DISTRICT / AIMAG
German National District
REGION
Altai Krai
Shumanovka
The village of Shumanovka in the German National District of Altai Krai was founded in 1911 by Mennonites.
A historical photograph, village view, landscape, or related heritage object will be displayed here at a later date.
ZH 
RU 
EN Village in the Atlas
German National District
Altai Krai
Historical background
The village was founded in 1911 by Mennonites from the German colonies of the south of Ukraine and the Orenburg region. In 1941, Germans from the Volga region were deported here, and in 1942–1943 the residents hosted blockaded people from Leningrad. In the 1960s, as a result of the enlargement of collective farms, residents of neighboring settlements (Kleefeld, Arkhipovka, Konstantinovka) were resettled in the village, after which it became the center of the collective farm named after the XXII Congress of the CPSU (since 1991 — the agricultural artel-breeding farm "Shumanovsky"). Today, the basis of the village's economy is the production of grain, sunflower, milk, and meat.
Place, memory, heritage
Historical and cultural legacy
The village is home to the Folk History Museum (founded in 2014) with a reconstruction of a peasant hut and exhibits of besieged Leningrad, a House of Culture (1976), the Shumanovka rural library (1979), and a secondary general education school. The building of the Catholic Church of the "Heart of Jesus" (registered in 1992) is located in a former collective farm office, and in the center of the village there is a house with a facade decorated in the traditional German fachwerk style; also, in Shumanovka, there is a Memorial of Glory to labor army soldiers and residents who died of starvation during the Great Patriotic War, and a memorial plaque to the cavalier of the Order of Courage Danil Anikienko, who died in Chechnya.
Natural surroundings
The village is located in the flat Kulunda steppe at an altitude of 134 meters above sea level; there are no rivers and lakes on the territory, however, in the village itself, on the site of a wasteland, a public square with a bench of reconciliation and a forged tree has been laid out.
Historical and cultural legacy
The village is home to the Folk History Museum (founded in 2014) with a reconstruction of a peasant hut and exhibits of besieged Leningrad, a House of Culture (1976), the Shumanovka rural library (1979), and a secondary general education school. The building of the Catholic Church of the "Heart of Jesus" (registered in 1992) is located in a former collective farm office, and in the center of the village there is a house with a facade decorated in the traditional German fachwerk style; also, in Shumanovka, there is a Memorial of Glory to labor army soldiers and residents who died of starvation during the Great Patriotic War, and a memorial plaque to the cavalier of the Order of Courage Danil Anikienko, who died in Chechnya.
Living culture and memory
In the Catholic church of the village, services are held entirely in German every week. Local residents maintain a passive knowledge of German dialects (including Mennonite Plautdietsch) and celebrate the harvest festival Erntedankfest, St. Martin's Day, and Bright Easter. The "Druzhba" Center of German Culture and the vocal group "Tautropfe" operate in the village, and traditional Alsatian flammkuchen and cherry pie (Kirschtorte) are prepared at gastronomic master classes.
