Photograph of Gagauz families from Moldavian/Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republics and People's Republic of Bulgaria during the 1960/70's - Colorized by Simon Stamatov
The Gagauz are a Turkic-speaking people whose origins lie in the historical interaction of native inhabitants of the Black Sea region, who were either assimilated or intermarried with Oghuz Turkic peoples.
Many scholars believe that the Oghuz Turks in question were the Pechenegs, who entered Eastern Europe via the Eurasian steppes of Ukraine. While most Pechenegs assimilated into the surrounding Slavic (Kievan Rus’ and Bulgarian), Hungarian, and Romanian populations, some groups preserved their distinct identity and language, absorbing local inhabitants into their communities rather than disappearing entirely. The Gagauz are thought to descend from these latter groups, who eventually settled in the Balkans, particularly in what is now Bulgaria.
Unlike most Turkic-speaking populations in Eurasia who are Muslim, the Gagauz are a predominately Eastern Orthodox population, similar to the Chuvash of Russia.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Gagauz migrated northward into southern Moldova and southwestern Ukraine, often encouraged by the Russian Empire to settle in newly acquired lands in Bessarabia. The majority of them now live in Gagauzia, a region of southern Moldova.
