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MOLDOVA
country studies
Federal Research Division
Library of Congress
Edited by
Helen Fedor
Research Completed June 1995
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Foreward
This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the Department of the Army. The last two pages of this book list the other published studies.
Most books in the series deal with a particular foreign country, describing and analyzing its political, economic, social, and national security systems and institutions, and examining the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. The authors seek to provide a basic understanding of the observed society, striving for a dynamic rather than a static portrayal. Particular attention is devoted to the people who make up the society, their origins, dominant beliefs and values, their common interests and the issues on which they are divided, the nature and extent of their involvement with national institutions, and their attitudes toward each other and toward their social system and political order.
The books represent the analysis of the authors and should not be construed as an expression of an official United States government position, policy, or decision. The authors have sought to adhere to accepted standards of scholarly objectivity. Corrections, additions, and suggestions for changes from readers will be welcomed for use in future editions.
Louis R. Mortimer
Chief
Federal Research Division
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540-5220
Data as of June 1995
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Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to numerous individuals and organizations who gave their time, research materials, and expertise on affairs in Belarus and Moldova to provide data, perspective, and material support for this volume.
The collection of accurate and current information was assisted greatly by the contributions of Dr. Stephen Burant of the United States Department of State, Professor Thomas E. Bird of Queens College, Valery Kurdzyukou of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus, A. James Firth of the United States Department of Agriculture, John Mumford of The Washington Group, Eugene Fishel of the United States Department of State, Professor Paul E. Michelson of Huntington College, Professor Ernest H. Latham, Jr., of the American-Romanian Academy, Raymond Milefsky of the Defense Mapping Agency, and Iurie Leanca of the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova. The authors also acknowledge the generosity of all the individuals who allowed their photographs to be used in this study.
Thanks also go to Ralph K. Benesch, who oversees the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program for the Department of the Army. In addition, the authors appreciate the advice and guidance of Sandra W. Meditz, Federal Research Division coordinator of the handbook series. Special thanks go to Marilyn L. Majeska, who supervised editing; Andrea T. Merrill, who performed the prepublication editorial review and managed production; David P. Cabitto, who designed the book cover and the illustrations on the title page of both chapters, provided graphics support, and, together with Thomas D. Hall, prepared the maps; Ihor Y. Gawdiak, who provided historical background information; and Glenn E. Curtis, who critiqued the text. The following individuals are gratefully acknowledged as well: Vincent Ercolano and Janet Willen, who edited the chapters; Barbara Edgerton and Izella Watson, who did the word processing; Francine Cronshaw, who compiled the index; and Stephen C. Cranton, David P. Cabitto, and Janie L. Gilchrist, who prepared the camera-ready copy.
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Table of Contents
Please note: The current Country Study was previously in a multi-country volume.
Chapter numbers reflect those used in the printed book.
* MOLDOVA
* Foreward
* Acknowledgments
* Preface
* Introduction
* Chapter 2. Moldova
o Chronology of Important Events
o COUNTRY PROFILE
* COUNTRY
* GEOGRAPHY
* SOCIETY
* ECONOMY
* TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
* GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
* NATIONAL SECURITY
o HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
* Early History
* The Beginning of the Soviet Period
* World War II
* Postwar Reestablishment of Soviet Control
* Increasing Political Self-Expression
* Secession of Gagauzia and Transnistria
* Independence
* Progress Toward Political Accommodation
o PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
* Topography and Drainage
* Climate
* Environmental Concerns
o POPULATION AND ETHNIC COMPOSITION
* Population Characteristics
* Ethnic Composition
o LANGUAGE, RELIGION, AND CULTURE
* Language
* Religion
* Culture
o EDUCATION, HEALTH, AND WELFARE
* Education
* Health
* Welfare
* Housing
o THE ECONOMY
* The Economy in the Soviet Period
* Postindependence Privatization and Other Reforms
* Labor Force
* Agriculture
* Industry
* Energy and Fuels
* Banking and Finance
* Transportation and Telecommunications
* Foreign Trade
o GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
* Governmental System
* Parliament
* The Presidency
* Council of Ministers
* The Judicial System
* Local Government
* Political Parties
* The 1990 Elections
* Political Developments in the Wake of the 1990 Elections
* Conflict in Transnistria and Gagauzia
* Easing of Tensions
* Political Realignment
* The 1994 Elections and Afterwards
* Human Rights
* The Media
o FOREIGN RELATIONS
* Commonwealth of Independent States
* Romania
* Russia
* Ukraine
* Turkey
* The West
o NATIONAL SECURITY
* The Armed Forces
* Internal Security
* Crime
* Appendices
o Appendix A. Tables
o Appendix B. The Minsk Agreement
o Appendix C. The ALMA-ATA Declaration
o Appendix D. Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova
* Bibliography
* Glossary
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Preface
At the end of 1991, the formal liquidation of the Soviet Union was the surprisingly swift result of partially hidden decrepitude and centrifugal forces within that empire. Of the fifteen "new" states that emerged from the process, many had been independent political entities at some time in the past. Aside from their coverage in the 1991 Soviet Union: A Country Study, none had received individual treatment in this series, however. Belarus and Moldova: Country Studies is the second in a new subseries describing the fifteen post-Soviet republics, both as they existed before and during the Soviet era and as they have developed since 1991. This volume covers Belarus and Moldova, two nations on the western border of what was once the Soviet Union.
