Gagauz

The Gagauzs are a Turkic people minority of Southern Moldova (in Gagauzia) and of the Southern Bessarabia (Bugeac) that numbers around 250,000.

They are probably the descendents of the Oghuz Turks that settled down in this area in the 11th century and adopted Christianity. In fact they, along with the Chuvash people of the Russian Federation, are the only ethnic Turkic groups which are predominantly Christian (and Eastern Orthodox).

The Gagauz language was written in the Greek alphabet up to 1957 when a modified form of Cyrillic was adopted.

There is a related ethnic group also called Gagauz living in the European side of Turkey and in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and they are Muslims.

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