This map shows the major such routes used by German colonists in the various settlement waves up to around 1830.

• The German settlers arriving between 1763 and 1768 mainly came from Hessen. Their journey went via the Baltic Sea from Lübeck to Oranienbaum near St. Petersburg and from there to the Volga, where the new settlements were.

• Those arriving between 1789 and 1804 were mainly Mennonites from the Weichsel area east of Danzig en route to New Russia (southern Russia). They settled on both banks of the Dnieper River near Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine). 

• Between 1804 and 1824, additional settlers came from southwestern Germany (Alsace-Lorraine, Baden, Württemberg) via the Danube from Ulm to Odessa and settled mainly in the Cherson area north of the Asovian Sea and in Bessarabia. Others settled in the southern Caucasus south of Tiflis.