The marked relaxation of information restrictions, which began in the late 1980s and accelerated after 1991, allows the reporting of extensive data on every aspect of life in the two countries. Scholarly articles and periodical reports have been especially helpful in accounting for the years of independence in the 1990s. The authors have described the historical, political, and social backgrounds of the countries as the background for their current portraits. However, in general, both Belarus and Moldova (especially the former) have been written about to a lesser extent than other former Soviet republics. In each case, the authors' goal in this book was to provide a compact, accessible, and objective treatment of five main topics: historical setting, the society and its environment, the economy, government and politics, and national security.
In the case of Belarus, providing a definitive spelling of a personal name or place-name has been a challenge. All names have been transliterated according to the transliteration schemes devised by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN); which is widely used by the United States government, although not by the Library of Congress or in most scholarly works. According to the BGN system, most Cyrillic letters are transliterated similarly from both Belarusian and Russian. But some letters are transliterated from the two languages differently (for example, "e," which remains "e" in transliterated Russian but becomes "ye" in transliterated Belarusian), and some letters exist in Belarusian but not in Russian.
Because Belarusian names often differ from the Russian versions that have been used predominantly by the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the world in general, the Russian version is given in parentheses at the first occurrence of a name. Otherwise, the Belarusian names have been used throughout. The few exceptions to this are well-known names (Moscow) and words (perestroika) that have acquired a standardized spelling in English usage.
Another problem in writing about Belarus is what to call it and when. In its early history, the region was known as "Belaya Rus'," "Belorussia," "White Ruthenia," or "White Rus'." (A number of explanations have been proffered for the term "white.") As if this were not confusing enough, the terms "Rus'" and "Russia" have often been confused, sometimes deliberately. The original Rus' was Kievan Rus', which existed for centuries before Muscovy (which would later become Russia) gained significance. Russia later claimed to be the sole successor to Kievan Rus' and often blurred the line between the two. In the Russian language, both "russkiy" and "rossiyskiy" mean "Russian."
During the time when Belarus was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, it was commonly known as Belorussia, and the language was known as Belorussian. Occasionally, nationalist groups would form and take a name that included the word "Belarusian," but this use of the word was the exception. It was only after the Supreme Soviet declared the country independent that the name was changed from the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Republic of Belarus, despite the title of the earlier Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic. The policy in this volume has been to use "Belarus/Belarusian" in the earliest historical times; "Belorussia/Belorussian" while it was a part of either the Grand Duchy, Poland, the Russian Empire, or the Soviet Union; and "Belarus/Belarusian" after the country declared independence in August 1991. The exceptions are names in which "Belarus/Belarusian" was deliberately chosen over "Belorussia/Belorussian" by the groups themselves.
For Moldova, the problem of personal names and place-names is somewhat different. When Moldovan, a dialect of Romanian written in the Latin alphabet, was designated the official language of Moldova in 1989, the Cyrillic alphabet (imposed by Joseph V. Stalin) was dropped, thus obviating the need for transliteration. However, the Moldovan names appearing in the text of this volume are missing most of the diacritics used by the language. In this case, it is a matter of lagging technology: the typesetting software being used simply cannot produce the necessary diacritics in the text (although they appear on the maps). For this the authors apologize and hope that by the time this country study is updated, missing diacritics will no longer be the norm.
As was also the case with Belarus, Moldova and the Moldovans are referred to in different ways depending on the period of history. Until the creation of the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast (outside the traditional boundaries of Moldova) by Moscow in 1924, "Moldova" and "Moldovan" were the terms for the region and the language. From 1924 until the parliament changed the country's name officially in 1990, the terms used were "Moldavia" and "Moldavian." As with Belarus, the policy in this volume has been to adhere to these different names during their respective periods of usage, with the exceptions of names in which "Moldova/Moldovan" was deliberately chosen over "Moldavia/Moldavian" by the groups themselves.
Measurements are given in the metric system; a conversion table is provided in Appendix A. A Chronology is provided at the beginning of each chapter. To amplify points in the text of the chapters, tables in Appendix A provide statistics on aspects of the societies and the economies of the countries. A Glossary provides information on certain terms in order to explain their background without creating distractions in the text. The Bibliography lists recently published sources thought to be particularly helpful to the reader.
The body of the text reflects information available as of May 1995. Certain other portions of the text, however, have been updated. The Introduction discusses significant events and trends that have occurred since the completion of research; the Country Profiles include updated information as available; and the Bibliography lists recently published sources thought to be particularly helpful to the reader.
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Introduction
LOCATED ON THE WESTERN BORDERLANDS of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union, the regions that would one day become the republics of Belarus and Moldova had long been part of a buffer zone used to protect Russia from Western influences and military forces. The imperial and Soviet governments attempted to fully integrate the two regions' economies into their own and to Russify their people in order to bind them seamlessly into the their respective empires. For a long time, these efforts seemed to work, but in 1991 Belarus and Moldova declared their independence from the Soviet Union and began to go their separate, post-Soviet ways. Independence was not a totally new experience for the two countries, however, each of which had existed briefly as a sovereign entity during the previous hundred years, but this time they had much to undo from the previous regime.
