The Bashkir of Turkmenistan

The Bashkir of Turkmenistan, numbering approximately 8,700 people, are Unengaged and Unreached. They are a Turkic-speaking people indigenous to Russia's southern Ural region. Centered in Bashkortostan, they share a common language, homeland, and cultural heritage shaped by pastoral traditions, agriculture, and Sunni Islam. They mostly adhere to Sunni Islam and Bashkir is their primary language.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: Bashkir

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Turkic Peoples
Country: Turkmenistan
People Cluster: Ural-Siberian
Primary Language(s): Bashkir (bak)
Primary Religion(s): Sunni Islam
Population: 8,700
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG024607
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Pray for the Bashkir of Turkmenistan

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Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Sunni Islam
Religious Affiliation: Islam

72%
%
Sunni Islam Adherents

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bashkir
Language Family: Turkic

100%
%
Bashkort Speakers

Media Resources in Bashkir:

Films:
TitleLink
JESUSView Film
MagdalenaView Film

2 films

Bible Resources in Bashkir:

Bible Name (Translation)VideoAudioText
Institute for Bible Translation✓✓✓

1 entry

Or check out the Bashkir bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 0), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Bashkir:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

Pray specifically for the Bashkir of Turkmenistan

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
readExodus 2:23-24

As the lost among them labor, groan, and cry out under false religions and sin, pray God will have mercy on them and hear their cries, that He will be their Rescuer from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.
readMatthew 13:8-9

Pray that they will have open hearts and minds to the Word of God, and that it will take root in their lives and bear fruit for His glory.

In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
readJohn 14:2-3

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will persevere in hope, remembering that Jesus went to prepare a place for them to be with Him for eternity!

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
readJohn 12:24

Pray that God will raise up men and women who are willing to die to their own desires, bearing much fruit for the kingdom among individuals and in places where His gospel has not been proclaimed.

Bashkir Across Countries (ROP3 - 101100) reported in the following countries:

Strategic Progress Index
All

5 people groups

PhotoPeople Group IDNameCountryPopulation ▼Strategic Progress IndexLanguageReligion
BashkirBashkirRussian Federation1,700,000Engaged yet UnreachedBashkirSunni Islam
BashkirBashkirUzbekistan64,500Unengaged and UnreachedBashkirSunni Islam
BashkirBashkirKazakhstan31,000Unengaged and UnreachedBashkirSunni Islam
BashkirBashkirTurkmenistan8,700Unengaged and UnreachedBashkirSunni Islam
BashkirBashkirKyrgyzstan375Unengaged and UnreachedBashkirSunni Islam

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Data Standards section.

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