They're happy and don't plan to leave. The houses there aren't for sale.

Germans have been settling in Eastern Europe since the Middle Ages. Perhaps the best known and most adventurous German settlers in the East were those who moved to the banks of the Volga River during the reign of Empress Catherine the Great, known to history as the Volga Germans. Ethnic Germans all over the USSR suffered greatly during the war years, when many were forced out of their homes or sent to forced labor camps. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, many have re-migrated to Germany.

However, there are still many ethnic Germans in Russia and the former Soviet republics, as the following clip from Vesti explains:

Transcript:

The residents of the village Apollonovka, located in Omsk Oblast, are the heroes of today's episode. The majority of them are the descendants of five German families who moved to Russian Siberia from Ukraine in the early 20th century. Just like a hundred years ago, the Germans in the Siberian Apollonovka lead their traditional life. They're happy and don't plan to leave. The houses there aren't for sale. Anton Lyadov will tell us why. Apollonovka. German offroaders and Russian Nivas drive here along the same roads or rather directions. However, some places can only be navigated by a horse wagon. Like in many neighboring villages, the roads here are in name only. Speed limit signs are only needed to cheer up those passing by. The closest civilization is at least an hour's drive from here. However, the local population has increased by more than 100 over the last 10 years. Today, 960 people live here. The locals entertain themselves during the spring flood by boating across the flooded meadows. People say that this village has everything but there's nothing here. There are plenty of pretty new brick houses but no gas or water supply. There are a couple of major industrial facilities but almost no mobile network or internet. The village is considered German but apart from the descendants of the Germans who founded it in the early 20th century the village is also inhabited by Russians and Kazakhs. The entire street of picture-perfect cottages and neat backyards is only one of Apollonovka's neighborhoods. - Eye candy? Yakov Tevs: - Yes, I just like the way it looks. Yakov Tevs has a decorative mill that he built himself, a guest house, and a giant garage packed with various vehicles: dozens of bicycles, a snowmobile, a quad, and a Japanese motorcycle. - Where do you drive in Apollonovka? Yakov Tevs: - I just take it for a ride sometimes driving here and there. In the middle of the field, he has a hangar, which houses his own airplane. For many years, he'd been trying to assemble an aircraft on his own. He even once managed to connect the log that was supposed to be the fuselage to wings and an engine. Yakov Tevs: - I built it so I had to fly it. I hooked it to a car it shot upwards and rotated 90 degrees. - Where were you? - Naturally, I was in the cockpit. It sank down crushing its tail and one of its wings. I didn't even have a scratch. After that, he bought an airplane and flies it. Yakov Tevs: - I don't perform any tricks. I just enjoy flying. - How long can you sit idle at home? - Well, I can spend some time with my wife, she's my wife after all. But I still spend about 2-3 hours on my toys. A usual situation in Apollonovka, a water hauler is stuck in the mud. It delivers drinking water to the locals. Now, they're trying to pull it out with a chain attached to an offroader but it doesn't seem to be working. It seems that they'll require a tractor. - No use? Yakov Tevs: - The wheel has half-sank there. The residents of Apollonovka had to learn to live without an adequate water supply system. Drinking water is delivered twice per week. In order to save the driver's time, the residents of Apollonovka place their canisters right in the middle of the road. The water hauler stops, fills the canisters on the spot, takes water coupons people leave here wrapped in plastic bags, and moves along. German wit comes in handy when the water hauler can't reach many streets due to heavy rain. Many houses have a drainage system that fills underground reservoirs with water, albeit not pure. Yakov Epp: "These two pipes go underground. The rainwater runs down the pipes under the house into this 900 cubic feet reservoir. In summer, I don't need water delivered at all. Here's utility water that comes down from the roof. And here's drinking water. I have a special tank for pure water that gets delivered.” Another German feature is a banya inside the house. It's warm inside, so it's quicker to heat up, meaning also cheaper. Beekeeper Yakov Epp has a total of three bathrooms for his guests, for adults, and for kids. He says it's no use trying to count them. Apart from his kids, their friends and cousins always hang out at his house. Yakov Epp: “There's a saying about those who have a lot of kids at home, "There are so many kids in here, how do you not get confused?" "I count ten kids in the evening and kick out the rest." Maybe we should do the same, too many kids in here.” There are 54 multiple-child families in Apollonovka. “I have 7 kids and 13 grand-kids.” “We have 13 kids and 21 grandkids. Some people here have 50 grandkids.”