Roma people in Russia

According to the 2010 national census, there were 204,958 Romani people living in the Russian Federation. Roma gypsies migrated to Russia in three main waves beginning at the late fifteenth century. In the mid-1920s Roma gypsies were classified as a national minority of Indian origin and policies in Russia were developed to assimilate them. In the 1930s many Roma were deported to Siberia. Russian Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev decreed that Roma must be settled in 1959.