Its inhabitants were 3/4 Bulgarian and 1/4 Turkish before the Balkan Wars and the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). According to professor Lyubomir Miletich, the 1912 population contained 320 Bulgarian families.[2] Refugees from east of the Evros river and from Asia Minor arrived into the village. Its name was changed from the Turkish Dervent to the current Avas.