HERE'S AN ARTICLE ON A KARAITE COMMUNITY IN THE CRIMEA:

Breakaway sect from Judaism
shrinking in numbers in Ukraine
By Vladimir Matveyev (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
September 28, 2005


EVPATORIA, Ukraine, Sept. 28 (JTA) - Residents of this small Black Sea resort town like to call their city "the Jerusalem of the Crimea."

They have good reason: Evpatoria, population 120,000, is home to about 800 Karaites, members of a sect that broke off from mainstream Judaism in eighth-century Iraq.

Karaites accept the Torah and celebrate most Jewish holidays, but they reject the Talmud and rabbinical Judaism, and have clashed with mainstream Jewish leaders over the centuries.

[...]

Estimates of the worldwide Karaite population range from 24,000 to 50,000. The largest number live in Israel, where they have a separate Beit Din, or rabbinical court, and are not allowed to marry Jews. About 2,000 live in the United States, and smaller but tightly-knit groups persist in Lithuania, Poland, Russia and the Crimea.

[...]