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unrecognizedРепублика Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ Приднестровская Молдавская Республика Придністровська Молдавська Республіка
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Anthem of Transnistria
Capitaland largest city	Tiraspol
Official languages	Russian, Ukrainian, Moldovan
Government	Semi-presidential
• President	Igor Smirnov
Independence from Moldova
• Declared	September 2 1990
• Recognition	unrecognized
• Water (%)	2.35
Population
• 2005 estimate	555,000 (166)
• 2004 census	555,347
Currency	Transnistrian ruble (PRB)
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)
Calling code	373 5 +373 2
Internet TLD	none
.ru and .md sometimes used.

Transnistria (also Pridnestrovie) is a breakaway territory within the internationally recognized legal boundaries of the Republic of Moldova in eastern Europe. Transnistria declared its independence as a separate republic of the U.S.S.R. on September 2, 1990 (as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic) and subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union has exercised de facto control over most of the Transnistrian region. Its independence has not been recognized, and its legal status continues to be an issue of contention.

Names

Most commonly known in English as Transnistria (as it is also called in Romanian, the language of Moldova), its constitutional long name is Pridnestróvskaia Moldávskaia Respública (Moldovan: Република Молдовеняскэ Нистрянэ, Template:Lang-ru, Template:Lang-uk). This is abbreviated PMR.

The short form of this name is Pridnestrovie (transliteration of the Russian "Приднестровье").

Several other names are also in common use. Etymologically, they all come down to variants of Transnistria, meaning "beyond the river Dniester", or Pridnestrovie, meaning "by the river Dniester".

Geography

Transnistria is landlocked and borders Bessarabia (for 411 km) to the West and Ukraine (for 405 km) to the East. It is a narrow valley stretched in the North-South direction along the banks of the Dniester River, which forms the natural boundary along the most part of the border with Moldova. Nevertheless, not all PMR territory lies in Transnistria, and some locations on the left bank of the Dniester are controlled by the Moldovan government. Tighina (Bender) and its surrounding area on the river's west bank is controlled by Transnistria, while some villages near Dubăsari on the east bank are under Moldovan control.

The capital of Transnistria is Tiraspol, its largest city.

See also:

• List of places in Transnistria

Administrative regions

Transnistria is divided into seven administrative regions (raions). Russian names are listed in parentheses:

• Camenca (Каменка, Kamenka)
• Dubăsari (Дубоссары, Dubossary)
• Grigoriopol (Григориополь)
• Rîbniţa (Рыбница, Rybnitsa)
• Slobozia (Слободзея)
• Tighina (Бендеры, Bender or Bendery)
• Tiraspol (Тирасполь)

Political status

Transnistria is internationally considered part of the Republic of Moldova, although de facto control is exercised by its internationally unrecognised government which declared independence from Moldova as the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica or Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), in 1990 with Tiraspol as its declared capital.

Although exercising no direct control over the territory, the Moldovan government passed the "Law on Basic Provisions of the Special Legal Status of Localities from the Left Bank of the Dniester" on July 22, 2005, which established an autonomous territorial unit in Transnistria within the Republic of Moldova. The law was passed without any prior consultation with Transnistria, whose government felt that it was a provocation and has since ignored it. There are unsettled border issues between the PMR and Moldova. Some villages from the Dubăsari district, including Cocieri and Doroţcaia which geographically belong to Transnistria, have been under the control of the central government of Moldova after the involvement of local inhabitants on the side of Moldovan forces during the War of Transnistria. These villages along with Varniţa and Copanca, near Tighina, are claimed by the PMR. Tense situations have periodically surfaced due to these territorial disputes, for example in 2005, when Transnistrian forces entered Vasilievca,, in 2006 around Varniţa, and in 2007 in Dubăsari-Cocieri area, when a confrontation between Moldovan and Transnistrian forces occured, however without any casualities.

Internal politics

Template:Morepolitics

Transnistria has a multi-party system and a unicameral parliament named the Supreme Council. Its legislature has 43 members elected by proportional representation. The president is elected to a five year term by popular vote. In the latest parliamentary election in December 2005, the opposition Renewal movement won an overall majority and its leader Yevgeni Shevchuk became speaker of parliament.

