Deportation of the Soviet Greeks

The deportation of the Soviet Greeks (Greek: Εκτοπισμός Ελλήνων της Σοβιετικής Ένωσης, Russian: депортация греков в СССР) was a series of forced transfers of Greeks of the Soviet Union that was ordered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and carried out by the NKVD and the MVD in 1942, 1944 and 1949. It affected mostly Pontic Greeks along the Black Sea coast, most notably from Krasnodar Krai from where they were deported in all three deportations, resulting in ethnic cleansing of this area. 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. After de-Stalinization in the 1950s, some Greeks returned to their original homes, but most chose to emigrate to Greece, marking the end of the centuries long Greek community along the Black Sea coast. It is estimated that around 70,000 to 80,000 Greeks were uprooted in these three waves of deportations.^{[nb 1]} At least 15,000 Greeks had died by the end of the deportations.^[6] Some scholars characterize the deportation as a genocide against Greeks.^[7][8]

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