The Romanians in Uzbekistan are an ethnic Romanian minority in Uzbekistan. In the 1989 Soviet census, 158 Romanians and 5,955 Moldovans, which Romanian media has claimed as also being part of the Romanian minority of the country, were registered in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.[1] Most of the Romanians in Uzbekistan come from the regions of Bessarabia, the Hertsa region and Northern Bukovina, all of which used to be part of Romania, but also from the Odesa and Zakarpattia Oblasts of modern-day Ukraine and the former Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where important Romanian communities live.
The Romanian minority of Uzbekistan arrived to this country through several migration waves. The first was during the period of rule of the Russian Empire over Bessarabia. Some Romanians migrated to modern Uzbekistan after being promised lands by the Russian authorities in areas such as the Fergana Valley,[1] with some posteriorly returning while others staying. Others migrated as military personnel, artisans, workers or civil servants.[1] Some ethnic Romanian POWs from World War 1 (mostly from Transsylvania which fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army), detained in Uzbekistan, decided to remain there after the end of the war.