Both Pees and Jireček mention that the Gagauz in Bulgaria tended to register either as Greek because of their religion (clearly an outcome of the Ottoman millet-system) or as Bulgarian because of the newly emerging concept of nationalism.

They are also in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Brazil, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Turkey, and the Russian region of Kabardino-Balkaria.

During the Russian colonization of southern Bessarabia (Budjak), in the early 19th century, the Gagauz people moved from the eastern Balkans, beginning to stabilize their presence on the future territory of the Republic of Moldova.

The Gagauz are the third minority ethnic group in the Republic of Moldova, counting 126,010 people according to the 2014 census, i.e. 4.57% of the total population (without Transnistria).

[15][20] The fact that their religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity may suggest that their ancestors already lived in the Balkans before the Ottoman conquest in the late 14th century.

The same source places him in Crimea after 1265, among the Turkomans transferred there by Berke, khaghan of the Golden Horde, and after 1280 mentions him leading the nomads back to Dobruja.

The Gagauz called their language "Turkish" and claimed descent from then-Turkic-speaking Bulgars who in the 7th century established the First Bulgarian Empire on the Danube.

[24] According to a version of this hypothesis, the Gagauz immigrated to the Balkans from Anatolia and, while they kept their Greek Orthodox religion, they were linguistically assimilated (Turkified).

[24] According to this theory, the Gagauz are either direct descendants of the Medieval Bulgars, or of Slavic origin, being no different than the rest of the Bulgarians, before the Turkic language spread among them.

[24] Between 1820 and 1846, the Russian Empire allocated land to the Gagauz and gave them financial incentives to settle in Bessarabia in the settlements vacated by the Nogai tribes.

They settled in Bessarabia along with Bassarabian Bulgarians, mainly in Avdarma, Comrat (or Komrat), Congaz (Kongaz), Tomai, Cișmichioi and other former Nogai villages located in the central Budjak region.

Originally, the Gagauz also settled in several villages belonging to boyars throughout southern Bessarabia and the Principality of Moldavia, but soon moved to join their kin in the Bugeac.

[10] With the exception of a six-day independence in the winter of 1906, when a peasant uprising declared the autonomous Comrat Republic, the Gagauz people have mainly been ruled by the Russian Empire, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Moldova.

[citation needed] The wave of Stolypin agrarian policies carried some Gagauz to Kazakhstan between 1912 and 1914, and later yet another group settled in Uzbekistan during the very troubled years of initial collectivization.

So as not to lose their civil rights, they called themselves Bulgarians in the 1930s; the Gagauz of the village of Mayslerge in the Tashkent District retain that designation to this day.

[10] Gagauz nationalism remained an intellectual movement during the 1980s but strengthened by the end of the decade as both elites and opposition groups in the Soviet Union began to embrace nationalist ideals.

A year later, the "Gagauz People" held its first assembly which accepted the resolution to create an autonomous territory in the southern Moldavian SSR, with Comrat designated as capital.

The Gagauz nationalist movement increased in popularity when Moldovan was accepted as the official language of the Republic of Moldova in August 1989.

[citation needed] As a result of a referendum to determine Gagauzia's borders, thirty settlements (three towns and twenty-seven villages) expressed their desire to be included in the Gagauz Autonomous Territorial Unit.

In 1995, Gheorghe Tabunșcic was elected to serve as the Governor (Bashkan) of Gagauzia for a four-year term, as were the deputies of the local parliament, "The People's Assembly" (Halk Topluşu) and its chairman Petru Pașalî.

Despite a series of declarations about a renaissance of the Gagauz, the absence of the necessary conditions, including national-territorial autonomy, will make their realization difficult, and the people appear doomed to assimilation.

The Gagauz language is particularly close to the Balkan Turkish dialects spoken in Greece, northeastern Bulgaria, and in the Kumanovo and Bitola areas of North Macedonia.

[40][41][42] The traditional economy centered on animal husbandry (particularly sheep raising) and agriculture that combined grain and market gardening with viticulture.

A series of family holidays and rituals was connected with the baking of wheat bread, both leavened loaves (e.g., kalaches) and unleavened flatcakes.

The favorite dish was a layered pie stuffed with sheep's milk cheese and soaked with sour cream before baking.

The traditional ritual dish called kurban combined bulgar wheat porridge with a slaughtered (or sacrificed) ram and is further evidence of the origins of the Gagauz in both the Balkan world and the steppe-pastoral complex.

[citation needed] Toward the end of the 19th century, in good weather, a Gagauz woman's costume consisted of a canvas shirt, a sleeveless dress, a smock, and a large black kerchief.

In the 2001 Ukrainian census, the Gagauz population accounted for 31,923 people, with 27,617 (86.51%) of them living in the Budjak area of the Bessarabian region of Odesa Oblast, primarily in and around the cities of Izmail, Reni, and Kiliya, as well as the Bolhrad Raion (district).

A notable Ukrainian Gagauz was Mykola Palas (born 1980), who served as a colonel during the Russo-Ukrainian War and is a recipient of the Hero of Ukraine award.

Gagauz live in the south and southwest of Odesa region in Bolhrad (18.7%), Reni (7.9%), Bessarabske (6.0%), Kiliia (3.8%), and Artsyz (1.8%) areas.