Large communities (around 25% of the population) of Christian Pontic Greeks remained throughout the Pontus area (including Trabzon and Kars in northeastern Turkey/the Russian Caucasus) until the 1920s, and in parts of Georgia and Armenia until the 1990s, preserving their own customs and dialect of Greek. It's estimated 345,000 Pontic Greeks live in Turkey as of 2018, although many still are in hiding and afraid of exposing their identity and religion due to ethnic tension, there are also converted ethnic Pontic Greeks whom after several generations have additionally been Turkified and assimilated.