The two countries, former republics of the now-defunct Soviet Union, are a study in contrasts. Belarus, mostly ethnic Belarusian (and overwhelmingly Slavic) in population, had long been part of the Russian Empire and subsequently the Soviet Union. The tsars, and later the commissars, sought to meld Belorussia with Russia and the Belorussians with the Russians. They succeeded to a remarkable extent: independent Belarus still identifies closely with Russia, and Belarusian nationalists are in the minority. Soviet-era political and economic structures, and even symbols, have been retained and even reintroduced, as was the case after the May 1995 referendum that brought back the Soviet-era flag and emblem (both slightly modified) and the Russian language.
Moldova, a country that had also been part of both empires since the 19th century, has a majority population of ethnic Romanians, who are not Slavs. Despite Russian and Soviet efforts to Slavicize them, most ethnic Romanians were able to maintain their identity and looked to Romania as the source of their culture. When the Soviet Union began to crumble, Moldova asserted first its sovereignty and then its independence, although the population was far from unanimous on either. But the nationalists eventually carried the day, and Moldova sought to distance itself from Russia, despite the wishes of the Transnistrians, who in 1990 proclaimed the "Dnestr Moldavian Republic," with a pro-Soviet extralegal government, on the east bank of the Nistru River. The Transnistrians want no part of independent Moldova, its ethnic- Romanian nationalists, or a possible reunification with Romania, where they would be a small minority instead of a powerful political force.
In both Belarus and Moldova, there are many who wish to return to the days of the Soviet Union for a variety of reasons, some economic, some nostalgic, and some fearful. In Belarus these conservatives (ethnic Belarusians as well as ethnic Russians) are in the majority and are to be found throughout the population and the government. Their domination is felt not only in the political arena but in the social sphere as well.
In Moldova the conservatives (mainly, but not exclusively, ethnic Slavs) are located throughout society and the government, but their influence is not as overwhelming as in Belarus. Many of the Moldovan conservatives (although not all) live in Transnistria. Here, they believe, they are the keepers of the Soviet ideal from which a reconstituted Soviet Union will one day rise up again. However, time and the course of events have made it clear that they are trying to protect not a way of life but rather their own political and--especially--economic interests, which are often illegal (including sales of arms and illegal drugs).
Both Belarus and Moldova have stated their wish to have free market economies, but they have proceeded in this direction at different paces. The economies of both countries had been firmly embedded in the Soviet economy, and each had specialized in a certain sector--Belarus in heavy agricultural equipment and goods for the military, and Moldova primarily in agricultural products and consumer goods--while relying on other republics for raw materials. Both republics had been especially dependent on Russia for inexpensive fuels, a fact that continued to haunt them after independence. Subsidized fuel, priced well below world prices, had made the goods produced by the two countries inexpensive and affordable by the other Soviet republics. With the loss of these cheap fuels, both countries were forced to either decrease their fuel consumption (and their output) or improve the efficiency of their industries. Belarus chose the former path, which coincided with the fact that it was selling fewer of its goods because of price and quality considerations, while Moldova tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to take steps toward improved efficiency.
Both countries initiated privatization, or the sale of state- owned property, and both were having a difficult time reconfiguring their economies. The Moldovan government was changing its laws to make them more compatible with a free market and more friendly toward foreign investment and business in general. However, vested interests sought to maintain the system or, at least, to make large profits during the transition.
The Belarusian government decided that, despite its intention to sell state-owned property, it would leave the agricultural sector under state control. The government's reasoning was that Belarusian large-scale agriculture was best suited to the heavy agricultural equipment that the country continued to produce, despite the fact that fuel for this equipment was often scarce.
Both Belarus and Moldova stated their intention of having democratic political systems, as did many former Soviet republics. However, making the change from a communist government to a real democracy proved difficult, not the least because of officials who wished to maintain the status quo. They viewed democracy as too chaotic and unstable, unlike the predictability that had characterized their previous political lives. They also saw it as risky and feared to lose the perquisites to which they had been entitled and which they wanted to retain.
Belarus's attempts to become a western democracy often appeared likely to remain out of reach. Although the constitution added the office of the president and declared a separation of powers, government in Belarus often seemed no different from that of the Soviet era. Political apathy among the population remained so strong that a legislature could not be seated after two rounds of elections in 1995; corruption was still widespread despite the fact that the president had campaigned as an anticorruption candidate; and political leaders looked to Moscow for political, military, and financial support, with the president trying to lead the country back into some sort of union with Russia.
Moldova kept its basic Soviet-era governmental structure, while adding a presidency, universal suffrage, and popular elections, as did Belarus. However, the country's first attempt at a democratically elected parliament showed the need for further modification of the system. The unwieldy size of the body and a hardline nationalist majority made legislative compromises among the various ethnic groups in Moldova impossible, and the result was gridlock. A smaller parliament and a larger number of moderates after the 1994 elections have made legislative progress possible despite the disagreements and factions that are still to be found.
