Romani people in Russia

Romani people in Russia (Цыгане в России) number around 204,958, according to the 2010 national census. In the mid-1920s Romani people in Russia were classified as a national minority of Indian origin and policies in Russia were developed to assimilate them. In the 1930s many Roma from Russia were deported to Siberia. Russian Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev decreed that Roma must be settled in 1956. There was a cultural revival in the last decades of the Soviet Union when the Moscow Romani theatre was established in Russia. The Roma first arrived in Russia around 1500.