Greeks in Russia

Total population
~53,972 (2021)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Stavropol Krai Krasnodar Krai Moscow
Languages
Pontic Greek Mariupol Greek Urum Russian Ukrainian
Religion
Russian Orthodox Church
Related ethnic groups
Pontic Greeks Caucasus Greeks Northern Greeks (includingMacedonian Greeks) otherCrimean Tatar-speaking peoples

Part ofa series on
Greeks
Etymology Greek names
By country Native communities Greece Cyprus Albania Italy Russia and Ukraine Turkey Greek diaspora Australia Melbourne Canada Toronto Germany United Kingdom United States
Groups by region Modern Greece: Macedonians Sarakatsani Maniots Tsakonians Constantinople and Asia Minor: Cappadocians Constantinopolitan Greeks Phanariots Karamanlides Pontic Caucasus Crimea Africa: Egyptiots Ethiopian Greeks Sudanese Greeks Other regions: Cypriots Griko Urums Other groups: Aromanians Arvanites Megleno-Romanians Slavophones Souliotes
Greek culture Art Cinema Cuisine Dance Dress Education Flag Language Literature Music Politics Religion Sport Television Theatre
Religion Greek Orthodox Church Greek Roman Catholicism Greek Byzantine Catholicism Greek Evangelicalism Judaism Islam Hellenism
Languages and dialects Greek: Australian Calabrian Cappadocian Constantinopolitan Cretan Cypriot Griko Hellenoromani Himariote Maniot Mariupol Pontic Tsakonian Yevanic Greeklish Other languages Aromanian Arvanitika Greek Sign Language Karamanli Turkish Megleno-Romanian Slavic Urum
History of Greece (Ancient ·Byzantine ·Ottoman)
v t e

Greeks have been present in what is now southernRussia from the 6th century BC; those settlers assimilated into the indigenous populations. The vast majority of contemporary Russia's Greek minority populations are descendants of Medieval Greek refugees, traders, and immigrants (including farmers, miners, soldiers, and churchmen/bureaucrats) from theByzantine Empire, theOttoman Balkans, andPontic Greeks from theEmpire of Trebizond andEastern Anatolia who settled mainly in southern Russia and theSouth Caucasus in several waves between the mid-15th century and the secondRusso-Turkish War of 1828–29.As during the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks, the survivors fled to the Upper Pontus (in theUSSR).^[2]

In former Soviet republics, about 70% are Greek speakers who are mainly descendants ofPontic Greeks from thePontic Alps region of northeastAnatolia, 29% are Turkish-speaking Greeks (Urums) fromTsalka inGeorgia, and 1% are Greek speakers fromMariupol inUkraine.

Ukraine's 2001 census counted 91,500 Greeks in Ukraine.^[3]

InGreek mythology, various contacts with the part of the world that was later namedRussia or theSoviet Union are recorded. The area was vaguely described as theHyperborea ("beyond theNorth wind") and its mythical inhabitants, the Hyperboreans, were said to have blissfully lived under eternal sunshine.Medea was a princess ofColchis, modern westernGeorgia, and was entangled in the myth ofJason and theGolden Fleece. TheAmazons, a race of fierce female warriors, were placed byHerodotus inSarmatia (modernSouthern Russia andSouthern Ukraine).^[4]

Inhistorical times, Greeks have lived in the present Black Sea region of Russia and theCommonwealth of Independent States since long before the foundation ofKievan Rus' (Kyivan Rus'), the first Russian state. The Greek name ofCrimea was Tauris, and in mythology it was the home of the tribes who took Iphigenia prisoner in Euripides' playIphigenia in Tauris.

Trade relations with theScythians led to the foundation of the first outposts between 750 and 500 BC during the OldGreek Diaspora. In the Eastern part of the Crimea theBosporan kingdom was founded with Panticapaeum (modernKerch) as its capital.

The Greeks had to fight offScythian andSarmatian (Alan) raiders who prevented them from progressing inland but retained the shores which became the wheat basket of the ancient Greek world.^[5] Following the conquests ofAlexander the Great andthe Roman conquest the provinces maintained active trading relations with the interior for centuries.^[5][6]

Black Sea trade became more important forConstantinople as Egypt and Syria were lost to Islam in the 7th century. Greek missionaries were sent among the steppe people, like theAlans andKhazars. Most notable were theByzantine Greek monksSaints Cyril and Methodius fromThessalonica inGreek Macedonia, who later became known as the apostles of the Slavs.