Despite the differences between the two countries, the focal point for those who wish to maintain each country's independence is the same--the national language, the same rallying point as in the revolutions of 1848, a series of republican revolts against Western and Central European monarchies. These revolts all failed in their immediate goals, but they eventually led to greater representation of ethnic groups in legislatures and to greater cultural autonomy, including the use of languages that, until then, had been dismissed by the authorities as peasant vernaculars. However, while nationalists in the last century sought to codify (and sometimes even form) a literary language, the task of the nationalists in 1991 was to revive that language and divest it of its Russian and Soviet accretions.
To those who have never undergone forced cultural assimilation, the issue may seem trivial. What difference does it make what language is spoken or what it is called? To those who have had their use of language restricted, however, the matter goes beyond mere defiance. Language is the medium of the culture on which their daily lives and identities are based. To define what language can be spoken is to define the identity of not only the individual but also of the country.
Moldovans kept Russian as a language of interethnic communication but subsequently entered a debate as to what their own language was to be called: was it Moldovan or Romanian? The president explained that the term "Moldovan" was used in the constitution for political reasons--to assuage the fears of those who feared imminent reunification with Romania (despite the fact that Germany and Austria, for example, which both use the German language, are separate countries). Again, politics, language, and emotions were thoroughly entangled.
Belarusians, the majority of whom prefer to use Russian in their daily lives, have dealt with the language issue differently. They returned Russian to its status of official language, alongside the Belarusian language, through their response to a May 1995 referendum question. Thus the Belarusian language policy reflected Belarus's pro-Russian policies in general.
May 31, 1995
* * *
In the months following preparation of this manuscript, Belarus's president, Alyaksandr Lukashyenka, and his government continued their pro-Russian policies and their Soviet-era mentality. When Orthodox Patriarch Aleksey II of Moscow and All Russia visited Belarus in July, Lukashyenka praised the Orthodox Church while reproaching the Roman Catholic Church for its active proselytizing and politicking. When subway workers in Minsk went on strike in August, the government sent special police units and Ministry of Interior troops against them. In addition, Lukashyenka reacted angrily to information that United States and Polish trade unions, including Solidarity, were providing financial assistance to the striking workers through Belarusian nongovernmental unions. Also in August, the president ordered that books published in 1992- 95 be removed from secondary schools and institutes of higher education. In other words, these schools would return to using Soviet textbooks.
Lukashyenka also continued arrogating power to himself. His unilateral decisions, including suspending parliamentary immunity, outlawing strikes in sectors he deemed critical, banning the activity of two trade unions until further notice, withholding the salaries of parliamentary deputies, and making arbitrary changes in the state budget, paint a picture of a leader seeking to replace the separation of governmental powers with one-man rule. However, it was only after Lukashyenka's decision to suspend parliamentary immunity that the Supreme Soviet spoke up and petitioned the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of his measures. A constitutional crisis appeared unavoidable unless the two sides could come to an agreement.
Perhaps the most dramatic indication that the Soviet mentality is alive and well in Belarus was the hot-air balloon tragedy in September. A yearly international hot-air balloon race starting in Switzerland included three United States balloons that crossed the border into Belarus. Although Belarusian authorities had been notified of the race earlier, the Belarusian military fired at one of the balloons, claiming that it did not have any identification and that sensitive military installations were nearby. The two American pilots of the balloon were killed when a missile caused their hydrogen-filled balloon to explode. The pilots of a second balloon left the country before any problems arose, but authorities detained the pilots of the third balloon for a day before releasing them. The Belarusian government issued an official apology for the shooting that accepted "a certain amount" of blame but nevertheless tried to justify the military's response. Many people were convinced that this would not be the last manifestation of Belarus's Cold War mentality.
At the same time, events in Moldova centered on two men --Lieutenant General Aleksandr Lebed', commander of the Russian 14th Army, and Mircea Snegur, Moldova's president. The Russian 14th Army, previously the Soviet 14th Army, remained in Transnistria after the Soviet Union was dissolved to protect the ethnic Russians in what Moscow called "the near abroad." Despite their ostensible status as peacekeepers in Moldova's dispute with Transnistria, the 14th Army supported the extralegal government of the "Dnestr Republic" and was even accused of supplying weapons to it during the worst of the fighting in 1992.
At the beginning of June, Lebed' offered his resignation in protest of Russian government plans to downgrade the status of the 14th Army to that of an operational group. After initially refusing the general's resignation, the Russian Ministry of Defense accepted it and replaced him with Major General Valeriy Yevnevich. The Moldovan government's concern was that the new commander continue to keep the army's large stock of weapons safe while a political solution was sought for the problems in Transnistria. Lebed' was seen by some as a strong candidate for the Russian presidency in 1996, but his popularity began decreasing once he resigned and removed himself from the public eye.
