Abaza are an indigenous small people of Russia, which belongs to the Abkhaz-Adyg language group. More than 40 thousand Abaza live in Russia. Abkhazians and Abaza together represent a single people - Abaza. In Russia, Abaza live compactly in 13 villages of Karachay-Cherkessia, some of which are part of the Abaza region. The number of Abaza abroad, according to various estimates, ranges from 100 to 250 thousand. They live in more than 20 countries of the world, but most of the representatives of the ethnic group ended up in Turkey, Syria and Jordan because of the Caucasian War.
Abaza are autochthons (indigenous people) of the Greater Caucasus. The territory of the formation of the Abaza people is considered both the southern and northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Range. Back in the IV-III millenniums BC, the ancestors of the Abaza lived on both sides of the Main Caucasian Range, as evidenced by the ancient grave burials discovered by archaeologists, characteristic of the Abaza and Abkhazians. Similar finds testify to the habitation of the ancestors of the Abaza in the Kuban basin along its tributaries Teberda and Kyafaru in the III-II millennium BC.