Igor Smirnov has been the President of Transnistria since the declaration of independence in 1990 and he is currently serving his fourth mandate after being reelected in December 2006.

There is disagreement as to whether elections in Transnistria are free and fair. A list published by the European Union bans travel to the EU of some members of the leadership of Transnistria. The EU imposed this restriction because of what it considers "insufficient cooperation in the Transnistrian conflict settlement process."

No opposition parties or publications are banned. Political candidates in favor of unification with Moldova are allowed to stand in elections, although they rarely achieve more than 5% of the votes from the electorate. Likewise, unionist political parties and newspapers are legally registered and operating freely.

Despite some efforts to enhance the democratic process in recent years election results in the past were considered suspicious, as in 2001 in one region it was reported that Igor Smirnov collected 103.6% of the votes. Nevertheless, some organizations, such as CIS-EMO, have participated and have called them democratic.

The seperatist government has bowed to international pressure and has annouced that it will introduce the PR proportional representation vote counting system in its next elections in replacement of its current FPTP (first past the post) system). The move, if honoured, will give minority parties favouring reunification with Moldova a greater number of seats in the parliment.

See also:

• List of political parties in Transnistria

2006 Referendum

A referendum was held on 17 September 2006 asking voters:

1. Do you support the course towards the independence of the PMR and subsequent free association with the Russian Federation?
2. Do you consider it possible to renounce the PMR's independent status and subsequently become part of the Republic of Moldova?

According to the Transnistrian government, 78.6 percent of the registered voters of Transnistria voted in the referendum. 97.1 percent of voters supported the first point, while 2.3 percent did not support it. 3.4 percent of voters supported the second point, while 94.6 percent did not support it.

Russia's Duma recognized the vote but the OSCE and many countries did not, dismissing the poll as illegitimate.

International relations

Ukraine-Transnistria border customs dispute

On March 3, 2006, Ukraine imposed new customs regulations on its border with Transnistria, Ukraine declared it will only import goods from Transnistria with documents processed by Moldovan customs offices, as part of the implementation of the joint customs protocol between Ukraine and Moldova on December 30, 2005. Transnistria and Russia termed the act an "economic blockade". Moldova announced it created favorable conditions for registration of Transnistria-based businesses: to obtain a 6-month export license is a half-hour simplified procedure.

In the months following the regulations exports from Transnistria nosedived and cargos of humaitarian aid were sent from Russia and some EU countries to uphold vital sectors of society.

Of the major mediators of the conflict in the region, the United States, the European Union and OSCE approved the Ukrainian move, while Russia sees it as a means of political pressure and claims that "Russia's interests are directly affected" as well.

On March 4, Tiraspol responded by blocking the Moldovan and Ukrainian transport at the borders of Transnistria. The Transnistrian block was lifted on March 18. The Moldovan/Ukrainian block remains in place, and holds up progress in status settlement negotiations between the sides.

History

Antiquity and Middle Ages

The area where Transnistria is now located has been inhabited by Indo-European tribes for millenia, being a borderland between Dacia and Scythia. The Ancient Greek Miletians founded about 600 BC a colony named Tyras, situated on the mouth of the Dniester river (Tyras).

Transnistria was home to the South Slavs from the 6th century. In the early Middle Ages, Slavic tribes such as the Tivertsi and the Ulichs populated Transnistria, followed by Turkic nomads such as the Petchenegs and Cumans. An early part of Kievan Rus', after the Mongol invasion of Europe (1241), the territory was briefly under Mongol control, and later under the Crimean Khanate. From the 15th century, northern Transnistria belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. . Prior to becoming part of the Russian Empire, the largest group living between the Dniester and the Bug rivers was made up of Slavs, primarily Ukrainian peasants..

