History of the Jews in South Ossetia an artillery shell in its facade. On Sundays, Baptist services are held there. According to the Soviet censuses of 1926 and 1939 there were about 2000 Jews in South Ossetia, all but a few in Tskhinvali. As late as 1926 almost a third of the town's inhabitants were Jews. Their number declined later as they moved to bigger cities of Soviet Union or emigrated to Israel or other countries. Most of the Jewish population fled South Ossetia for Israel and Georgia proper during the First Ossetian War in 1991. The remainder fled in advance of the 2008 war. Today, only
Russia–South Ossetia relations formally integrated into the Russian economy by treaty in March 2015. After being instructed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in March 2009, Russia allocated 2.8 billion rubles from the Russian federal budget, as part of agreements between the Russian Ministry of Finance and its South Ossetian counterpart, which were based on the treaty signed in September 2008. Russia also allocated an additional 8.5 billion rubles to South Ossetia in order to assist in rebuilding housing, social amenities and utilities which were destroyed or damaged during the 2008 war. According to Eduard Kokoity, seventy percent of residential housing and eighty