the USSR joined the diaspora in Turkey after World War II, and a small number migrated from Romania and Bulgaria to Turkey after the decline of communism. The Crimean Tatar diaspora in Turkey established several ethnic associations. Exile within the Soviet Union On May 18, 1944, the Soviet government deported the Crimean Tatars who were left in Crimea to Central Asia and Urals. After 1989, nearly 300,000 Tatars were able to return to Crimea from their places of deportation. Their return was met with the strong opposition of the rest of the population of Crimea. Another roughly 270,000 Crimean Tatars remain in Uzbekistan and other parts of the former Soviet Union. This population is best considered as an exiled community rather than a diaspora, although they might develop into a diaspora if their exile is prolonged. Diaspora within the Eastern Bloc and elsewhere The Crimean Tatar community in Romania, today numbering 24,000 (2002 Romanian Census) had been a very vibrant one until the beginning of the communist era in Romania. It has also recently experienced an ethnic revival and renewal of links with the homeland, as well as with other diaspora communities, particularly the one in Turkey. The Crimean Tatar diaspora community in Bulgaria number only in the thousands, but they also recently began to link themselves with their co-ethnics abroad, and especially with the repatriated Crimean Tatars. The Crimean Tatars in the United States are the highest number of the diaspora in the Western hemisphere; they are composed of refugees from Crimea, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Within the United States, the vast majority are concentrated along with other large post-Soviet refugee communities in New York City, particularly the neighborhood of Soho, wherein some conflict exists with extant ethnic Russian diaspora communities. Recent challenges The main challenges to the Crimean Tatar diaspora in the 1990s were the erosion of ethnic identity as a result of swift modernization of communities and the consequent difficulties in mobilization of resources among the apathetic diaspora members (especially in Turkey) in order to support the repatriation of co-ethnics. As in other diasporas, diaspora political activity is mostly conducted by elites and ethnic organizations. As in other diasporas, Crimean Tatars also suffered from problems stemming from the differentiation of their identities over time due to their acculturation into various host-societies. In the last decade, the various diaspora communities, as well as the homeland community, have been