I have been asked twice in the last week about the availability of church records from Russia without going through a Russian archive. The short answer is that LDS has very little in the way of Lutheran or Roman Catholic church records that have been copied for the Volga area. I have just heard this morning from Kahlile Mehr, who is responsible for acquisitions for the Slavic collection at the LDS Family History Center in Salt Lake City. LDS has not filmed in Russia in five years, and the mentality over there is much like it was during the Communist era, i.e. not overly cooperative. LDS is subject to an agreement with the central government and each individual archive.   I work with what LDS has and whatever may be sitting in a library somewhere or online or go to a church in Michigan or through interviews to gather my materials. I am not sitting on a pile of cash to acquire documents, but the antennae are usually up. I am told that nearly complete church records for a few villages have been received from Russia, but I am not convinced it was done through the front door. So I work on extracts of church records or histories of the Protestant church in Russia, because that is what is available to me. If you came from Estonia, Latvia or Lithuanian, or even the Protestant Church in Minsk, the FHC seems to have lots of microfilm, especially on the first three areas.   Saratov Archive seems to have some German parish registers, poll tax, recruit lists for 1874-1917 and tax registers for the Kontura. The summary info I have in many cases only has question marks RE: the years included or number of books in their archive for certain types of holdings. I don't think LDS was able to copy much of this at Saratov. The Lutheran Consistory for the Volga had been in Saratov until the 1830s, but was moved to Moscow. It looks as if the FHC has nothing for the Lutheran Consistory in Saratov.   I don't hold back things, though if something is in process its best to wait until it is completed or not capable of being done to share it. I do continue to research and write and occasionally publish.   Bill Pickelhaupt