Russians in Bulgaria
Russians form the fourth largest ethnic group in Bulgaria, numbering 9,978 according to the 2011 census, and mostly living in the large urban centres, such as Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas. Although the largest wave of Russian settlers arrived following the events surrounding the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War, compact groups of Russians had been living in Bulgaria for centuries before that.
Among the early Russian settlers were Old Believer Nekrasov Cossacks, some of which founded the village of Tataritsa in then-Ottoman-ruled Southern Dobruja in 1674, building a church in 1750. Another Russian-inhabited village in the northeast of Bulgaria is Kazashko in Varna Province, where descendants of Kuban and Don Cossacks have been living since 1905. The members of these Old Believer communities are locally known as Lipovans and belong to a group also inhabiting Romania and Ukraine. Their main occupation is fishing, in the Danube for the Lipovans in Tataritsa and in Lake Varna for those in Kazashko.
Following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, largely fought on what is today Bulgarian territory, and the Liberation of Bulgaria to which it led in 1878, a transitional Russian administration was established with Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Dondukov-Korsakov as its head.
Following their defeat by the Red Guards in the Russian Civil War, many White Guards fled to Bulgaria seeking refuge. They initially numbered around 24-29,000, but some 4,000 received amnesty and returned to the Soviet Union and many others were expelled under Aleksandar Stamboliyski. With Bulgaria becoming part of the Eastern bloc following World War II, a number of Russians emigrated to the country. Today, foreign businessmen living in Bulgaria are eligible for Bulgarian passport under specific conditions.
Nowadays, Russians in Bulgaria are represented by a number of organizations, such as Soyuz sootechestvenikov, the Union of Russian Citizens and the Society of White Guardsmen.
