page_title: Grey Ukraine
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Grey Ukraine / History
caption_attribution_description: English: "Grey Ukraine"
context_page_description: Grey Ukraine is an unofficial name for a region in Southern Siberia and Northern Kazakhstan, where there was mass settlement by Ukrainians at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. 1917-1920 there was a movement for a Ukrainian autonomy in the region.
context_section_description: The Ukrainian settlement of Siryi Klyn (literally: the "grey wedge") developed around the city of Omsk in western Siberia. M. Bondarenko, an emigrant from Poltava province, wrote before World War I: "The city of Omsk looks like a typical Moscovite city, but the bazaar and markets speak Ukrainian". All around the city of Omsk stood Ukrainian villages. The settlement of people beyond the Ural mountains began in the 1860s. Altogether before 1914 1,604,873 emigrants from Ukraine settled the area.
  Historical Grey Ukraine exists roughly within the present-day northern Kazakhstan and southern Siberia. It is not contiguous with other territories inhabited by Ukrainian diaspora. A similar situation of territorial isolation exists with the Green Ukraine.
  Most of the Ukrainian migrations to Siberia happened during the late 19th century and early 20th century. However, the migrations continued throughout the Soviet period. Nikita Khrushchev's virgin lands campaign during the 1950s managed to encourage the migration.
caption: The map of the location of the Grey Ukraine.
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