Filadelfia

Filadelfia Mennonite Colonies

Filadelfia

 

Filadelphia

Filadelfia is the capital of Boquerón Department in the Gran Chaco of western Paraguay. It is the centre of the Fernheim Colony. It is about a 5 hour drive from the capital of Asunción.

 

the museum telling the story of the
German Mennonite immigrants

Filadelfia was founded in 1930 by Russian Mennonites who fled from the Soviet Union. Filadelfia lay near the front of the Chaco War, but was little affected. It became divided in the Second World War, with some of the originally German colonists supporting the Nazis and later being expelled.

Photos of the Mennonite Experience

 

 

 


Today the town is home to a museum, a library, a radio station and a hospital. The colony's villages lie around Filadelfia, as do several native reserves, home to much of the area's native population, from the Chulupí, Lengua, Toba-Pilaga, Sanapaná and Ayoreo groups. A modern supermarket is located in the centre of the town, which is the last place to get groceries before heading farther out into the Chaco. Most of the town's potable water supply is drawn from underground cisterns, being replenished by intermittent rainfall; the underground water is too salty to drink.

 

wide streets in Fernheim

 

paved

The newly asphalted highway from Asunción continues past Filadelfia for another 70 km (40 mi) and runs out at the military checkpoint Mariscal Estigarribia. From this point onwards, the road to the border town fort General Eugenio A. Garay with Bolivia is almost impassable.

Text from Wikipedia

 

but only paved in town

 

at the corner of Hindenburg Avenue

 

Coop store

 

 

 

 

pretzels

 

 

Mennonite woman at the checkout counter

 

many use motorcycles

 

 

or walk

 

Mennonite owned Agribusiness

 

 

 

milk processing

 

 

 

 

milk products

 

 

for holding water

 

 

wind pumping water into storage pool

 

moving water

 

 

town dwelling

 

 

 

 

 

early German style dwelling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

generated their own electricity until connected to national grid

 

 

Loma Plata airport

 

 

 

Colonial Museum

 

the hotel in Filadelphia

 

craft store

 

 

local hand made items

 

 

 

 

 

tree stump puller to clear the land for agriculture

 

first locomotive

 

on the move

 

truck stirring up the dust

 

Paraguayan lacework

 

 


Filadelfia Mennonite Colonies

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