Many Greeks remained in Crimea after theBosporan kingdom fell to theHuns and theGoths, andChersonesos became part of theByzantine Empire. Orthodox monasteries continued to function, with strong links with the monasteries ofMount Athos in northern Greece.^[5][6]

Relations with the people from theKievan Rus principalities were stormy at first, leading toseveral short lived conflicts, but gradually raiding turned to trading and many also joined the Byzantine military, becoming itsfinest soldiers. In 965 AD there were 16,000 Crimean Greeks in the joint Byzantine andKievan Rus army which invadedBulgaria.^{[citation needed]}

Subsequently, Byzantine power in the Black Sea region waned, but ties between the two people were strengthened tremendously in cultural and political terms with the baptism ofPrince Vladimir of Kievan Rus in 988 and the subsequentChristianization of his realm.^{[citation needed]}

The post asMetropolitan bishop of theRussian Orthodox Church was, in fact, with few exceptions, held by aByzantine Greek all the way to the 15th century.^[5][6] One notable such prelate wasIsidore of Kiev.

With theFall of Constantinople in the 15th century, there was an exodus of Greeks to Italy and the West but especially to fellow-Christian Orthodox Russia. Between the fall of theEmpire of Trebizond to the Ottomans in 1461 and the secondRusso-Turkish War of 1828-29 there were several waves of refugeePontic Greeks from the easternBlack Sea coastal districts, thePontic Alps, andEastern Anatolia to southern Russia and Georgia (see alsoGreeks in Georgia andCaucasus Greeks). Together with the marriage of Greek Princess Sophia and TsarIvan III of Russia, this provided a historical precedent for the Muscovite political theory of theThird Rome, positing Moscow as the legitimate successor to Rome and Byzantium.

Greeks continued to migrate in the following centuries. Many sought protection in a country with a culture and religion related to theirs. Greek clerics, soldiers and diplomats found employment in Russia and Ukraine while Greek merchants came to make use of privileges that were extended to them in Ottoman-Russian trade.

UnderCatherine the Great, Russian armies reached the shores of the Black Sea, followed by the foundation of Odessa (Odesa) – greatly facilitating the settlement of Greeks, many thousands of whom were settled in the empire’s south under this empress. During the 1828-29 war against theOttoman Empire and Russian occupation ofErzurum andGümüşhane many thousands ofPontic Greeks of the highland regions ofEastern Anatolia welcomed or collaborated with the invading Russian imperial army. They followed the Russians back into southern Russia and Georgia following the withdrawal from northeastern Anatolia and were resettled by the Russian authorities in southern Georgia and southern Russia and Ukraine. These Greeks are often referred to asGreek Pontians of Russia, while those of Georgia and theSouth Caucasus province ofKars Oblast are usually referred to asCaucasus Greeks.

There were over 500,000 Greeks in theRussian Empire prior to theRussian Revolution, between 150,000 and 200,000 of them within the borders of the present-dayRussian Federation.^[6]

There have been several notable Greeks from Russia likeIoannis Kapodistrias, diplomat of the Russian Empire who became the first head of state of Greece, and the painterArkhip Kuindzhi.

In the early years after theOctober Revolution of 1917, there were contradictory trends in Soviet governmental policies towards ethnic Greeks. Greeks engaged in trade or other occupations that marked them asclass enemies of theBolshevik government - who constituted a large part of the whole - were exposed to a hostile attitude.^[6] This was exacerbated due to the participation of a regiment from Greece, numbering 24,000 troops, in Crimea among the forces intervening on theWhite Russian side in theCivil War of 1919^[7]

About 50,000 Greeks emigrated between 1919 and 1924. After 1924 Soviet authorities pressed Greece torepatriate 70,000 Greeks from Russia; however, few actually had ancestors who were citizens of the Greek state.^[6]

On the other hand, as with other ethnic nationalities, the early Bolsheviks underVladimir Lenin and his immediate successors were willing to encourage ethnic culture manifestations of those ready to work within the new revolutionary regime.

