Krymchaki
Krymchaki
a small nationality living mainly in cities of the Crimean Oblast, Ukrainian SSR (Simferopol*, Sevastopol’, Kerch’, Feodosiia) and in the Caucasus (Novorossiisk, Sukhumi). Their language is related to the Turkic languages; how-ever, most of the Krymchaki consider their native language to be Russian. Religious Krymchaki profess Judaism. The ethnogeny of the Krymchaki has not yet been conclusively established. The Krymchaki apparently originate from the ancient local population (which adopted Judaism) with subsequent mixture of Jewish, Turkic, and possibly Italian (Genoese) elements.