From the Baltic Sea to the Balkan peninsula. Estonian and Greek communities in Abkhazia.
The Greek community
At the beginning of the 1990s more than 15 thousand Greeks lived in Abkhazia, now the number of the Greeks living in Abkhazia is less than 2 thousand. The history of the Greek community is terrifying: in 1949 Joseph Stalin order the deportation of 30 thousand Greeks to Kazakhstan. A lot of those people perished during deportation.
Two years ago the Greek cultural center "Irini" held a meeting at which the name of organization was changed to "Dioskuriada". The center is aimed at popularizing Greek national traditions, the Greek language, culture and customs.
The Estonian diaspora
The history of the Estonian diaspora in Abkhazia dates back to the 19th century, when the Tsarist government initiated the massive immigration of Estonians to the Caucasus. The authorities promised the new settlers that they would be free from taxes and obligatory military service.
The national identity of the Estonians was preserved by the system of education in the native language, cultural links with their homeland and of course the Evangelical Church. After the October Revolution the Estonian community in Abkhazia demanded autonomy, but eventually the territories inhabited by the Estonians became part of the Russian Soviet Socialist Federative Republic.
Pavel Martynov. Exclusively to VK