In this framework, aRumaiic (Pontic Greek) revival occurred in the 1920s. TheSoviet administration established aGreek-Rumaiic theater, several magazines and newspapers and a number of Rumaiic language schools. The best Rumaiic poetGeorgi Kostoprav created a Rumaiic poetic language for his work. Promoting the Rumaiic, as against the Demotic Greek of Greece, was in effect a way of promoting the separate identity of Soviet Greeks versus Greeks in Greece and elsewhere outside the USSR. In the same spirit, A. A. Beletsky created aCyrillic alphabet for Pontic in 1969.^[8]

However, official promotion of the Rumaiic did not go unchallenged. In theΠανσυνδεσμιακή Σύσκεψη (All-Union Conference) of 1926, organized by the Greek-Russianintelligentsia, it was decided thatdemotic should be the official language of the community.^[9]

Different sources referring to this period differ in putting the emphasis on the positive or the negative aspects of the 1920s Soviet policy.

TheGreek Autonomous District in Southern Russia existed in years between 1930 and 1939. Its capital wasKrymskaya.

The policy underwent a sharp reversal in 1937. At the time of theMoscow Trials and the purges targeting various groups and individuals who arousedJoseph Stalin's often unbased suspicions, policies towards ethnic Greeks became unequivocally harsh and hostile. Kostoprav and many other Rumaiics and Urums were killed, and a large percentage of the population was detained and transported toGulags or deported to remote parts of the Soviet Union.

Greek Orthodox churches, Greek-language schools and other cultural institutions were closed. During the "Grecheskaya Operatsiya" (Греческая Операция), i.e.,Greek Operation^[a], launched on Stalin's orders in December 1937, there were mass arrests of Greeks, especially but not only wealthy and self-employed, affecting some 50,000 Greeks out of an overall community of 450,000.

In the immediate aftermath of the World War II German invasion of the Soviet Union, ethnic Greeks were included in the 1941–1942 "preventive" deportations of Soviet citizens of "enemy nationality", together with ethnic Germans, Finns, Romanians, Italians, and others - even though Greece fought on the Allied side. The Greeks then suffered under Nazi occupation and when Crimea was liberated in 1944, most of the Greeks were exiled toKazakhstan, along with theCrimean Tatars. (Some of these Greeks, known asUrums, spoke a variant of theCrimean Tatar language as the mother tongue they adopted during centuries of life in proximity to the Tartars).

In a further wave, about 100,000Pontic Greeks, including 37,000 in the Caucasus area alone, were deported to Central Asia in 1949 duringStalin's post-war deportations.

At about the same time, the last major immigration occurred in the opposite direction, of Greeks going to Russia and the Soviet Union. After the end of theGreek civil war the defeatedCommunist supporters became political refugees. Over 10,000 of them ended up in the Soviet Union.^[10]

After thede-Stalinization, Greeks were gradually allowed to return to their homes in the Black Sea region. Many have emigrated to Greece since the early 1990s.^[6]

A new attempt to preserve a sense of ethnic Rumaiic identity started in the mid-1980s. The Ukrainian scholarAndriy Biletsky created a new Slavonic alphabet but, though a number of writers and poets make use of this alphabet,^{[citation needed]} the population of the region rarely uses it.^[11]

Part ofa series on
Greeks
Etymology Greek names
By country Native communities Greece Cyprus Albania Italy Russia and Ukraine Turkey Greek diaspora Australia Melbourne Canada Toronto Germany United Kingdom United States
Groups by region Modern Greece: Macedonians Sarakatsani Maniots Tsakonians Constantinople and Asia Minor: Cappadocians Constantinopolitan Greeks Phanariots Karamanlides Pontic Caucasus Crimea Africa: Egyptiots Ethiopian Greeks Sudanese Greeks Other regions: Cypriots Griko Urums Other groups: Aromanians Arvanites Megleno-Romanians Slavophones Souliotes
Greek culture Art Cinema Cuisine Dance Dress Education Flag Language Literature Music Politics Religion Sport Television Theatre
Religion Greek Orthodox Church Greek Roman Catholicism Greek Byzantine Catholicism Greek Evangelicalism Judaism Islam Hellenism
Languages and dialects Greek: Australian Calabrian Cappadocian Constantinopolitan Cretan Cypriot Griko Hellenoromani Himariote Maniot Mariupol Pontic Tsakonian Yevanic Greeklish Other languages Aromanian Arvanitika Greek Sign Language Karamanli Turkish Megleno-Romanian Slavic Urum
History of Greece (Ancient ·Byzantine ·Ottoman)
v t e

Many Greeks in the Soviet Union sought to emigrate toGreece in the final years before thedissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1990, 22,500Pontian Greeks left theSoviet Union, a dramatic increase from previous years. Figures for 1991 indicate that about 1,800 left every month, primarily from Central Asia and Georgia.

