The Russian colony Alexandrowka is located in the northern part of the city of Potsdam, not far from Berlin. Karlo Rossi, a Russian architect of Italian origin, designed the village in the 19th century. It resembles Glosovo in appearance, a settlement near Petersburg in Russia. In 1996, Alexandrowka was included UNESCO’s Potsdam World Heritage Site.
One of 12 houses in Alexandrowka, a Russian Colony in Potsdam, near Berlin. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 1213. www.walled-in-berlin.com
History of the Alexandrowka Colony
Alexandrowka was built between 1826 and 1827. King Friedrich Wilhelm III who ruled Prussia during the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire ordered construction of the colony. Historical and personal circumstances motivated him to create the colony.
In 1806 the French had invaded and defeated Prussia in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt. In 1812 they had invaded Russia. This time, however, they were badly defeated themselves so that the great French dominion collapsed. Following the 1812 war, sixty-two Russian soldiers remained in Potsdam. From this group a choir was formed to entertain the Prussian troops. In 1825, Tsar Alexander I died, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III ordered the construction of Alexandrowka to memorialize his kinship and friendship with the Romanov family. He built the colony for the last twelve Russian singers of the former soldiers choir who were still living in Potsdam at the time. He named the village Alexandrowka after the Tsarina.
Construction of the Alexandrowka Houses
King Friedrich Wilhelm III had 12 one-and two-story wooden houses constructed on small homesteads. Military artisans, belonging to Prussian guard regiments, built the half-timbered houses (having walls with a timber frame and a brick or plaster filling) with semicircular logs, to make them look like log cabins. In Russia, the homes would have been covered with straw. In Prussia, a Holzverbretterung (timber cladding) was chosen, which was replaced with slate at the end of the 19th century. Each homestead consisted of a house with a balcony and a loggia. A loggia is a covered exterior corridor with an outer wall that is open to the elements and supported by a series of columns. Through a roofed gate the loggia was connected to a small stable building. Every house had a garden. Every household was given a cow. All houses were fully furnished.
Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia built the houses for twelve singers who belonged to a choir, made up of former Russian soldiers. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2013. www.walled-in-berlin.com
In 1827, the twelve singers and their families moved in. They neither purchased the properties, nor did they lease or mortgage them. Instead, each homestead was handed down to male descendants. In 1861, the last singer died. By 1927, only two families in Alexandrowka were direct descendants of the original Russian soldiers who had settled there. And in 2008, the last of these direct descendants died. His family name was Schischkoff.
Since the German reunification in 1990 most of the houses in the settlement are privately owned. Since 2005, the museum of Alexandrowka provides insight into the history and architecture of the log cabins and provides information on their construction method.
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