In a surprising move in July, President Snegur resigned his membership in the ruling Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova and took his supporters with him to form a new presidential party, later named the Party of Rebirth and Conciliation. By dividing the Agrarians and depriving them of a parliamentary majority, as well as by considering an alliance with a pro-Romanian party, the president had made moves that could disrupt Moldova's political stability. The purpose of these actions was twofold. The first was preparation for the December 1996 presidential election in which Snegur will seek to win on the strength of the ethnic Romanian vote. His two challengers, Prime Minister Andrei Sangheli and Parliament chairman Petru Lucinschi, are expected to capture the votes of Moldova's Russian-speaking population, thus making Snegur dependent on the ethnic Romanians.
Snegur's other purpose in creating the new party was an effort to change the government to that of a personalized presidential regime, a move opposed by Parliament. This regime would be different from the existing government and would be at odds with Moldova's political traditions. Under a presidential regime, the existing balance of power between the legislative and executive branches would be disrupted, and, critics charge, the country's progress toward democracy would be jeopardized.
In Transnistria the economic situation continued to deteriorate. The authorities of the "Dnestr Republic" sought greater political legitimacy in hopes that this would help them garner more political support and financial assistance from Russia. To this end, the authorities began drafting a constitution and election law in August in preparation for parliamentary elections scheduled for late fall 1995. In the meantime, bread rationing was introduced in Tiraspol and its suburbs in late August.
A more important event also began in August--the wind-down of the operational group of Russian troops in Transnistria. A withdrawal of these troops was part of a "gentleman's agreement," reached in October 1994 between Russia and Moldova, that sought a political solution to the stand-off between the "Dnestr Republic" and the rest of Moldova, but that was approved only by Moldova. However, until the Russian State Duma (the lower house of the parliament) approved the agreement, matters would remain at a standstill.
In mid-August the commander, Valeriy Yevnevich, now promoted to lieutenant general, began to transfer nonmilitary equipment from the operational group to Transnistrian civilian authorities. Work also began on the destruction of old munitions (some manufactured before 1940) that could not be transported to Russia. Several trainloads of surplus military equipment were to be sent to Russia as well. At the same time, there was a cutback in the number of the operational group's officers and support staff. But because the Russian Duma had not yet ratified the withdrawal of the operational group, military authorities were calling this a "redeployment" of forces and equipment rather than an actual "withdrawal."
In September, Igor' N. Smirnov, president of the "Dnestr Republic" addressed the Russian State Duma and made an appeal for official recognition of the "Dnestr Republic." President Snegur of Moldova protested this move and continued to place his confidence in political negotiations. Smirnov, on the other hand, hoped to drag out talks until after Russian parliamentary elections, scheduled for December 1995, in an effort to get more support from the new parliament, which he hoped would be more sympathetic to the Transnistrians' cause.
September 29, 1995
Helen Fedor
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Chapter 2. Moldova
Chronology of Important Events
SECOND-THIRD CENTURIES
ca. 105-270 Rome occupies territory of future
Romanian lands.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY
1349 Prince Bogdan establishes Bogdania, later
renamed Moldova, stretching from
Carpathian Mountains to Nistru River.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY
1512 Although Stephen the Great (1457-1504)
achieves significant victories against
Ottoman Empire, Moldova becomes tributary
state of empire for 300 years.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
First Half First Moldovan books appear.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1792 Ottoman Empire cedes all its holdings in
Transnistria to Russian Empire under
Treaty of Ia i.
NINETEENTH CENTURY
1812 Bessarabia is incorporated into Russian
Empire under Treaty of Bucharest after
Russo-Turkish War (1806-12).
1858 Moldovan territory west of Prut River is
united with Walachia. Alexandru Ioan Cuza
is elected prince of the two regions the
following year.
TWENTIETH CENTURY
1917 February Revolution and Bolshevik
Revolution bring down Russian Empire.
Bessarabia's newly created National
Council declares Bessarabia the
independent Democratic Moldovan Republic,
federated with Russia.
1918 Bessarabia declares its complete
independence from Russia and votes to
unite with Romania.
1924 Soviet government creates Moldavian
Autonomous Oblast on east bank of Nistru
River. Seven months later, oblast is
upgraded to Moldavian Autonomous Soviet
Socialist Republic (Moldavian ASSR).
1940 June Bessarabia is occupied by Soviet forces
as a result of secret protocol attached
to 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.
August Soviet government creates Moldavian
Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR)
from most of Bessarabia and a portion of
Moldavian ASSR.
1941 Germany and Romania attack Moldavian SSR
and Ukrainian SSR; Germany gives
Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and
Transnistria to Romania.
1944 Soviet forces reoccupy Bessarabia and
Transnistria.
1947 Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and
Transnistria are formally returned to
Soviet Union by treaty.
1950-52 As first secretary of Communist Party of
Moldavia, Leonid I. Brezhnev liquidates
and deports thousands of ethnic Romanians
from Moldova and institutes forced
collectivization.
1986 Mikhail S. Gorbachev announces policy of
perestroika at CPSU's Twenty-
Seventh Party Congress in Moscow.
1988 Yedinstvo/Unitatea is formed by Slavs in
Transnistria.
1989 Moldovan Popular Front is formed.
1990 February Popular Front organizes "Republic's
Voters Meeting," attended by more than
100,000 persons. First democratic
elections are held for Supreme Soviet of
Moldavian SSR. Runoff elections are held
in March. Mircea Snegur is elected
chairman of Supreme Soviet.
