Shapsugs

The Shapsugs are a Circassian people of the north-western Caucasus who lived along the Black Sea coast and the northern slopes of the mountains between Anapa and the Sochi area. Among the largest western Circassian communities, they broke the power of their nobles in the late eighteenth century and were governed by assemblies. Most were expelled to the Ottoman Empire in 1864; a small community remains near Sochi.