History
The steppes between the Don and the Volga remained uninhabited for many centuries. Only warriors of nomads and of Russian princes and tradesmen from East and West traveled there. No sooner than by the middle of the 18th century this land was populated by people of different nations: Russians, Ukrainians, Kalmyks, Tatars, Germans.
In the course of colonization of the southern outlying districts of Russia and exploration of their natural resources Catherine the Great invited to the spacious Volga lands people from Germany who wanted to take part in this process. In the serfdom Russia there were no human resources for that. In October 1763 two delegates of the Herrnhut Brethren, archdeacon Paul Lauritz and assessor Johannes Loritz, came to Petersburg from Germany for negotiations with the Russian government on colonization of uninhabited lands in the south of Russia for the purpose of missionary activity among the Kalmyks, their christianisation and founfation of an evangelic-economic community. The agreement was concluded with considerable privileges for the evangelic brethren. Upon their return to Germany preparations for the journey to the river of Sarpa began. The first group of the future colonists of Sarepta consisting of 9 people led by the secular and spiritual leader of the new settlement Daniel Heinrich Fick came from Saratov to Tsaritsyn on July 23, 1765. After a short rest two of them reconnoitered the river Sarpa looking for a place. About 19 miles away from Tsaritsyn they stopped on the bank of the small river Sarpa that joined the Volga only a mile away. Nearby there were the Yergeni, whose hills were green with a thick forest and a dense carpet of fragrant grasses. The Germans liked this place very much and decided to found their settlement here. Daniel Fick, the future secular and spiritual leader of the Sarepta settlement, said:
Our settlement will be named after the Biblical Zarephath of the ancient Syria, as the Lord God commanded from the mouth of Elijah the Prophet: "Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there..." where "...the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail..." "So he arose and went to Zarephath." (The Old Testament, the First Book of the Kings, Ch. 17). The Bible narrates: God sent Elijah the Prophet through the wilderness to Zidon to a small place called Zarephath to heal a widow’s son there and to assure her that "the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail." The meaning of this text was later also put into the town arms of Sarepta: a cruse, an ear of corn, an olive tree with a mug of oil under its branches.
Among these first settlers in 1769 there was also Conrad Neitz – an interpreter, a doctor and a missionary, the future founder of mustard production in Sarepta.
Since the old times people here noticed a wild herbaceous plant appearing early in spring and having yellow blossoms in May and bitter small seeds of dark yellow color – wild mustard. Some landowners heard that a delicacy unheard of in Russia, a hot condiment for meat courses, and even oil of an oil plant growing in England and France, mustard, had been brought from England and France, and tried to press oil from the local wild mustard in their estates in Tsaritsynsky uyezd. Nikita Afanasyevich Beketov, a retired general, who lived here, knew about those experiments. But after he had been at court in St. Petersburg and tasted both the condiment and the oil, he himself paid serious attention to the wild mustard that grew near his estate and was scattered over the steppe by winds and bird. Undemanding to moisture, it grew everywhere where there was some low place, on its sunny slopes. Beketov arranged experiments and pressed oil from wild mustard by a primitive method using stone and iron loads. But the taste of the oil was bitter and the powder was not suitable for condiment. Nikita Afanasyevich Beketov used his relations in St. Petersburg to establish contacts with the Russian Free Economic Society, received seeds of French and English white mustard from it and in 1784 attacked the task of carrying out experiments in growing mustard seeds and producing mustard oil and mustard flour from them. The experiments were a success; the oil and the powder were sent to the Free Economic Society of St. Petersburg and to the market. N.A. Beketov was awarded a gold medal of the Society. But due to his illness and soon death the matter ended in the experiments. Fortunately there were young, energetic, inquisitive people in Sarepta among the Germans having come here, who became Beketov’s successors. In 1890s, Conrad Neitz, a doctor by profession, was already a rather experienced missionary. He lived among the Kalmyks, he knew their language, customs, and rites, he treted them and had many friends among the Kalmyks. Wandering with them over the boundless steppes of the future Kalmykia, in spring Neitz noticed here and there large yellow fields with flowers resembling the flowers of “Beketov’s mustard”. Looking closer he compared them with Beketov’s experimental variety and established their kinship. Neitz requested Russian and Tatar peasants to sow his seeds and grow mustard and called strong peasants to be his assistants in his experimental production. Years of painful searching, experiments, spent effort, energy and managing abilities brought him to real success; and it is Sarepta in Tsaritsynsky uyezd where the first mustard flour in Russia, the first mustard and the first mustard oil appeared. After many years of persistent experiments in selection of different cultural mustard varieties with the local wild one that was highly drought resistant Neitz managed to produce the new variety of Sarepta Mustard excelling all the other (original) varieties in taste due to concentration of many healthy extractive substances. The oil made of Sarepta Mustard is especially aromatic. In 1801 Neitz carried out a more successful experiment in producing prepared mustard from mustard seeds with a hand mill. "This production has become especially valuable as a result of removing fatty matters from the seeds by means of pressing that gave the product better appearance and storage properties." /A.Glitsch/. In 1810 mustard of Neitz, whose successor was his son-in-law Johann Caspar Glitsch, was presented to the tsar's table where it was found to be good and of very high quality; and His Majesty Alexander I awarded Neitz with a gold watch. Since that time the export of mustard from England ceased.
At present Volgograd Mustard Oil Plant Sarepta, that took for its name the historical name of the settlement where the Sarepta Mustard became world famous, is Russia’s largest processor of the unique in its way crop – of mustard.