Russian Empire

In 1792 the region became part of the Russian Empire as a result of sixth Russo-Turkish War. In that year, the general Alexander Suvorov founded modern Tiraspol as a Russian border fortress. Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the current Transnistria was divided between imperial guberniyas of Podolia, Kherson, and Bessarabia. The territory which now is Transnistria was part of the larger New Russia region, hence it witnessed a strong colonization process, with a multitude of ethnies being settled: lands were given to enserfed peasantry from Russia and Ukraine (see also Nova Serbia), and Jews and Germans were brought to facilitate economic development.

Soviet Union

Transnistria became an autonomous political entity in 1924 with the proclamation of the Moldavian ASSR, which included today's Transnistria as well as an area around the city of Balta in modern-day Ukraine, but nothing from Bessarabia, which at the time was part of Romania. Another reason for the creation of the Moldavian ASSR was the desire of the Soviet Union at the time to eventually incorporate Bessarabia. The Moldavian SSR, which was organised by a decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 2 August 1940, was formed from a part of Bessarabia (taken from Romania on 28 June, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), and a part of the Moldavian ASSR which is roughly equivalent to present-day Transnistria. In 1941, after Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union in the course of the Second World War, they defeated the Soviet troops in the region and occupied it. By March 1943, a total of 185,000 Ukrainian and Romanian Jews had been deported and the majority died or was murdered under Romanian and German occupation of Transnistria. The Soviet Union regained the area in 1944, and the Soviet colonisation of the region was resumed.

Secession to the present

Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika in the Soviet Union allowed political liberalisation at a regional level in 1980s. On 2 September 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed as a Soviet republic by the "Second Congress of the Peoples' Representatives of Transnistria". On 22 December 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of USSR, signed a decree that declared the decisions of this congress legally void. Nevertheless, neither the USSR, nor Moldova, a Soviet Socialist Republic at the time, took any significant practical action, hence the new authorities in Tiraspol slowly got control over the region.

The War of Transnistria involved armed clashes on a limited scale that broke out between the Transnistrian separatists and the Moldovan police as early as November 1990 at Dubăsari. On 2 March 1992, Moldovan President Mircea Snegur authorized concerted military action against Transnistria. As a result of this war, hundreds of people were killed, and thousands were forced to leave Transnistria as refugees. Throughout 1992 fighting intensified, until a ceasefire was signed on 21 July 1992 which has held ever since.

The OSCE is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement. Under OSCE auspices, on 8 May 1997, the Moldovan President Petru Lucinschi and the Transnistrian president Igor Smirnov, signed the "Memorandum on the principles of normalizations of the relations between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria", also known as the "Primakov Memorandum", sustaining the establishment of legal and state relations, although the memorandum's provisions had diverging legal and political interpretations in Chişinău and Tiraspol.

In November 2003, Russia has proposed another memorandum, which contained the most detailed to date proposition on the creation of an asymmetric federal Moldovan state. To ensure the implementation of this plan, Russian troops were proposed to be stationed in Moldova for another 20 years. This plan was named "the Kozak memorandum", after its author Dmitry Kozak, a counselor of the Russian president Vladimir Putin. It did not coincide with the Transnistrian position, which demanded equal status for Transnistria and the rest of Moldova. In Moldova, demonstrations took place against the memorandum, when its full text was made public.

Vladimir Voronin, who before its publication was supportive of the plan, refused to sign it without the coordination of OSCE and UE. It is widely believed, although supported only by circumstantial evidence, that this reaction appeared after a high official of the US government phoned Voronin. Putin's official visit to Moldova, that was due within days, was immediately canceled, and the Maastricht union of OSCE in 2003 was deadlocked mainly because of Russian-Western disputes over the Transnistrian issue. The formal refusal of Voronin was motivated as follows: the stationing of foreign troops on Moldovan soil contradicts the state's neutrality stipulated by the Constitution of Moldova. The refusal resulted in the sudden and long-term cooling of relations between Moldova and Russia.

Population

At the census of 1989, the population was 679,000. At the time of the 2004 census, the population was 555,347." About 100,000 Transnistrians are also citizens of Russia.

Recently, there has been a substantial emigration due to economic hardships and uncertain political situation. This is one of the reasons why a disproportionately large part of the population is past the age of retirement.

