Letter and photographs from Larisa Pashura

Director of the Kuchurgan School, Razdel'nyansky Rayon, Odessa Oblast, Ukraine
(former Black Sea Catholic village of Straburg, Kutschurgan District, today near
Odessa, Ukraine

January, 2004

Dear Mr. Miller,

Thank you for the helpful information you've sent. It was very interesting for students and a
staff to read the historical articles and to see the photos from your journey, The books are
also very interesting and useful. Our students have known a lot of new information about the
Germans from the Kuchurgan Settlement. We applied to the State Archives of the Odessa
Region to give us some information about the history of our village, but we found very little.
But now from your books we've known a lot. From your letter we've found out that our
village was founded in 1808 and in five years we will celebrate the 200 anniversary.

The staff of our school is now working on the history of Kuchurgan. We are planning to
publish a school magazine about the history of our native land. We also want to organize a
little museum at school, where children will learn the history of the village.

You wrote that you would come to visit Kuchurgan school on 31 May in 2004 at about 10ª11am. On the 31 of May the festival of the Last Bell will be held at our school. It will be the
last school day for our English and German class. The festival starts at 8:30 and I'd like to
invite you to it. It will be very pleasant for the students to see you at their festival.

I hope to hearing from you soon.

Larisa Pashura

Students of the 11-A class reading the books. Left to right: Natasha Gutnick, Lena Bondar, Tanya Fedusiva, Yana Kilesnikova, and Kostya Chernetsky; sitting: Ima Smirnova, Nastya Kretsu, and Ira Raxina.	Students of the 11-A class and Larisa Pashura, school director. Left to right: Tanya Brovchenko, Kathya Hmelnitskaya, Lena Bondar, Kostya Chernetsky and Ira Smirnova; sitting: Nastay Kretsu, Ira Razina and Larisa Pahura.
Students of the 11-A class and the teacher of history and German, Valery Kislitsin.	Students of the 11-A class and Larisa Pashura.