The Bessarabia Germans (, , ) were a German ethnic group (formerly part of the Germans of Romania) who lived in Bessarabia (today part of the Republic of Moldova and south-western Ukraine) between 1814 and 1940. From 1814 to 1842, 9,000 of them immigrated from the German areas Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, some Prussian areas of modern-day Poland and Alsace, France, to the Russian governorate of Bessarabia at the Black Sea. The area, bordering on the Black Sea, was part of the Russian Empire, in the form of Novorossiya; it later became the Bessarabia Governorate. Throughout their 125-year history, the Bessarabia Germans were an overwhelmingly rural population. Until their moving to the Greater Germany (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), they were a minority consisting of 93,000 people who made up some 3% of the population. They were distinguished from the Black Sea Germans who settled to the east of Odessa, and from the Dobrujan Germans in Dobruja. Perhaps the most prominent person of Bessarabian German ancestry is former German President Horst Köhler (elected on behalf of the CDU). Before emigrating in 1940, his parents lived in the German colony of Rîșcani in northern Bessarabia, being later on moved to Poland, which was by that time occupied by Nazi Germany, where Köhler was born. Coat of arms The coat of arms of the Bessarabia Germans (created after the Second World War) symbolises the homeland at the Black Sea, left at 1940. The coat of arms consists of a shield as the main component of the heraldic emblem. On four divisions, the crest symbolises the country's colours and other properties. Azure symbolises the blue sky over the steppe; Or stands for the golden fields; Gules is taken out of the Romanian flag – the state whose citizens the Bessarabia Germans were; The well symbolises the importance of water; The cross is a symbol for the Church and religion; The horse symbolises the dearest friend of the farmer. Anthem The Bessarabian anthem Bessarabisches Heimatlied was created in 1922 by Albert Mauch, the director of the Werner-Seminar, a German university in Sarata. Origins The eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia was conquered by the troops of the Russian Czar Alexander I in the Russo-Turkish War between 1806 and 1812. In this Moldavian region, he established the Bessarabia Governorate, the smallest of the Russian Empire. The capital was the central Bessarabian Chişinău. Nomadic Tatars from the southern region