Having become acquainted with the manifesto of Catherine II, who invited foreign settlers to Rosspo, the Herrnhuters immediately responded to it. Their representatives, after inspecting a rather populous area in the lower reaches of the Volga, chose a place below Tsaritsyn, at the confluence of the Sarpa River into the Volga, where Sarepta is now located. It is very possible that the name of the colony came precisely from the river Sarna, but in any case, the first founders of the colony firmly believed that the location they had chosen, and even the name of the river itself, was more arbitrary, reminiscent of an event from biblical life: the Herrnhuters applied their journey through the steppes of Povolye to the wanderings of the prophet Or through desert to Sarepta and, having reached the place where they decided to found a colony, they named the colonized colony Sarepta.
The Herrnhuters were met in Ross, the most honorable guests; The mining authorities, without any red tape typical of that time, this time giving up even the then usual bribery, cut off 4,448 acres of convenient land to the Herrnhuter commissioners with the addition of 11,377 acres of salt marshes and offered them all assistance regarding the initial acquisition. The authorized representatives immediately began procuring construction materials and construction of houses, and in 1770 the first two Herrnhuter settlers arrived with their families.
The Herrnhuter brothers began their activity in the new colony with amazing energy and intelligence! Less than two years after settling in Sareit, a hotel, a store, a confectionery, a tobacco factory, a dyehouse, a slaughterhouse, candle and leather factories appeared in the colony, as if by the magic of a magic wand, and various craftsmen were established in the corporations: tailoring, shoemaking, shoemaking, carpentry, carpentry, blacksmithing, potting and baking. Soon there was a need for the sale of articles of manufacture and crafts that exceeded the need of Sarepta herself; the brothers were not embarrassed by this; they established warehouses not only in the main cities of the Volga region, but even in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Having taken up farming with full zeal, the new colonists soon realized that, in the event of droughts, farming in this area does not provide any particular benefits; cattle breeding, thanks to the competition of Kalmyk nomads, also turned out to be unprofitable; Therefore, the prudent Herrnhuter brothers turned their attention to gardening and tobacco growing. And soon stone houses appeared in Sarepta and the whole ear was decorated with trees of various species and flower beds, representing a kind of lovely oasis in the bare steppe. The only hindrance was the Kalmyk nomads. In Sarepta itself, being there alone, they did not dare to cause harm, but this did not stop them from not recognizing the borders of Sarepta dominion, poisoning Sarepta fields and meadows with their cattle, stealing Sarepta cattle and even stealing Sarepta cattle. It was not easy for peaceful settlers to fight such a situation in the dfl and it was extremely unprofitable for them to live with wild nomads, but their hard work and energy seemed to overcome everything. Luckily for them, in the early seventies and
— 180 last year, the Kalmyks went to the Urals; before their departure, they were going to raze Sarepta from the face of the earth and, of course, would have carried this out by intention, if not for the government, which took serious measures against it.