June Name of Moldavian Soviet Socialist
Republic is changed to Soviet Socialist
Republic of Moldova. Supreme Soviet
adopts declaration of sovereignty
August Gagauz declare an independent "Gagauz
Republic."
September Slavs in Transnistria proclaim
independent "Dnestr Moldavian Republic."
Snegur becomes president of Soviet
Socialist Republic of Moldova.
1991 May Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova is
renamed Republic of Moldova. Supreme
Soviet changes its name to Moldovan
Parliament.
August August coup d'état takes place in Moscow.
Moldovan Parliament bans Communist Party
of Moldavia. Moldova declares its
complete independence from Soviet Union
on August 27 and demands withdrawal of
Soviet troops.
October President Snegur announces decision to
organize Moldova's own national armed
forces.
December Stepan Topal is elected president of
"Gagauz Republic." Igor' N. Smirnov is
elected president of "Dnestr Moldavian
Republic." Minsk Agreement establishes
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
President Snegur signs Alma-Ata
Declaration, which expands membership of
CIS, but Moldovan Parliament refuses to
ratify declaration. Soviet Union is
dissolved. United States recognizes
Moldova.
1992 March Government of Moldova declares state of
emergency in reaction to mounting
violence.
May Armed resistance by separatists escalates
to full-scale civil war in Transnistria.
July An agreement establishing a cease-fire in
Moldova is signed by Moldovan president
Snegur and Russian president Boris N.
Yeltsin.
1993 January Moldovan Parliament refuses to sign an
agreement strengthening CIS.
February Moldovan Popular Front is reformed as
Christian Democratic Popular Front.
November Moldova introduces its own currency, the
leu.
1994 February Parliamentary elections drastically
change Moldovan government. Popular Front
majority gone, compromises made with
nationalities on various issues.
April Moldova votes to join CIS.
August New Moldovan constitution goes into
effect.
October Moldova and Russia sign an agreement on
withdrawal of Russian 14th Army from
Transnistria and Bendery, but only
Moldovan government approves it.
1995 March Students, intelligentsia, workers, and
pensioners demonstrate in Chi in u over
cultural and educational issues and the
name of the language.
June Lieutenant General Aleksandr V. Lebed'
resigns as head of the Russian 14th Army
in protest over scheduled downgrading of
the 14th Army.
Data as of June 1995
****************
COUNTRY PROFILE
COUNTRY
Formal Name: Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova).
Short Form: Moldova.
Term for Citizens: Moldovan(s).
Capital: Chisinau.
Date of Independence: August 27, 1991.
GEOGRAPHY
Size: Approximately 33,700 square kilometers.
Topography: Gently rolling hilly plain in north; thick deciduous forests in center; numerous ravines and gullies in steppe zone in south. Highest point 430 meters.
Climate: Moderately continental. Average annual precipitation ranges from 600 millimeters in north to 400 millimeters in south.
SOCIETY
Population: 4,473,033 (July 1994 estimate); average annual growth rate 0.38 percent (1994 estimate).
Ethnic Groups: According to 1989 census, 64.5 percent Romanian, 13.8 percent Ukrainian, 13.0 percent Russian, 3.5 percent Gagauz, 2.0 percent Bulgarian, 1.5 percent Jewish, and 1.7 other, including Belarusian, Polish, Roma (Gypsy), and German.
Languages: Moldovan (a dialect of Romanian) official language; Russian retained as language of interethnic communication; areas of non-Romanian ethnic majority may also use local language as means of communication.
Religion: About 98.5 percent Eastern Orthodox (1991); also, Uniate, Jewish, Armenian Apostolic, Seventh-Day Adventist, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Molokan.
Education and Literacy: Mandatory School attendance, ten years; literacy, 96 percent (1992). Approximately half of students study in Romanian language and half in Russian language.
Health: Health care provided by state, mostly free of charge. Infant mortality rate 30.3 per 1,000 live births (1994). Life expectancy (1994) for males sixty-five years and for females seventy-two years. Modern medical equipment and facilities in short supply. In 1990 about 129 hospital beds and forty doctors per 10,000 inhabitants.
ECONOMY
General Character: Centralized. Government efforts to privatize and establish market economy slow.
National Material Product (NMP): In 1991 about US$13.1 billion; real growth rate -11.9 percent in 1992. Agriculture accounted for 42 percent of NMP in 1991, followed by industry with 38 percent, and other sectors with 24 percent.
Agriculture: State and collective farms transformed into joint-stock companies. Primary crops: fruits and berries, grains, grapes, tobacco, vegetables, sugar beets, potatoes, and sunflowers. Cattle, hogs, poultry, and lambs raised.
Industry: Food, machinery and metalworking, light industry, building materials, tractors, and wood products.
Minerals: No commercial mineral deposits.
Energy: Primary energy sources (minor hydroelectric and thermal power plants, and firewood) meet only 1 percent of domestic needs. Highly dependent on Russia for nearly all oil, gasoline, coal, and natural gas needed to fuel electric-power generation plants.
