Colony 'Alexander Dorf'

How long can a person remain an emigrant? Not long. Either they die or become part of a new culture, a German, a Frenchman, an Italian, or an Arab. This happens faster than it seems.

Emperor Alexander I gifted a certain Friedrich 25 Russian singers, as he was a lover of poetry and a sentimental man. The singers were named Petrov, Sidorov, Gavrilov, Kudinoff, and they were Great Russians. Their singing brought Friedrich immense pleasure, as Germans have always been delighted by Russian singing.

Friedrich treated them to wine and beer and built a village for them near Berlin, close to Potsdam, naming it after Alexander 'Alexander Dorf'.

Friedrich himself planned 'Alexander Dorf' so that the village would look Russian, not German. He built it with soul: wooden huts instead of stone houses, thatched roofs instead of tiles, granaries and threshing floors in the open air. The singers lived here, as if under Friedrich's wing.

Friedrich married them off to German women who appreciated them for their pleasant demeanor and singing ability.

However, misfortune befell the singers. They continued to sing Russian songs at the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, but suddenly stopped speaking. Their speech became incomprehensible, neither in German nor in Russian.

One day, a compatriot visited them and tried to speak, but they did not understand him. They had to sing 'I walked in the evening in the meadows'.

The wooden huts with thatched roofs, the granary with the threshing floor, sunflowers behind the huts, all of this became incomprehensible to the singers. They wanted everything to be like with people, but it did not work out. Moreover, their voices began to fade.

'Alexander Dorf' still stands today near Berlin. When you approach it, you see Russian huts, carved windows, porches, and a white church in the distance. The huts bear the names of their owners: Herr Gavrilov, Herr Makarov, Herr Kramarenkov. But if you speak to Herr Kramarenkov, he will be surprised and say: 'What? I do not understand at all.'

The Russian emigration of the great Russian revolution sadly visits 'Alexander Dorf'. But its fate is worse than that of Alexander's singers. It has neither Friedrich, nor huts, nor granaries. The voice is gone. In Tegel stand white crosses of those who spoke Russian until death and died without knowing German.

Emigrants have a special hearing; they hear how the years go by. Because of this, they painfully close their eyes. 'Nikolai Petrovich, do you love life?', 'And you, Mary Sergeyevna, do you think we have life?', 'What do you mean, Nikolai Petrovich?', 'Just so. Mary Sergeyevna, we are living on fuchsias.' So said a man in a pince-nez to a full blonde on tram number 7, with a trembling beard.

Tram number 7 rattled down the slope of Kurfürstendamm.