Slavs (mostly ethnic Russians and Ukrainians) make up an absolute majority, totalling 59.2%. Ethnic Moldovans compose the single largest minority with 31.9%. Smaller numbers of Bulgarians, Germans, Jews, Gagauz and others make up the rest.

See also:

• Demographic history of Transnistria

Economy

Transnistria has a mixed economy. Following a large scale privatization process, most of the companies in Transnistria are now privately owned. The economy bases on a mix of heavy industry (steel production), electricity production and manufacturing (textile production), which together accounts about 80% of the total industrial output.

Transnistria has its own central bank, which issues Transnistrian currency, the Transnistrian ruble. It is convertible at a freely floating exchange rate.

History of the economic development

After World War II, Transnistria was heavily industrialised, to the point that in 1990, it was responsible for 40% of Moldova's GDP and 90% of its electricity despite the fact that it accounted for only 17% of Moldova's. population. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Transnistria wanted to return to a "Brezhnev-style planned economy", however, several years later, it decided to head toward a market economy.

Current situation

Macroeconomics

In 2005, the GDP of Transnistria was about $517.5 million and the GDP per capita was $844. The GDP increased 11.8% and inflation rate was 10.8%. However, in the first half of 2006 Transnistrian economy decreased 11.5% compared with the same period of 2005. The industrial production decreased even 32.8%.

Transnistria's government budget for 2007 is US$246 million, with an estimated deficit of approximately US$100 million. Transnistria has debt of $1.2 billion (two thirds of which are with Russia), which is per capita approximately 6 times higher than in Moldova (without Transnistria).

External trade

In 2005, Transnistrian export was $579.7 million and import $855.6 million. The trade deficit reached $275.9 million. In the first half of 2006 Transnistrian export decreased 49.0% and import decreased 15.9%. Over 50% of export goes to the CIS, mainly to Russia. The main exports are steel, cognac and wine, textile and mineral products. The CIS accounts for over 60% of the imports, while the share of the EU is about 23%. The main imports are non-precious metals, food products and electricity.

Economic sectors

The leading industry is steel, due to the MMZ steel factory (part of the Russian Metalloinvest holding) in Rîbniţa (Rybnitsa), which accounts for about 50% of the budget revenue of Transnistria. The largest company in the textile industry is Tirotex, which claimed to be the second largest textile company in Europe. The energy sector is dominated by the Russian companies. The largest power company Moldavskaya GRES (Cuchurgan power station), which is located in Dnestrovsk, is owned by Inter RAO UES, the joint subsidiary of RAO UES and Rosenergoatom, and the gas transmission and distribution company Tiraspoltransgas is probably controlled by Gazprom, although Gazprom has not confirmed the ownership officially. The banking sector of Transnistria consists 8 commercial banks, including Gazprombank. The oldest alcohol producer Kvint, located in Tiraspol, produces and exports brandy, wines and vodka.

Human rights

The human rights record of the PMR has been criticised by several governments and international organizations, as follows:

The 2007 Freedom in the World report published by the US-based Freedom House described Transnistria as a "non-free" territory, having an equally bad situation in both political rights and civil liberties.

The United States State Department stated in 2005 that the right of Transnistrian citizens to change their government was severely restricted, however in December 2005 the opposition party Renewal won Transnistria's parlimentary elections and took control of the parliment. The state Department also claim that the authorities regularly harassed and often detained persons suspected of being critical of the government for periods of up to several months. and also that Transnistrian authorities harassed independent media and opposition lawmakers, restricted freedom of association and of religion, and discriminated against Romanian-speakers.U.S. Department of State referring to year 2005

In the best-known such case, Ilie Ilaşcu, a politician in favour of Moldovan union with Romania, was initially sentenced to death by Transnistria's Supreme Court. Three other members of his group were sentenced to terms of 12 to 15 years’ imprisonment, and confiscation of their property. Ilaşcu was released in 2001 amid international pressure, but two of the original four remain imprisoned. In 1999, Transnistria banned the death penalty for all crimes. The maximum sentence for any crime is now 25 years in prison.

According to OSCE, the media climate in Transnistria is restrictive and the authorities continue a long-standing campaign to silence independent opposition voices and groups.

