Changes

Finally, waves of German peasants and farmers, of which the Volga Germans were part, began during Catherine II’s rule and continued throughout most of the nineteenth century. Besides the Volga settlements, Germans established colonies on the Black Sea and in the Caucus Mountains. In total, Russian records put the German population at about 1.8 million in 1897, which although less than 2%, made them one of Russia’s many ethnic minority groups at the time. <ref> Waters, p. 522</ref>

====The Origin of the Volga Colonies====

[[File: Catherine_II.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|Catheriene the Great, Empress of Russia (1762-1796)]]