An ancient tombstone of a German choir singer was discovered in Volgograd.
The stone slab that stood on the grave of a German chorister Johann Christian Keil from the Brotherhood Community of Sarepta, discovered during construction work in the area of Heroes of Stalingrad Avenue.
Specialists from the Old Sarepta Museum-Reserve examined the tombstone and found information about the deceased and his family. They also found a portrait of Kyle.
"Staff have so far managed to find out that tombstone No. 807 was installed on the grave of a member of the widowers' choir, Johann Christian Keil, who died on April 19, 1853, at the age of 83."- told in the museum-reserve.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, foreign settlers from many Volga colonies came to Sarepta for seasonal agricultural work, as well as to work in craft workshops and factories. Some of them settled on the lands of Sarepta.
It is known that in 1794, after a trial, he was accepted into the community, into the choir of single brothers. He worked as a butcher and in a sausage shop, then married Eva Elizabeth Simon from the same community. The couple had six daughters and four sons, one of whom died in infancy, and then eight grandchildren—not all of whom survived either.
After the death of his wife, Kyle left the house and plot of land to his eldest son, and he himself began to live in the house of the single brothers on Church Square.
The museum discovered that several Kail families were evicted from the village of Krasnoarmeysk in 1941. The family's history therefore awaits extensive research.
Tombstones and grave markers can tell a lot. For example, ornate white stone tombstones are studying social activists in the village of Izhevskoye, Ryazan regionThe tombstones indicate the prosperity of ordinary peasants who mastered the cooperage trade and then bought themselves out from the landowner.
Photo: Press service of the Old Sarepta Museum-Reserve / vk.com
