Physical Address
Indirizzo: Via Mario Greco 60, Buttigliera Alta, 10090, Torino, Italy
In the waning months of World War II, a dark chapter unfolded for the Ahıska Turks residing in the strategically significant borderlands of Soviet Georgia, near today’s Türkiye-Georgia frontier.
On Nov. 14, 1944, under the explicit directive of Soviet leader Josef Stalin, thousands of Ahıska Turks were abruptly uprooted from their ancestral villages and forcibly deported in one of the Soviet Union’s most brutal population transfers.
The operation was orchestrated with military precision. Earlier, on Sept. 20, 1944, Stalin had authorized a decree aimed at relocating the Turkish and other Muslim minorities inhabiting the Ahıska region to remote Soviet territories. This edict targeted the ethnic composition of the border area at a time when geopolitical tensions between the USSR and Türkiye were rising, reflecting Stalin’s strategic calculus to secure Soviet borders.
While approximately 40,000 Ahıska men were engaged on the Eastern Front battling Nazi Germany, the deportation order fell upon their families left behind. Soviet People’s Commissar Lavrentiy Beria mobilized some 20,000 heavily armed troops to implement the forced displacement. The military swiftly surrounded key districts, Adıgön, Ahıska, Aspinza, Ahılkelek and Bagdonovka, encompassing over 220 villages, and commenced the operation.
In a matter of hours, the military, supported by trucks and armed personnel, forced entire communities, men, women, children and elderly alike, to prepare for relocation. Families were given only two hours to gather, under threat, leaving behind homes, livestock and vital winter food stores.
Transported under harsh military supervision, the deportees were crammed into freight wagons designed for cargo, not people. They were permitted to bring only a single bundle of belongings, a restriction that forced families to abandon most of their possessions and heritage. Some, harboring hope for a swift return, took no supplies at all, while others carried minimal essentials such as flour and corn.
The journey that followed was grueling. Over the course of 30 days, families endured overcrowding, starvation, freezing temperatures, and disease within these makeshift transports. The brutal conditions resulted in the deaths of an estimated 17,000 Ahıska Turks, an appalling human toll indicative of the severe neglect and inhumanity of the operation.
Upon arrival, the survivors found themselves scattered primarily across the vast and unfamiliar territories of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. These regions were under strict Soviet military administration that lasted from 1944 to 1956, during which Ahıska Turks faced harsh restrictions.
They were prohibited from leaving designated settlements, subjected to forced labor in severe conditions, and deprived of cultural and social freedoms. The deportation not only severed them physically from their homeland but also sought to dismantle their social fabric and identity.
The death of Stalin in March 1953 and the subsequent execution of Beria, who had orchestrated the deportations, brought incremental relief. However, the impact of forced exile lingered. Though some Ahıska Turks were allowed to return to the Caucasus region, their original homes in Ahıska, Georgia, remained inaccessible for decades. Many relocated to Azerbaijan, closer to their historical roots, while others remained dispersed in Central Asia.
The plight of the Ahıska Turks continued to draw hardship in the late 20th century. Violent ethnic clashes in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley in June 1989 triggered another wave of forced migration. Approximately 20,000 Ahıska Turks were relocated by Soviet authorities to Russia’s Krasnodar region. There, despite promises of integration, they faced systemic discrimination, were denied residency permits, and had limited access to education and healthcare.
Amid deteriorating conditions, the community sought international avenues for resettlement. Through the efforts of the United Nations International Organization for Migration, over 13,000 Ahıska Turks were resettled in the U.S. during 2004-2005, finding new opportunities but carrying with them the legacy of exile.
In 2014, escalating conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region once again placed Ahıska Turks in peril. Responding to this crisis, the Turkish government, under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, facilitated the safe relocation and resettlement of Ahıska Turks to districts such as Üzümlü in Erzincan and Ahlat in Bitlis within Türkiye.
Today, Ahıska Turks form vibrant communities not only across Türkiye’s major urban centers, such as Istanbul, Bursa, Ankara, Izmir, Denizli, Kocaeli, Eskişehir, and Antalya, but also across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Russia and the U.S. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) continue to support cultural preservation initiatives and facilitate visits to their ancestral homeland in Georgia’s Ahıska district, reinforcing bonds disrupted by decades of forced displacement.