Foreign Trade: In 1994 nearly three-quarters of foreign trade with other members of Commonwealth of Independent States. Most imports and the vast majority of exports still directed toward territories of former Soviet Union. Imports: industrial raw materials, fossil fuels, and manufactured goods. Exports: wine and spirits, processed foods, and clothing and textiles.
Fiscal Year: Calendar year.
Currency and Exchange Rate: The leu (pl., lei), introduced in November 1993. In January 1995, 4.27 lei per US$1.
TRANSPORTATION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Highways: In 1995 estimated at 20,100 kilometers, including 14,000 kilometers of paved surfaces.
Railroads: In 1995 estimated at 1,150 kilometers.
Airports: Major airport in Chisinau.
Inland Waterways: Main river, Nistru, navigable almost entire length, but water transport only of local importance. Only eight rivers extend more than 100 kilometers.
Telecommunications: In 1995 one private television channel and three state television channels: Moldovan, Romanian, and Russian. In 1993 nine AM radio stations in four cities, and five FM stations in five cities, as well as a number of private radio stations.
GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Government: Democracy, with president and unicameral legislature, Moldovan Parliament, both popularly elected. Government composed of president and Council of Ministers. General Prosecution Office headed by prosecutor general. New constitution went into effect August 27, 1994. Two selfproclaimed republics: "Gagauzia," recognized and granted autonomy; and "Dnestr Moldavian Republic," with an elected, extralegal separatist government.
Politics: Leading parties after 1994 parliamentary elections: Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova, Christian Democratic Popular Front, Congress of Peasants and Intellectuals, Gagauz Halkî, and Yedinstvo/Socialist Bloc.
Foreign Relations: First recognized by Romania; as of early 1995, recognized by more than 170 states, including United States (December 25, 1991). Foreign diplomatic presence in Chisinau limited. Relations with Romania influenced by issue of reunification of the two countries. Relations with Ukraine improved as a result of less nationalistic Moldovan policies; presence of the Russian 14th Army in Transnistria seen as a common threat. Relationship with Russia very tense.
International Agreements and Memberships: Member of Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, North Atlantic Cooperation Council, Community of Riparian Countries of the Black Sea. Observer at General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and World Trade Organization (successor to GATT). Alma-Ata Declaration, creating Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), signed by president December 1991 but not ratified by Parliament until April 1994. Member of Commonwealth of Independent States, as of April 1994.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Armed Forces: Armed forces under Ministry of Defense. In early 1995 totaled approximately 11,000: ground forces (9,800, including army and Guard Battalion) and air force (1,300, including air defense). Reserves of 100,000 (those who had had military service in previous five years). Universal conscription, for up to eighteen months.
Major Military Units: In 1994 army consisted of three motor rifle brigades, one artillery brigade, and one reconnaissance/assault battalion. Air force consisted of one fighter regiment, one helicopter squadron, and one missile brigade.
Military Equipment: Arms from former Soviet stocks and undetermined quantities of arms from Romania.
Internal Security: National police, including internal troops (2,500) and OPON riot police (900) under Ministry of Interior. Security police and Border Guards under Ministry of National Security. Local assets of former Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic KGB transferred to new government along with personnel who wished to transfer to form new Ministry of National Security.
Russian Troops: Russian 14th Army (14,200, including Republican Guard) and "Cossacks" (approximately 1,000) constitute forces of self-proclaimed "Dnestr Moldavian Republic" in Transnistria.
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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA is the history of two different regions that have been joined into one country, but not into one nation: Bessarabia and Transnistria. Bessarabia, the land between the Prut and Nistru rivers, is predominantly ethnic Romanian in population and constitutes the eastern half of a region historically known as Moldova or Moldavia (the Soviet-era Russian name). Transnistria is the Romanian-language name for the land on the east bank of the Nistru River; the majority of the population there is Slavic--ethnic Ukrainians and Russians-- although Romanians are the single largest ethnic group there.
To a great extent, Moldova's history has been shaped by the foreigners who came to stay and by those who merely passed through, including Greek colonists, invading Turks and Tatars, officials of the Russian Empire, German and Bulgarian colonists, communist apparatchiks from the Soviet Union, soldiers from Nazi Germany, Romanian conationalists, and twentieth-century Russian and Ukrainian immigrants. Each group has left its own legacy, sometimes cultural and sometimes political, and often unwelcome.
Moldova's communist overlords, the most recent "foreigners," created the public life that exists in Moldova today. Independence has brought about changes in this public life, but often only on the surface. What further changes Moldova makes will depend partly on how much time it has before the next group of "foreigners" comes to call.
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Early History
Moldova's Latin origins can be traced to the period of Roman occupation of nearby Dacia (in present-day Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia), ca. A.D. 105-270, when a culture was formed from the intermingling of Roman colonists and the local population. After the Roman Empire and its influence waned and its troops left the region in A.D. 271, a number of groups passed through the area, often violently: Huns, Ostrogoths, and Antes (who were Slavs). The Bulgarian Empire, the Magyars, the Pechenegs, and the Golden Horde (Mongols) also held sway temporarily. In the thirteenth century, Hungary expanded into the area and established a line of fortifications in Moldova near the Siretul River (in present-day Romania) and beyond. The region came under Hungarian suzerainty until an independent Moldovan principality was established by Prince Bogdan in 1349. Originally called Bogdania, the principality stretched from the Carpathian Mountains to the Nistru River and was later renamed Moldova, after the Moldova River in present-day Romania.