Transnistrian local authorities insist that public education for ethnic Moldovans in their mother tongue is taught using the Soviet-originated Moldovan Cyrillic, having restricted the usage of the Latin script (the norm) for the Moldovan language to only 6 schools. In the summer of 2004, this issue sparked into yet another political conflict between Chişinău and Tiraspol. Four schools (of the remaining six) that taught the Moldovan language using the Latin script were forcedly closed by the authorities, who claimed this was due to the refusal of the schools to apply for official accreditation. The schools were later reopened amid pressure from the European Union, but as private institutions.

In November 2006 the European Court of Human Rights has accepted to examine the claims submitted by 3 Moldovan schools in Transnistria (from Tighina, Ribnitsa and Grigoriopol) regarding the violation of their right to education and right to work in condition of non-discrimination. The 3 schools concerned regard Russia and Moldova as responsible for violation of their rights.

In November 2006, Louis O'Neill, head of the OSCE mission to Moldova, urged local authorities in the Transnistrian city of Ribnitsa to return a confiscated building to the Moldovan Latin-script school located in the city. The building was built by the Chişinău government and was almost finished in 2004, when the Transnistrian militia took it by force, during the school crisis.

In February 2007 Moldavian and Romanian press reported, that the Transnistrian authorities destroyed and profaned a cemetery in Tighina, where Romanian soldiers were resting. The Transnistrian authorities did not exhume the bodies; they only removed the crosses and leveled the terrain with bulldozers. Russian, German, Turkish and Swedish soldiers were also buried in this cemetery.

See also:

• Russification
• Anti-Romanian discrimination
• Moldovan schools in Transnistria
• Media in Transnistria

Crime

Allegations of smuggling

Transnistria has a reputation of being a haven for smuggling weapons, as well and as smuggling various products into the Republic of Moldova or to eastern states through the Ukrainian border. This view is supported by the Moldovan government, the EU and various NGOs. In 2002, the European Parliament's delegation to Moldova named Transnistria "a black hole in which illegal trade in arms, the trafficking in human beings and the laundering of criminal finance was carried on". In 2005, The Wall Street Journal called Transnistria "a major haven for smuggling weapons and women". However, OSCE and European Union diplomats cited by Radio Free Europe called the smuggling claims "wildly exaggerated". The Transnistrian government also denies any such allegations and has instead claimed that the Moldovan police is involved in drug smuggling. In May 2006 a Moldovan police officer was arrested in Transnistria for his role in a drug operation. The government of Ukraine, which had long been seen as assisting in this illegal trade, has recently taken steps to prevent smuggling along its border by opening new customs posts and by stipulating that the goods passing from Transnistria through Ukraine must first obtain clearance from Moldovan authorities.

Allegations of weapons trade

Analysts and media outlets have expressed concern regarding potential threats posed by Transnistria's large deposits of weapons, and the potential of their unauthorized sale. Nevertheless, this view has been challenged by other experts and organizations, as well as by the government of the PMR. Oxford scholar Mark Almond stated that accusations of state-sponsored weapons smuggling in the PMR appear to be groundless and politically motivated, rather than based on any verified facts. Foreign experts working on behalf of the United Nations confirm that there is currently transparency and good levels of co-operation with Transnistria in the field of weapons control.. Recent weapons inspections permitted by Transnistria and conducted by the OSCE reflect this transparency and co-operation

Without offering any proof, a 2004 newspaper article claimed that a cache of surface-to-air missile launchers, and other weapons, may have disappeared from a former Soviet stockpile, and that officials were at the time unable to account for their whereabouts. The OSCE and European Union officials state that there is no evidence that Transnistria has ever, at any time in the past, trafficked arms or nuclear material. The latest research published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) indicates that Transnistria is not involved in arms production or trafficking. The United Nations says that the evidence for the illicit production and trafficking of weapons into and from Transnistria has in the past been exaggerated, and affirms that although there is a likelihood that trafficking of light weapons could have occurred before 2001, there is no reliable evidence that this still occurs. It also states that the same holds true for the production of such weapons, which is likely to have been carried out in the 1990s primarily to equip the local forces but which are no longer produced. These findings echo previous declarations by Transnistria that it is not involved in the manufacture or export of weapons.

