Where we were scattered
The people’s home associations
In November 1944 trains took people from the same villages to different ends of the country. Today the people live in nine lands — and each will one day choose its elders.
8
countries of dispersal
The path of the people
1944 — todayThe deportation
Over a few November days the whole people was taken from 212 villages — the old, the women, the children. About a month in freight wagons — to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
92,307 people · 212 villages
Sources ↓The deportation
Over a few November days the whole people was taken from 212 villages — the old, the women, the children. About a month in freight wagons — to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
92,307 people · 212 villages
Sources ↓Lines show directions, not the routes of the trains. Figures come from the sources in the chronicle below.
Chronicle of the scattering
194414–26 November
The deportation
The operation was carried out on 14–26 November 1944. People were given hours to pack; many men were at the front at the time. Kurds and Hemshins were deported together with the Ahıska Turks. According to NKVD data, 92,307 Turks were deported; 52,163 were settled in the Uzbek SSR, 25,598 in the Kazakh SSR and 10,546 in the Kyrgyz SSR. The last trains reached Tashkent at the end of January 1945. By different counts, between 12,500 and 15,000 people died on the way and in the first years.
195628 April
Special regime lifted
A decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet of 28 April 1956 lifted special-settlement restrictions from Turks, Kurds and Hemshins. Property taken during the deportation was not returned, and the decree did not allow people to go back to the places they had been deported from. Earlier, in 1948, a decree had declared that the deportees were to remain in their places of settlement forever.
196830 May
Anywhere but home
The decree of 30 May 1968 acknowledged the deportation but claimed the deportees had “taken root” in Central Asia. In these years the people kept asking to return: congresses gathered, delegations went to Moscow with letters. Return to Ahıska was still not allowed.
1989May — June
Fergana
In the summer of 1989 the army evacuated 17,000 Ahıska Turks from the Fergana Valley; tens of thousands more left Uzbekistan after them. In Azerbaijan families settled in Saatly, Sabirabad and Khachmaz; in Russia — in Kuban, the Rostov and Belgorod regions and Kabardino-Balkaria; some moved to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and in 1990 to southern Ukraine. On 14 November 1989 the USSR Supreme Soviet declared the forced resettlement of peoples illegal and criminal.
19922 July
Türkiye
Law No. 3835 of 2 July 1992 “On the Admission and Settlement of Ahıska Turks in Türkiye”. Under it and after it about 50,000 people moved to Türkiye: to Bursa, Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya, Aydın, Çanakkale, Denizli and other cities.
2004–2007February 2004 — 2007
Across the ocean
In February 2004 the USA opened a resettlement programme for the Ahıska Turks of Krasnodar Krai. By the time it closed in 2007 about 12,000 people had been granted refugee status; by other counts about 14,000 arrived in all. Today communities live in Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and other states.
200711 July
The road home
The Law of Georgia of 11 July 2007 “On the repatriation of persons forcibly exiled from the Georgian SSR by the former USSR in the 1940s”. Repatriate status opened a simplified path to citizenship. About 5,800 families applied, but because of demanding document requirements few could complete the process.
201525 December
From Donbas to Anatolia
Türkiye built housing for families from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions: the first settlers arrived in Erzincan on 25 December 2015. Under the settlement plan, 595 families went to Üzümlü and 72–82 families to Ahlat on the shore of Lake Van.
where we are today
One people — many homes
By census: Russia (2021) — 120,800 people who called themselves Turks or Meskhetian Turks; Kazakhstan (2021) — 85,478; Kyrgyzstan (2022) — 45,899. In Azerbaijan, by the estimate of the “Vatan” society, more than 100,000 (many were recorded as Azerbaijanis in censuses). In Türkiye — tens of thousands; in the USA — more than 12,000 who arrived in 2004–2007 and their children. No one has an exact total.
Historic homeland
Ahıska
Mountains above the Kura — the land where it all began
Where we are now
Türkiye
The minarets of Istanbul and Bursa — the largest community lives here
Large community
Qazaqstan
Steppe and horses — Kazakh land received the trains of 1944
Large community
Россия
The sunflowers of Kuban and Rostov — thousands of families live there today
Large community
Azərbaycan
Odlar Yurdu, the Land of Fire — the native tongue is very close
Large community
Oʻzbekiston
Hot bread from the tandoor — Fergana was the first home after the deportation
Notable community
Кыргызстан
An eagle over Ala-Too — mountains like the ones at home
Notable community
USA
Dayton, Atlanta, Kentucky — the community grew after 2004
Notable community
Україна
Wheat fields — families fled here after Fergana in 1989
Scattered in small groups
Only countries and numbers here. There is no list of people by country — not on the site, not underneath it: a list of “who is Ahıska and where they live” once already became a disaster for our people.