The Lipovans or Lippovans are ethnic Russian Old Believers living in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria who settled in the Principality of Moldavia, in the east of the Principality of Wallachia (Muntenia), and in the regions of Dobruja and Budjak during the 17th and 18th centuries. According to the 2011 Romanian census, there are a total of 23,487 Lipovans in Romania, mostly living in Northern Dobruja, in the Tulcea County but also in the Constanța County, and in the cities of Iași, Brăila and Bucharest. In Bulgaria, they inhabit two villages: Kazashko and Tataritsa.

The Russians are an East Slavic ethnic group indigenous to Eastern Europe, who share a common Russian ancestry, culture, and history. Russian, the most spoken Slavic language, is the shared mother tongue of the Russians; Orthodox Christianity has been their majority religion since the formation of a Russian identity in the Middle Ages. They are the largest Slavic nation and the largest European nation.