Antisemitic incidents

Over the past few years, there have been some antisemitic incidents in Transnistria.

• 14-15 April 2001 the Synagogue of Tiraspol suffered a pipe bomb attack. The building was damaged, but the guard was not hurt.
• 13-30 March 2004 over 70 tombstones in the Jewish cemetery of Tiraspol were vandalized Local community leaders said the authorities refused to help clean up the anti-Semitic graffiti painted over the tombstones
• in May 2004, there was an attempt by a Russian neo-Nazi organization to set on fire a synagogue in Tiraspol, using a Molotov Cocktail and a flammable liquid near a gas pipe. The attack failed when passers-by extinguished the fire.

Deadly explosions

• in July 2006, a bomb killed eight in a Tiraspol minibus.
• in August 2006, a grenade explosion in a Tiraspol trolleybus killed two and injured ten.

Certain countries, including the United States , the United Kingdom and Australia announced travel warnings for its citizens traveling to Moldova and Transnistria.

A critic of the current policy

In November 2006, Vasily Yakovlev, one of the founders and ideologists of Transnistrian Republic, author of Transnistria's first constitution has written an open letter in which he accuses the PMR President Igor Smirnov of antinational policy which lead to the disintegration of the industrial complex of the republic, the disintegration of the agribusiness of Transnistria as a whole and to the extreme worsening of the demographic situation. He asks for penal persecution for Igor Smirnov and calls for unity with the working people of Moldova

References

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60. UNDP: 2006 Small arms and light weapons survey of Moldova
61. PMR doesn't make weapons, experts admit
62. Anti-Semitic Incidents - April 2001 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apr. 1, 2001.
63. Mass Vandalism of Tiraspol Jewish Cemetery Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union. Apr. 22, 2004. Retrieved 2006, 12-24
64. ^ Briefs: Synagogue in FSU Hit with Arson Jewish Journal. May 14, 2004. Retrieved 2006, 12-24
65. Report on Global Anti-Semitism U.S. Department of State. Jan. 5, 2005. Retrieved 2006, 12-24
66. Trans-Dniester blast kills eight BBC
67. Grenade exploded in Tiraspol trolley bus
68. U.S. State Department travel warning for Moldova
69. "United Kindom Foreign and Commonwealth Office" - Travel Advice
70. Australian Government - Travel advisories
71. Vasily Yakovlev - Accusatory statement

External links

• Profile of Trans-Dniester from the BBC
• OSCE Mission to Moldova OSCE
• Transdniester in Cyberspace Radio Free Europe
• Transdniester Conflict Was Long In The Making Radio Free Europe
• "Places that don't exist: Transnistria" - BBC video documentary.

Transnistrian sources

• Pridnestrovie.net (Official English site)
• VisitPMR.com (Official tourist information)
• The Tiraspol Times & Weekly Review (English language news from Transnistria)

Moldovan sources

• Moldova Azi: News from Moldova
• Moldova.org non-governmental country portal
• Transnistria.md
• Conflict.md

Template:Dependent and other territories of Europe

v t e Administrative divisions of Moldova
Districts	Anenii Noi Basarabeasca Briceni Cahul Cantemir Călărași Căușeni Cimișlia Criuleni Dondușeni Drochia Dubăsari Edineț Fălești Florești Glodeni Hîncești Ialoveni Leova Nisporeni Ocnița Orhei Rezina Rîșcani Sîngerei Soroca Strășeni Șoldănești Ștefan Vodă Taraclia Telenești Ungheni
Autonomous territorial units	Găgăuzia Administrative-Territorial Units of the Left Bank of the Dniester
Municipalities	Bălți Bender Cahul Ceadîr-Lunga Chișinău Comrat Edineț Hîncești Orhei Soroca Strășeni Tiraspol Ungheni
^ Currently controlled by the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.

• Transnistria
• Moldova
• Unrecognized or largely-unrecognized states
• Constitutional republics