Member of a Turkic-speaking, mainly Muslim
people, the descendants of the mixed Mongol
and Turkic followers of Genghis Khan, called
the Golden Horde because of the wealth they
gained by plunder. They now live mainly in
Tatar and Uzbekistan (where they were
deported from the Crimea 1944) and SW
Siberia, USSR. Their language belongs to the
Altaic family. Following Tatar demonstrations
in Moscow July 1987 demanding the restoration
of the Crimea as an autonomous republic to
which they could return, a special commission
was established under Andrei Gromyko to look
into the community's grievances. It reported
that such a move was not feasible because the
Crimea had been repopulated by Russians and
Ukrainians since 1944.