Volgaland (Rise and Fall)

Volgaland, or more properly the Volga German Republic' (DE: Volgadeutsche Republik) is a country roughly the size of Massachusetts located between Russia and Kazakhstan, with a population of roughly 7.2 million persons.

Demographics
The country has a growth rate of roughly 3.5%, much higher than surrounding republics, but part of this since 1990 has been the immigration of Germans from Russia, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet Republics, which provided a massive boost to the population. There are roughly 51% women in the population, and 49% men.

Some sections of the country are incredibly prosperous, namely the capital city, Ost Badenstadt, formerly Engels and Pokrovsk. Other areas are poorer, and there are a number of women who have joined 'mail order bride' sites online to be able to leave for a better life. By and large, the country is roughly 61% urban, and 39% rural.

Religion
The nation is surprisingly religious in comparison to the rest of Europe, likely as a result of their isolation and oppression by the Russians, which helped keep their spirits up and their culture intact. Roughly 84% of the nation is Lutheran, 9% Eastern Orthodox, 3% Catholic, and the rest have no religion.

Ethnic Groups
Volgaland has a population of roughly 7.2 million persons, of which 94% are ethnic German, 2% Russian, .5% Kazakh, 1.4% Ukrainian, and the rest Baltic.

Language
The official language of Volgaland is German, though a large number of the population can also speak Russian, a legacy of being a soviet republic for roughly 70 years. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, however, Russian ceased to be taught in schools, and ceased to be an official language of the Volga Republic, and is no longer usable in official circumstances (courts, government, business). Children born around or after the fall of communism have almost no ability to speak or read Russian, while those before the fall retain some ability to speak Russian. Russians who remained in the Volgaland after the fall of communism were required to speak German to interact with the government.

With a measure of isolation from Germany proper, the Volga Germans did assume a number of innovations not made in Germany, including Russian vocabulary for a number of everyday items and syntax, and pronunciation. The 'r' is not uvular, but instead a trill, like in Russian, Berlin German, and Scottish English. The simple past is more often used as the conversational past tense, and the use of genitive is much more preserved than modern German in Germany.

Since the fall of communism, however, Volga Germans have imported a number of German-language books, magazines, music, TV, and movies from the Confederate States as well as Germany and Austria, which have helped make some standard German words more 'cool' than the Russian words which replaced them. In addition, the Volga German Language Institute created a Volga German Dictionary, which replaced over 5,000 words with their German equivalents in everyday language, bringing Volga German much more in line with Standard German, though a number of phrases still persist that don't exist in standard German.