The Volga River was a half mile wide in the winter and much wider in the spring and summer. It took six men to pull a boat up the river to where it could be crossed. The Russians used men to pull the boat up the mile or so to where they put it in the water but the German people used horses. They put the horse and wagon on the boat. It would hold two wagons and four horses and four to six men. It cost 10 cents a head to cross. Conrad went across the Volga twice in the summer time and on a sled twice in the winter.
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