The vast majority of Germans in this region were Lutheran. While they retained a clear Germanic ethnicity, traditions and language, they often adapted or adopted Polish culture and food and sometimes surnames. A limited amount of intermarriage between the cultures occurred. Large numbers of these Germans chose to leave the area during the Napoleonic occupation, heading further south and east to the Black Sea and Bessarabian regions of Russia. Still others headed east to Volhynia during the Polish uprisings of the 1830s and 1860s. In addition to fleeing these unsettled conditions, the latter were also attracted by offers of land that became available as a result of emancipation of serfs in Russia.