Paved roads, a rental car, a hired translator, a hired driver, my sister and myself comprised our group. The roads were paved all the way from the Hotel Volga, in Saratov to the left turn from the highway to our first stop, the village of Beideck.

We will not forget the ride of some 37 miles, for a long time. The highway didn't have a center line and the driver often passed on blind curves and hills. I thought we were zooming along at about 75 miles per hour, but a quick look at the speedometer indicated 100 kilometers per hour, or about 65 miles per hour.

Our grandfather and all our aunts and uncles were born in Beideck, but they operated a flour mill in Schilling. Also, grandmother Anna Maria Kaufman was born at Schilling on 21 September 1879. Grandmother often spoke of her time as a child at Schilling, and how she would sell apples on the dock to the dock workers and sailors.

A letter I received in the early 1970's, from a survivor of the Johannes Herder (Haerter) family mentioned his father having a nice home on the Volga River. I always thought he made a mistake and intended to write the Tolowka River, in Beideck, since that is where the family home was. After our visit I am sure he was right about the Volga, as the Tolowka River is just a trickle that runs through Beideck.

The dirt road to Schilling is almost indescribable, often detouring out into pastures and grain fields to avoid huge holes and ruts in the road. The road would be impossible to drive in wet weather.

As we approached Schilling there were many birch trees growing along the road. We brought along sack lunches with us, and on the return trip from Schilling, the driver pulled into a grove of birch trees that offered shade, so we could enjoy lunch.

Our first sign of the village, as we wound around the dirt road, was the huge wooden German church, without a steeple, with the Volga River in the background. The steeple was removed during the Stalin era. If your family is from the village of Schilling, they worshipped in this church.

We were driven around the village for awhile, as we observing the local people and their homes. You can tell a German built house from a Russian built house by the top of the window surround. The German built houses have a scroll design at the top. We continued our drive around the village until our translator was able to find someone that had lived here long enough to know about the flour mill. Soon we were descending the bank of the Volga River, in the area where the mill once stood. Apparantly the destruction of the flour mill and docks was the result of building a dam on the Volga River, which caused the river to rise up and surround the footings of the building, and the pilings of the dock. The water level, along the the very severe winters experienced in the Volga River region which results in the Volga River freezing solid, probably broke the foundation, and caused it to tumble into the Volga.

There is no longer a dock at Schilling, which eliminated the shipping of products on the river from this village. The condition of the road probably eliminated shipments before the loss of the dock.

There is an asylum near the site of the flour mill and church. The patients were free to roam about the streets as they pleased, dressed in their red pajamas. One patient said something in Russian to our driver and translator, which caused them to say "we must leave now, please hurry".

We were surprised about the distance to the mill from Beideck. It is about three miles, which was not much of a walk in the early 1900's, perhaps much easier than the drive over the most indescribably bad dirt road. My sister and I let our minds wander during the drive back through Beideck. We couldn't help wonder about our past family members, and the hardships they endured in this land so foreign to our present day life.

On our return to Saratov, our driver was pulled over by a police officer who was standing along side the road. He had to pay a fine, on the spot, because he passed him and backed up, instead of stopping immediately in front the officer. The driver also had a rear tire blow out when he drove over the railroad tracks as we entered Saratov. The blow out was probably due to the excessive speed crossing the tracks.

It turned out to be quite a day for all of us !!!