Halbstadt was the administrative center of 19th-century Molotschna, and it had one of the older secondary schools, the Halbstadt Zentralschule, founded in 1835.   Great-great grandfather Johann Claassen, founder of the Kuban, Caucasus, colony, attended this school, although this building came later, in 1895. A variety of other Mennonite buildings remain in Halbstadt (today Molochansk):  the credit association, the Willms mill, the Willms house, the Neufeld Brewery, the volost (regional government office), to name a few.