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Note: GERMAN'S IN RUSSIA, WHY AND WHEN In Moscow, Russia, there was a "German Suburb", and it was here that Peter the Great, was so fascinated that he spent a majority of his time there, listening to the soldiers and sailors. He encouraged more Germans to come to Russia, he thought this Was a good influence for his countrymen to learn their ways, which he became convinced were superior to his countries craftsmen, boat builders, and Army and Navy strategies. One of the things he was adamant about was being clean shaven. He went around cutting beards and imported barbers from Germany to teach Russian barbers their techniques. Peter the Great's grandson married a German Princess, Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst. She was born in 1729 and died in 1796. Before she married Peter, she studied the Russian language, and became baptized into the Russian Orthodox church after changing her name to Yekaterian Aledseyevna. Her marriage to Peter III came about after being arranged by her mother and Peter's grandmother, Catherine I.. She traveled with her mother by sled to Russia to meet Peter. The trip took them four months to reach their destination. Catherine II was 14 years old and Peter was 16, they were married in 1743. The marriage was a failure, and so Catherine arranged to have herself crowned Empress after pointing out what a weak and useless leader Peter was. She was crowned in 1762. Catherine II, encouraged large colonies of German Workers to come to Russia. They wanted work, she wanted to build Russia's economy. She was a successful ruler, but sometimes at the expense of her own countrymen and so after awhile a lot of them started immigrating to the new world. Our ancestors, the Deutschmanns' settled in lower area of Russia, near the Black Sea. The town was know then as Grunau, and is now the country of Ukraine. Selma Zöller stated in 1984 that her father, Karl and Regina Zöller were first cousins. An interesting fact I discovered, in that there are three sets of twins! Four, if you count my mothers, we had always thought that it was carried just through the Gramberg line. Written by: Diane Anderson Concord, CA 1995
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