Transnistria: perhaps the least known "country" of Europe

This is a translated version of a text that appeared elsewhere before. It was written in February 2006 and there have been some interesting developments in the mean time. Oh, and I’m just publishing this, I didn’t write it of course.

As part of a part of a seminar in Moldova, I’ve paid a visit to Transnistria (or Pridnestrovie/Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic). It’s officially a part of Moldova (east of the Nistru/Dniester river), but it declared independence in 1990. During the fall of the Soviet Union the 14th army stayed there which made de facto independence possible.

I didn’t expect at all thatwe could visit it because it generally isn’t easy (depending on where you cross the border it seems). There aren’t a lot of people from the West who visit it, although it’s a very interesting “country’. Where in Europe can you find a real Soviet-like dictatorship without freedom of expression, military with red star in each street and weapons for everyone to get? No nukes by the way, they say, but I’ve heard prices for things like bazookas. (This may be a little bit overstated but neutral information doesn’t exist.)

If you walk around in Tiraspol (the capital) it’s like if you were in the Soviet Union: huge statues of Lenin, plaques with hammer and sickle, communist-sober buildings, tanks along the streets with “Pro Patria!” in Russian that are used to take marriage pictures…

It’s not a communist country however: it’s ruled the same president since it’s inception and more or less controlled by the Sheriff company which is officially not his or his family’s property, but in reality that could be a bit different. If you ask people there whose property the company is, they will say that they don’t know (it’s not really something to talk about). Sheriff owns stores, gas stations, a TV station, the soccer club… The beautiful catholic orthodox church in downtown Tiraspol has been thouroughly renovated with money from Sheriff. In a real communist country, a company would never have such an influence — consequently it’s a dictatorship. It’s really unreal to talk with fellow Europeans in the 21st century and notice that they hesitate when answering some questions because they risk being arrested by police because of state unfriendly language.

A bit more about the conflict: both Moldova (predominantly “Romanians”) and “Transnistrians” (predominantly Russians/Ukrainians) say it’s theirs while the “independence” is only somewhat acknowledged by Ukraine and Russia. Moldova however doesn’t have enough military strength and especially Ukraine and the European Union don’t care too much. That’s why this regime was able to establish — it’s a frozen conflict. This quite has some consequences for its people, even when ignoring the fact that they live in a dictatorship: their Transnistrian passports aren’t accepted in other countries neither their Transnistrian rubbles. A lot of people works illegally in other countries and human trafficking is a considerable problem. (Usually citizens can get a passport of a neighboring country however.)

Quite an unreal experience altogether.

More information:

• Wikipedia/Transnistria
• Tiraspol Times (local government newspaper, so it’s at least somewhat biased)
• Pridnestrovie (government operated and so biased that it’s not funny anymore)
• Transnistria.MD (from the Moldovan site, so it’s at least somewhat biased)