Trip to the Frank Kanton by Alexander Spack in May 2009

113. Neu-Messer

The German elementary school building in the village of Neu-Messer (today’s name: Pogranichnoe).
The building was built in 1929. The photo was taken in May 2009.

This big red brick building, built in 1929 was discovered by our group about one and a half kilometers away from the present day village of Pogranichnoe (formerly known as Neu-Messer). Back in May 2009 when we stopped here during our trip visiting the old Volga German villages, the history of the building remained unknown. However, in 2015 I received a copy of a home video featuring the building from Heinrich Fendel. The video was made in May 2001 by the Willman family who toured the villages of Kolb (now Peskovka), Neu-Messer (now Pogranichnoe), and Neu-Denhof (now Novinka). During their visit to the village of Pogranichnoe they stopped by this building. As it turned out, this used to be a local elementary school that housed the first four grades of students. The head of the Willman family, who was born in this village, attended this school from 1932 through 1936. Therefore, he was able to give a fairly detailed account of the building back then.

The construction of the school building began in 1928 and was completed in 1929. There is a detail referring to the date in the brick pattern on the building's facade. Adjacent to the main entrance was a wooden entrance hall. It was painted in green and had large steps leading up to it. The roof of the building was metal and red.

The first room after stepping into the building had a cloakroom and also a special room that housed heating equipment. On the right side from the entrance there were three doors. The farthest one in the corner was an emergency exit while the other two led to the male and female bathrooms. Although these two rooms are no longer there, one can determine their location by the underground sewage holes.

To the left side from the entrance door there are two openings with arches still visible. The higher one was once occupied by a heating stove, while the other one used to be the door that led to a long hallway. The hallway itself led to the classrooms that housed different grades of students. The first room was the primary grade, the second one housed the middle grade, and the last one housed the upper grade. The partitions between the individual classrooms were made of wood. The upper grade’s room was situated at the far end of the hallway and this classroom’s outer wall with the windows has not been preserved.

The classes in this school took place in two shifts. While the first three grades were housed in this building, yet another one occupied an empty family house in the village. Having completed the first four grades in Neu-Messer, students would continue their school education in the village of Neu-Denhof that had a seven-grade school

Photo by Georgiy Spack (Russia).

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