Deportation of the Soviet Greeks

The deported Soviet and foreign Greeks residing along the coast of Crimea and the Caucasus were resettled in cattle trains to the modern Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, while their property, which was left behind, was confiscated.

[17] On 9 August 1937, NKVD order 00485 was adopted to target "subversive activities of Polish intelligence" in the Soviet Union, but was later expanded to also include Latvians, Germans, Estonians, Finns, Greeks, Iranians and Chinese.

[20] Joseph Stalin sought to implement Korenizatsiia among Soviet ethnic groups which showed signs of national affiliation, ultimately leading to Russification of these areas.

About eight or ten families in each cargo train, with the animals .... Once we arrived, I remember I was still a child, most people were dying from diarrhea.

[30]Another deportee, Lefteris, gave a 1992 interview about his experience: From Batumi, there were two cargo trains with at least twelve wagons each.

When we reached different stations we stopped and we had watered-down soup which they gave us in cups and a piece of bread, enough, that is, so that we wouldn't die of starvation.

[32] The deported people lived in tents and worked in exhausting conditions in mining, construction, agriculture, and other.

[36] According to the Head of the Georgian SSR Statistical Department, 8,334 Greeks were left on the Black Sea coast in the mid-1950s.

[37] On 25 September 1956, MVD Order N 0402 was adopted and defined the removal of restrictions towards the deported peoples in the special settlements.

At the time of the 1949 deportation, it was estimated that there were 41,000 Greeks residing in Abkhaz ASSR inside Georgian SSR.

[25] Russian historian Alexander Nekrich assumes that the Greeks were deported in 1949 because of the alliance of Greece with the UK.

[45] Other interpretations include the Soviet need for workforce in the remote areas of Central Asia to achieve the Five-year plan.