The Karaites in contemporary Lithuania and the former USSR
EN[...] In Lithuania the censuses of 1989 and 1997 offer the figures 289 and 25 7, respectively, as the size of the Karaim community. Approximately 130 Karaims lived in Poland. 8 Of the former Ukrainian communities, there are not more than eight or ten Karaims living in Galic (Halicz) and in Zalukva (Zalukiew), a village in its vicinity. As for other countries, no reliable statistics are available. On the basis of the former figures, we may estimate that two thousand Karaims live in Russia and the Ukraine, where especially the communities in the Crimea, with a membership of 800, have shown new signs of revival in the recent past. Associations of Karaims were established in Moscow, Leningrad and other chief cities in the last years of the 1980s and the beginning of the '90s. Despite the fact that their activities have not been very prominent, they nevertheless serve as means of inviting and bringing together the undoubtedly numerous Karaims who, although aware of their roots, have been officially registered as Russians, Ukrainians etc. The emigre communities are on the verge of extinction. As for the present day, we may conclude that active Karaim life can be found in two regions in Eastern Europe, i.e. in Lithuania and Poland, and, to a lesser degree, in the Crimea. [...].
