Turk, Meskhetian

Meskhetian Turks, who call themselves Ahıska Turks after the town of Akhaltsikhe (Ahıska), are Turkish-speaking Muslims whose homeland is the Meskheti region of southern Georgia, on the Turkish border. Turkic tribes settled there from the 11th-12th centuries and the region was Ottoman from the 16th century until Russia annexed it in 1829. On 15 November 1944 Stalin deported over 115,000 of them to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and an estimated 30,000-50,000 died. Barred from returning, they were attacked again in the 1989 Fergana Valley pogroms in Uzbekistan and scattered to Azerbaijan, Russia (Krasnodar), Ukraine, Türkiye and, after 2004, the United States. Today some 500,000-600,000 live in about nine countries, with only a few hundred back in Georgia.

Ahıska Turks keep a strongly family-centred, close-knit culture shaped by exile. Weddings last two days, with an engagement party (nişan) where sherbet is shared and a plate is broken; boys' circumcision is celebrated with music, Qur'an recitation and a sponsor (kirve). Their eastern Anatolian Turkish dialect, close to that of Kars and Ardahan, carries loanwords from Russian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Uzbek and Kazakh and is often written in Cyrillic. The anniversary of the 1944 deportation each November is the central communal remembrance, and associations such as the World Ahıska Turks Union (DATÜB) link the scattered communities.

Meskhetian Turks are mostly Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school, with a small Shia minority. Soviet atheism and the deportation weakened formal practice, but Islam and Turkishness were the two markers of identity that set them apart and for which they suffered, and religious practice has revived since 1991, especially in Türkiye. Folk customs around weddings, births and funerals remain important.

• Bible translation: Turkish full Bible; many also read Russian.
• Jesus Film: Turkish and Russian versions.
• Audio: GRN lists a Meskhetian Turk entry for Türkiye; Turkish recordings.
• Christian presence: None known (JP 0%; IMB: no known evangelicals).
• Barriers: Identity bound to Turkishness and Islam forged through persecution; close-knit communities.

On 15 November 1944 Soviet troops surrounded the Meskhetian villages and deported over 115,000 people in cattle wagons to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, accused without evidence of sympathy for Türkiye; 30,000-50,000 died in transit and in the special settlements, and the Soviet government acknowledged the deportation only in 1968. In June 1989 pogroms in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley killed about a hundred and drove some 70,000 to Azerbaijan and Russia. Families in Krasnodar, denied residence rights, were resettled to the United States from 2004; those in eastern Ukraine fled the 2014 war and were resettled by Türkiye in Erzincan and Bitlis, and more were evacuated in 2022. Georgia's 2007 repatriation law has brought back only a few hundred.