Stepove, Mykolaiv Raion


Stepove is a village in Mykolaiv Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast in southern Ukraine. Its population was 1869 in the 2001 Ukrainian Census. Along with another village of Zelenyi Hai, it forms a rural community Stepivska Silska Rada.

History

The village was first founded as Karlsruhe in 1809 by Catholic Germans. The settlement was part of the Beresan Colonial District of Odessa region, Kherson Governorate. In 1886 the population of the German colony of Karlsruhe was 2,132 people; in which time it was part of the Landau parish, Odessa district, Kherson Governorate. There were 190 farmsteads, a Roman Catholic church, a high school, 2 benches and a Renna cellar. From 1881–1885, according to the project of the architect Corfu, the Catholic Church of St. Peter and Paul was built.
In the years 1925–1939, the Karlsruhe colony was part of Karl-Liebknechtovsky's German National District of Mykolaiv region.
Today, the ruins of the 19th-century neo-gothic style Roman Catholic church still remain. It is somewhat bricked up and its wooden roof and original steeple are gone. Several pictures of
The church dated from the 1930s and 40s were published in a German language book called “Die Kirchen und das Religiöse Leben der Russlanddeutsche”. Pictures from 1942 and 1943 show the steeple missing the peak and cross but still with the stone base. The steeple was destroyed by The soviets as they removed crosses from churches all over the Ukraine. It is reported that the steeple was destroyed in 1934. It was then rebuilt during the German occupation and destroyed yet again when soviet forces advanced in mid 1944. Today, the main stone body of the steeple is now completely gone. The church could have been battle damaged during the nazis advance through the area in 1941 or their retreat a few years later. Battle damage is present on its exterior from small arms fire and shrapnel from undated events.