In October 1931 Rudolf and Anna Tieke and their three children relocated from Berlin to the Soviet Union. They were motivated, it seems, by political idealism. "It is fantastic here" ("Es ist herrlich hier"), wrote Anna Tieke to her parents, left behind in Berlin, in a letter dated 6 November 1931. By this time the Tieke family were settled with other German emigrants, creating the "Spartak" production commune in Khosta ("Хосте"), along the Black Sea coast to the south of Krasnodar. A year later disaster struck in the form a massive famine across (and beyond) the entire Caucasus region. Historians still argue over how far the famine resulted from natural causes - primarily drought - and how far it reflected political and logistical failures caused by government implementation of enforced collectivisation. The widespread death from starvation was in any case real enough. The Tiekes narrowly avoided death by starvation thanks to the Comintern which managed to arrange their return to Moscow.