Ossetians (The Iranian people of Caucasus)

Ossetians are an ethnic group that live in South Ossetia on the southern side of the Caucasus mountains in central Georgia and North Ossetia in southern Russia. Descendants of Scythian horsemen from north of the Black Sea, they speak an Iranian Indo-European language and are primarily Christians but some are Muslims. The Ossetians are of Iranian and Caucasian origin. In the first centuries A.D., Ossetia was occupied by the Alani tribe, ancestors of the modern Ossetians. In the thirteenth century, the Tatars drove the Alani into the mountains; Russian settlers began arriving in the eighteenth century. Russia annexed Ossetia in 1861. The Ossetians have two autonomous regions: the South Ossetia Autonomous Region in Georgia and the Republic of North Ossetian in Russia. The regions are divided by the Caucasus mountains. Like Abkhazians, Ossetians and are non-Georgians, and many of them wish to secede from Georgia. There are about a half million Ossetians. Most live in and form the majority in No