Pridnestrovie - Tiraspol
The day after my first visit to Pridnestrovie, I took a bus back to Tiraspol, the de facto capital of Transnistria. I wanted to spend more time in the country to soak up the atmosphere, this time by myself in a slow pace. To get an idea of the size of the city, as of 2015 Tiraspol had a population of 133,807.
The bus dropped me off at the Green Market in Tiraspol, painted in a strange green hue. It is a modern food shopping center combined with a farmer’s market. All I could buy was a small (recycled) jar of pickled chili peppers, to bring home to Amsterdam. I wish I could have stuffed my luggage full of fresh cheeses.
Don’t just buy tomatoes, buy tomato plants. The economy is not great in Transnistria. Many people grow vegetables at home to make ends meet. But its economy witnessed a seismic shift because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On February 28, 2022 Ukraine closed its border checkpoints on the Transnistrian part of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.
As of late 2022 Transnistria exported 76 percent of its goods to Moldovan and EU markets. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has driven Transnistria further away from Russkiy mir. There now is full integration of Transnistrian trade into the legal framework of Moldova. This also means goods produced in Transnistria can be labelled ‘Made in Moldova’.
Inside the market are countless fresh cheeses.
I tried to find similar cheeses in Amsterdam but so far, I didn’t. These fresh cheeses are great.
City marketing: Тирасполь Только лучшее … Tiraspol Only the best…
Diplomatic ties
Below the representative offices of the Republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Republic of Artsakh also recognises Pridnestrovie, but has no representative office.
Transnistria parliament building in Tiraspol. The statue depicts Vladimir Lenin.
Shrinking Pridnestrovie
The population of Transnistria has shrunk from 706,300 in 1990 to about 475,665 in 2015 when the last census was held. In 2015 27,7% of the population was above working age, almost one third of the population are pensioners. In 2012 there were 0.75 workers per one pensioner. The pensions are supplemented by Russia. There is plenty of Soviet nostalgia in Tiraspol.
Most cars in Transnistria are modern cars. But this "Moskvich" Москвич / АЗЛК 2138 from 1976 (?) looks very well preserved.
War memorials
In the center of Tiraspol there is a rather large war memorial commemorating several wars. Not easy to overlook is the World War 2 era T-34-85 Soviet tank with the text За Родину! For the Motherland!
За Родину! For the Motherland!
In 1979 the Soviet Union was slowly sucked into a war in Afghanistan to support the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) against the Mujahideen. Roughly 15.000 Soviet soldiers died during the 10 year conflict. Compare that to the casualties in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The latest estimate is roughly 200.000 casualties in one year’s time! And that is just Russian soldiers.
The memorial also commemorates the Transnistria War of 1990 to 1992.
Catherine Park
The survival of Transnistria has depended on subsidies from the Kremlin. According to estimates about 70 percent of the state budget was provided by Russia. But by 2015 aid from Russia was diminishing. Even so, in 2018 a brand new Catherine Park was openend in Tiraspol. Catherine the Great famously annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783. The Russian Federation annexed Crimea in March 2014.
The symbolism of opening a Catherine the Great Park is obvious. In the 1926 census only 13.7% of the region was ethnically Russian. According to the 1989 census 25.5% of the population of Transnistria was Russian, 28.3% Ukrainian and 39.9% Romanian. In 2015 the percentage of ethnic Russians was 33.8%.
Catherine Park, Tiraspol.
Transnistrian ruble
Below is the 2006 building of the Transnistrian Republican Bank. The central bank issues the Transnistrian ruble (PRB). This currency has no ISO 4217 code and cannot participate in any card processing network. The currency however is fully convertible and via a 1997-Memorandum is recognised internationally as a national central bank.
Between the Sheriff FC football station and Tiraspol’s centre, a Russian Army base is situated, right on the main road. When I walked past the base, workers were repainting the unofficial, only used for marketing purposes, logo of the Russian Army on the walls of the base in fresh paint. I am not sure this was done in preparation for the 9th of May Victory Day.
One of the stranger souvenirs I bought in Tiraspol is a Putin refrigerator magnet with the following quote made by Putin: “Why do we need a world, if Russia is not in it?”.
“Зачем нам такой мир, если там не будет России?”
Monument to Aviators: MiG-19 fighter. Postcard sent from Tiraspol to The Netherlands.
Sheriff (Шериф) rules the town
The local oligarch is the Moldovan–Russian businessman and former KGB officer Viktor Gushan. His holding company is called Sheriff and, according to Wikipedia, owns a chain of petrol stations, a chain of supermarkets, a TV channel, a publishing house, a construction company, a Mercedes-Benz dealer, an advertising agency, a spirits factory, two bread factories, a mobile phone network, the football club FC Sheriff Tiraspol and Sheriff Stadium, a project which also included a five-star hotel.
I am not a football fan, so I missed the news. But in 2021 FC Sheriff Tiraspol won against Real Madrid in the Champions League, which apparently stunned the football world and had everyone scramble for a map to look up Tiraspol.
Transnistria’s origin is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Empires tend to fall slow. Its first president Igor Smirnov (1991 - 2011) was in favour of a Russian annexation of Transnistria, but failed to do so during his presidency. After the annexation of Crimea new plans were made to facilitate a future annexation of Transnistria by Russia. This could have triggered an armed conflict with Moldova, like the War in Donbas (2014–2022).
The current president of Transnistria (since 2016) is Vadim Krasnoselsky who has expressed his pro-Russian sentiments on many occasions. He was supported by the Sheriff conglomerate and received 62% of the vote. Because Transnistria is so dependant on Russian money, any leader has to be pro-Russian or risk cuts in pensions and salaries of state-employees. In 2019 Krasnoselsky attended a ceremony when Russian minister of defence Sergei Shoigu visited the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria.
But with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the future of Transnistria might be geared towards the EU. After Putin’s defeat in Ukraine I would not be surprised if, in time, Transnistria became an autonomous territorial unit in Moldova like Gagauzia.
Photo Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Attribution: Mil.ru.