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Approximately 9,000 ethnic Greeks live in Uzbekistan. The community is made up of Greeks from Russia who were deported by force from that country in the 1940s, and political refugees from Greece. About 30,000 Greeks lived in the country before World War II and a further 11,000 arrived after the Greek Civil War. Their numbers have dwindled from a low of some 40,000 in the 1960's. The main reason is emigration to Greece after the end of the Cold War when laws allowed the return of all ethnic Greeks who had been exiled for political reasons after the Greek Civil War. The biggest Greek community in the country is in the capital city of Tashkent where most of the Greek political refugees were relocated by the Soviet authorities.[1] In ancient times the south of the country was part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Kingdom but the few Greek communities there have since assimilated. [2]
The most important organization representing ethnic Greeks is the Greek Cultural Association of Tashkent. The activities of this organization include Greek language instruction (19 classes with a total of 571 students, classes for adults) and the teaching of Greek dances and music.[3] Each summer, the Tashkent Greek Culture Society sends a group of schoolchildren, usually 30-40 persons, to Greece for about one month. They spend three weeks at a summer camp and an additional week with their relatives in Greece. A group of Uzbekistani Greek pensioners visits Greece each year. The Society also organizes a class in the Greek language that meets twice a week.
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