20. Alexanderthal

The village of Alexanderthal was on the Tschokrak River.  Our ancestor Peter Dietrich lived in this village for the first 17 years of his life.  I can imagine that he went swimming in the pond and perhaps fishing in the river.  This is where he went to school and where he played with his friends.  This village had a tree plantation that can be seen at the top of the map.  Maybe that is where Peter and his friends created adventures among the trees.   

http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/programs/archives/holdings/Schroeder_maps/060.pdf

The village layout above was typical for all the villages in the Mennonite settlements.  The farming land was outside of the village.  There was a school, a store, a church, a windmill, and a herdsman's hut.  The herdsman was usually a Russian peasant who took all the village cows to a community pasture every day.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Mennonitenansiedlung_Molotschna1912.jpg

This map shows the settlement of Molotschna with the villages and each bit of available land in use. Alexanderthal is in the very bottom right corner of the map.