You´d recall, I was hoping to visit Walter colony while staying in the region. Indeed, I was fortunated to make a quick visit to Walter - thanks to my relatives´ generousity.
It was on a Sunday: I went to the village of Frank early morning to meet with the old Volga German ladies remaining there. Our former neighbout Katarina Hoff took me to the Lutheran Sunday church service in a single room of a 3-room old-style Volga German building used now as a church premises for the Lutheran community and the Russian Orthodox. (the latter are now occupying the room where the Germans of Roman Catholic faith used to held their services, that´s where I had my first Holy Communion).
There were only 9 ladies present, few of them being on vacation or visiting relatives there. And even though I´m not of Lutheran faith, it was very, very moving to hear the Volga German dialect of my grandparents´ generation. Afterwards I was taken home by the sisters Frida and Olga Diehl (who´re originally from the near-by Kolb), whom I met on my last Russia trip 2 years ago. The ladies live together (they both have no children, so really depending on each other) and are the last remaining settlers from Kolb in the area. They´re still indecided about moving to Germany, that´s why there´re still there.
Unfortunately I coudn´t stay at their home for long, since a relative of mine was waiting for me to go to Walter. So we left. It was really hot and dry and hard to be outside, but I´ve always loved coming to Walter, when you see the church steeple from far away, so it was not an issue to turn back.
We were very lucky, since when we got there, the church stood open. It´s still being used as a granary and there were 2 young men working inside. They took a break and had a chat with us. Said, the architechture of the building is incredible, since it doesn´t get too cold in winter and it stays really cool in summer (which I can only say is true). We had a good look inside and, I must admit, I was suprised to see how much of the original work - the ceiling paint and paintings, the coloured wall wash, specially up in the corners, the roof etc - still remains, having withstand over 70 years of decay and destruction. I was trully amazed.
You know, one can still the letters of a Bible extract on the wall above the entance to the altar place (or "the stage, as I call it) and there a few meters of the wooden benches of the sitting area of the 2nd floor still remaining. In fact, one of the workers volunteered to take some pics from the church tower and on the way back he made a snap of the round wooden staircase. The original one!

I later had a conversation with the only remaining Walterer, Mr Moor, now living in Frank (unfortunately, he didn´t know anything on the family names you gave me, though, obviously, is familiar with them). He told me that the chief architechturers of the church building in Walter were 2 brothers from Wolhynien Germans (if I spelled it right?), who came to the village to help build the church.

After visiting the church that day we went to the site of the old German semetery, which is now inbetween the new Russian semetery (though, this one looks old now, too) and a red-brick Volga German building (supposedly a granary, definitely not a house, since it´s got no windows). There are little bumps or whatever is remaining after the graves have been grown by the grass so much. And the only grave remaining is presumably one of a priest´s : it has a stone plate and a head stone with bits of iron sticking out (think, that´s remains of an iron cross), some words carved on it, though unereadable now.

So, the colour pictures is the ones I made on that short trip to what now remains of the Volga German colony of Walter.
And the black-and-white picture has been kindly shown to me by the nephew of latter Mrs Amalia Eberlein, nee Buterus. She was a Walter native and has gone there with some fellow villagers on a day-trip in the 1970s.
I was very unfortunately to miss Mrs Eberlein, who died just 3 months before my visit. Sje was 89 years old and must have remembered a lot. Also, as her nephew, lives in Germany, he desposed most of the photographs and documents belonging to her and left only a few photographs.

Hope you´ve like the pictures and let me know if you´ve got any questions.
Sincerely,
Tanja Schell