Like Armenians , Assyrians , and other Ottoman subjects , the Greeks of Trebizond and the short-lived Russian Caucasus province of Kars ( which , in 1918 , fell back under Ottoman control ) suffered widespread massacres and what is now usually termed ethnic cleansing at the beginning of the 20th century , first by the Young Turks , and later by Kemalist forces . In both cases , the pretext was again that the Pontic Greeks and Armenians had collaborated or fought with the forces of their Russian co-religionists and " protectors " before the termination of hostilities between the two empires that followed the October Revolution . Death marches through Turkey 's mountainous terrain , forced labour in the infamous " Amele Taburu " in Anatolia , and slaughter by the irregular bands of Topal Osman resulted in tens of thousands of Pontic Greeks perishing during the period from 1915 to 1922 . In 1923 , after hundreds of years , those remaining were expelled from Turkey to Greece as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey defined by the Treaty of Lausanne . In his book '' Black Sea '' , author Neal Ascherson writes : The suffering of the Pontian Greeks did not end upon their violent and forceful departure from the lands of their ancestors . Many Pontian Greek refugees perished during the voyage from Asia Minor to Greece . Notable accounts of these voyages have been included in Steve Papadopoulos ’ work on Pontian culture and history . Pontian Greek immigrants to the United States from that era were quoted as saying : According to the 1928 census of Greece , there were in total 240,695 Pontic Greek refugees in Greece . From Russia 11,435 , from the Caucasus 47,091 , and , from the Pontus region of Anatolia , 182,169 . In Turkey , however , together with Crypto-Armenians surfacing it has also given the Pontic community in Turkey more attention , estimates are up to 345,000 Pontic Greeks ( Turkish : '' Pontus Rumları '' ) , presumably more , since ethnic minorities in Turkey have been through persecution
Ottoman subjects
Greek genocide
Pontic Greeks