LeRoy and Pictet

LeRoy and Pictet was an 18th century co-operative company that recruited German settlers to migrate to Russia under a commission from Tsarina Catherine the Great. It was formed by three partners: LeRoy, a Frenchman; Pictet, a Swiss from Geneva; and Sonntag, a German. It operated alongside two rival recruiting ventures, one formed by Baron Caneu de Beauregard with Major Otto Friedrich of Monjou, and another, with no independent funding, formed by Jean de Boffe, Meusnier de Precour, and Quentin Benjamin Coulhette d'Hautervive. Catherine's recruiters offered the settlers freedom of religion, exemption from taxes and military service, and the right to dispose of their land as they wished, drawing thousands of German craftsmen and farmers who founded 103 villages along the Volga and became known as the Volga Germans. LeRoy and Pictet alone established 25 of these colonies, comprising 1,530 families and 5,339 people, along the Volga south of Saratov and along its tributaries the Karaman and Tarlyk, including the Lutheran colony of Lauwe, founded on 19 August 1767 and later renamed Yablonovka. The company went on to manage the colonies it had founded.