Today most Greeks in the former USSR speakRussian,^[12][13] with a significant number speaking their traditionalPontic Greek. Pontian is a Greek dialect that derives from the ancientIonic Greek dialect and resembles ancient Greek more than the modern "demotic" Greek language.

Until recently, the ban on teaching Greek in Soviet schools meant that Pontian was spoken only in a domestic context. Consequently, many Greeks, especially those of the younger generation, speak Russian as their first language.^[13]

Linguistically, Greeks are far from being unified. In Ukraine alone, there are at least five documented Greek linguistic groups, which are broadly categorized as the "Mariupol dialect", a term derived from the city ofMariupol, a traditional center of this community. Other Greeks in theCrimea speakTatar, and in regions such asTsalka in Georgia there are numerousTurkophone Greeks.^[13]

Greeks were permitted to teach their own language again duringPerestroika, and a number of schools are now teaching Greek. Because of their stronglyphilhellenic sentiments and ambitions to live in Greece, this is normally modern,Demotic Greek rather than Pontian.

CosmonautFyodor Yurchikhin has Greek Ancestry.

Close to 35% of the Russian Greeks live in the Caucasian province ofStavropol Krai, mainlyCaucasus Greeks andPontic Greeks. The city ofYessentuki is regarded as the Greek cultural capital of Russia. Many of the famous Greek Russians, likeEuclid Kyurdzidis hail from this city where Greeks constitute 5.7% (Up from 5.4% in 1989) of the total population. Greeks constitute 3% (2.9% in 1989) of the population inZheleznovodsk City and 4.7% in Inozemtsevo (5.1% in 1989). But the majority of the Greeks live in the rural regions of Stavropol and major concentrations can be found in the rural districts of Andropovsky (3.3% in 2002, 2.1% in 1989), Mineralovodsky (3.8% in 2002, 3.4% in 1989) and Predgorny (16.0% in 2002, 12.2% in 1989).^[14] While the ethnic Greek population decreased in many provinces due to emigration, in the Stavropol province it actually rose from 26,828 in 1989 to 34,078 in 2002. A significant ethnic Greek population also exists in nearbyKrasnodar Krai.

Yanis Kanidis, a man who rescued children in theBeslan hostage crisis, was of Greek descent.

In recent years, many Russian émigrés of Greek descent who had left in the early 1990s have returned to Russia, often with their Greece-born children. The return emigration is largely due to the economic crisis that Greece has been experiencing since 2008.

According to the2010 Russian Census, 33.573 people registered themselves asGreeks inStavropol Krai, making up 1.2% of the whole population and 22.595 people in theKrasnodar Krai, making up 0.4%.^[15]

• Ancient Greek towns
• 
  Tanais
• 
  Gorgippa
• 
  Hermonassa
• 
  Phanagoria

• Other places
• 
  Alferaki Palace inTaganrog
• 
  Arkhip Kuindzhi Apartment Museum inSaint Petersburg
• 
  Monument ofIoannis Kapodistrias in Saint Petersburg
• 
  Greek Jerusalem monastery in Taganrog (demolished)

• Diamanti-Karanou, Panagoula. "Migration of ethnic Greeks from the former Soviet Union to Greece, 1990-2000: Policy decisions and implications."Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 3.1 (2003): 25-45.

• Greek diaspora by country
• Ethnic groups in Russia
• Greek diaspora in Russia
• Soviet people of Greek descent
• Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast

• CS1: unfit URL
• Articles with Greek-language sources (el)
• Webarchive template wayback links
• CS1 uses Greek-language script (el)
• CS1 Greek-language sources (el)
• Articles with Russian-language sources (ru)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from July 2023
• "Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation
• Articles using infobox ethnic group with image parameters
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from August 2025
• Articles with unsourced statements from June 2010