Berliner Zeitung, translation of the European office of "Vestnik Kavkaza"
Five years ago the last Azerbaijani German died in Azerbaijan city of Goygol (Helenendorf). His old friend, an Azeri Fikret Ismailov, cares about his legacy.
When Victor Klein died in the living room of his house on Helenenshtrasse 46, for Azerbaijan it meant the end of a whole era. This South Caucasian country bid farewell to its last Schwab (Schwabs are Germans living in the south of Germany, mainly in the prosperous state of Baden-Württemberg, with the capital Stuttgart. Schwabs are known in the rest of Germany by their dialect, close to a Swiss dialect. On a global scale, the "Mercedes" is considered to be a Schwab brand - editor's note).
The Klein family survived diseases, wars, Tsarism and Stalinism. Victor Klein's ancestors managed to escape bitter poverty through their hard work, and to achieve prosperity. They made wine, as good as the best French brands; built a canal that still supplies Goygol with water; and provided the city with electricity. But 200 years after the arrival of the Schwabs in the Azerbaijani town of Helenendorf, this historical era came to an end. And all this would probably be forgotten without Fikret Ismailov.
He had been a friend of Victor Klein since 1951, and when Victor was buried in the German cemetery, Fikret didn't want the memory of Helenendorf's Germans to fade. With this wish, Fikret Ismailov welcomes guests in his office. "Welcome to Azerbaijan, welcome to Goygol. This is a German city, thus this is your city. You are here to feel at home." Tender rays of autumn sun light the room. A view over to the jagged peaks of the Lesser Caucasus is seen from the window.
Ismailov is a town planner. 78 years old, he goes to work every day, dressed in a neat suit. The proof of his friendship with Victor Klein is a stack of papers, including the description of his land property in German and his will in the Azerbaijani language. "In the last days before his death, he said he would leave his house to me. I replied: 'Victor, you and I are old friends, but the residents of Goygol will not understand this. I do not need this house'," Ismailov says. Another idea failed: Victor Klein wanted to transfer the house and the plot to the possession of the Embassy of Germany in Azerbaijan, in order for it to be turned into a museum of the Germans in the Caucasus. But the embassy rejected the proposal. Ismailov then took on the task of carrying out the last will of Klein.
He takes a rusty key off the shelf, and the front door of the house on Helenenstrasse 46, now called Hajiyev Street, opens. There is still no museum here - for this it is necessary to wait. Ismailov takes care of the legacy of Victor Klein.
When Victor was still alive, the two friends often visited each other. Ismailov knows about the life of the Germans in Helenendorf from Victor's mother, Lydia. In 1819, they came from Württemberg to Azerbaijan at the invitation of the Russian Tsar, fleeing poverty and repression. Their new home welcomed them harshly: during the first three years, 84 children were born, while 114 people died. Viticulture brought economic recovery to Azerbaijan's Germans. Hard times returned under Stalin. After Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, in 1941 Stalin ordered the deportation of the Germans. It was possible for Victor and Lydia Klein to stay in Helenendorf thanks to the love between Lydia and Victor's father, Pavel Yakovich Perepelitsa, a Pole by birth and a communist. Thanks to him, Lydia and Victor were not affected and stayed in Helenendorf, Ismailov recounts.
Ismailov is not offended by Germans because of the war. The friendship between Germans and Azerbaijanis is much older than Stalin. For this reason, Azerbaijani prisoners of war in German camps were given less hard work, Ismailov is convinced. He never believed Soviet propaganda. As much as he could, as a city planner and a Muslim, Ismailov tried to restore the stone cross on the church of St. Johannes.Today it has become a museum, and among others, state funds of Germany were involved in its establishment.
Although formally Victor Klein's house is still a museum, today it can be considered a kind of landmark. Ismailov cranks the key in the lock twice, and the door opens. The light is not working, so he lights two candles and puts them in the candlesticks on the piano in the living room. Ismailov points to the bed in the room where Victor died, and picks up the Bible in Russian. "I am very sad that he is no longer with us. Sometimes I have the feeling that he just stands there in front of me," Ismailov says. This house provokes such feelings, because nothing has been changed in it since May 27, 2007, when Victor Klein died. Victor loved to play the piano, and on the instrument he kept various trinkets from Germany: a blonde baby doll, a yellowed photo of Neuschwanstein Castle, porcelain figures of birds and dogs. Near the instrument, decoration shines on an already faded Christmas tree. All the walls in the house are covered with black-and-white family photographs, and next to them biblical tenets. Next to it, on the table, lies an unread newspaper of a new apostolic church "Our Family." Victor Klein was clearly a religious person. Perhaps he also read "Berliner Zeitung": near the front door hangs a calendar from this newspaper, opened at National Army Day, March 1.
Klein family was mentally with Germany, even at a distance of 3000 km from Berlin. And this had the most direct impact on Victor's life. "He was not married, because his mother did not want him to marry an Azerbaijani girl, and there were no other German women in the city," Ismailov explains. Nonetheless, after the death of Victor's mother, there appeared a woman in Victor's life. She lived in Ganja, 20 km from Goygol. She invited him to move there, but Klein did not want to leave his home town. Victor's pain of loneliness was often drowned out by alcohol, his friend tells.
For Fikret Ismailov, it is every time hard to visit Victor's house. Yet he comes here again and again. Because of the tourists, who had heard about Victor Klein, or descendants of former Helenendorf dwellers. Some of them leave their own photos on the piano. Ismailov is not afraid that Germans might return one day. Houses with wooden sheds look exactly like those in the Schwab land. "I even want them to come back to live here, so that we could learn from them," the town planner says.
