Goly Karamysh

Goly Karamysh began as Balzer, a German colony founded in 1765 on the river of the same name southwest of Saratov. Its settlers came chiefly from the Palatinate, Isenburg and Wimpfen, and the colony was named after its first headman, Balzer Bartuli. A decree of 1768 gave it the official Russian name Goly Karamysh, referring to the treeless steppe around the river. The community belonged to a Lutheran and Reformed parish centred at nearby Messer.