During the second half of the fifteenth century, all of southeastern Europe came under increasing pressure from the Ottoman Empire, and despite significant military victories by Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare, 1457-1504), Moldova succumbed to Ottoman power in 1512 and was a tributary state of the empire for the next 300 years. In addition to paying tribute to the Ottoman Empire and later acceding to the selection of local rulers by Ottoman authorities, Moldova suffered repeated invasions by Turks, Crimean Tatars, and Russians.
In 1792 the Treaty of Iasi forced the Ottoman Empire to cede all of its holdings in what is now Transnistria to the Russian Empire. An expanded Bessarabia was annexed by, and incorporated into, the Russian Empire following the Russo-Turkish War of 1806- 12 according to the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812 (see fig. 14). Moldovan territory west of the Prut River was united with Walachia. And in the same year, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected prince of Walachia and the part of Moldova that lay west of the Prut River, laying the foundations of modern Romania. These two regions were united in 1861.
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The Beginning of the Soviet Period
In 1917, during World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, political leaders in Bessarabia created a National Council (Sfatul Tarii), which declared Bessarabia the independent Democratic Moldovan Republic, federated with Russia. In February 1918, the new republic declared its complete independence from Russia and, two months later, voted to unite with Romania, thus angering the Russian government.
After the creation of the Soviet Union in December 1922, the Soviet government moved in 1924 to establish the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast on land east of the Nistru River in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR). The capital of the oblast was at Balta (Balta, in Ukrainian), in present-day Ukraine. Seven months later, the oblast was upgraded to the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian ASSR), even though its population was only 30 percent ethnic Romanian. The capital remained at Balta until 1929, when it was moved to Tiraspol (Tiraspol', in Russian).
In June 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by Soviet forces as a consequence of a secret protocol attached to the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (see Glossary). On August 2, 1940, the Soviet government created the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR), with its capital at Chisinau (Kishinëv, in Russian), by joining most of Bessarabia with a portion of the Moldavian ASSR (the rest was returned to the Ukrainian SSR). Part of the far northern Moldavian ASSR (Herta--in present-day Ukraine), northern Bukovina (see Glossary), and southern Bessarabia (bordering on the Black Sea) were taken from Romania and incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, leaving the Moldavian SSR landlocked.
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World War II
In June 1941, German and Romanian troops attacked the Moldavian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR; the Nazis gave Romania, their ally, not only Bessarabia and northern Bukovina but also the land between the Nistru and Pivdennyy Buh (Yuzhnyy Bug, in Russian) rivers, north to Bar in Ukraine, which Romania named and administered as Transnistria. This arrangement lasted until August 1944, when Soviet forces reoccupied Bessarabia and Transnistria. A 1947 treaty formally returned Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and Transnistria to the Soviet Union, and the previous Soviet administrative divisions and Russian place-names were reimposed.
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Postwar Reestablishment of Soviet Control
With the restoration of Soviet power in the Moldavian SSR, Joseph V. Stalin's government policy was to Russify (see Glossary) the population of the Moldavian SSR and destroy any remaining ties it had with Romania. Secret police struck at nationalist groups; the Cyrillic alphabet (see Glossary) was imposed on the "Moldavian" (see Glossary) language; and ethnic Russians and Ukrainians were encouraged to immigrate to the Moldavian SSR, especially to Transnistria. The government's policies--requisitioning large amounts of agricultural products despite a poor harvest--induced a famine following the catastrophic drought of 1945-47, and political, communist party, and academic positions were given to members of non-Romanian ethnic groups (only 14 percent of the Moldavian SSR's political leaders were ethnic Romanians in 1946).
The conditions imposed during the reestablishment of Soviet rule became the basis of deep resentment toward Soviet authorities--a resentment that soon manifested itself. During Leonid I. Brezhnev's 1950-52 tenure as first secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia (CPM), he put down a rebellion of ethnic Romanians by killing or deporting thousands of people and instituting forced collectivization (see Glossary). Although Brezhnev and other CPM first secretaries were largely successful in suppressing "Moldavian" nationalism, the hostility of "Moldavians" smoldered for another three decades, until after Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power. His policies of glasnost (see Glossary) and perestroika (see Glossary) created conditions in which national feelings could be openly expressed and in which the Soviet republics could consider reforms.
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Increasing Political Self-Expression
In this climate of openness, political self-assertion escalated in the Moldavian SSR in 1988. The year 1989 saw the formation of the Moldovan Popular Front (commonly called the Popular Front), an association of independent cultural and political groups that had finally gained official recognition. Large demonstrations by ethnic Romanians led to the designation of Romanian as the official language and the replacement of the head of the CPM. However, opposition was growing to the increasing influence of ethnic Romanians, especially in Transnistria, where the Yedinstvo-Unitatea (Unity) Intermovement had been formed in 1988 by the Slavic minorities, and in the south, where Gagauz Halkî (Gagauz People), formed in November 1989, came to represent the Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking minority there (see Ethnic Composition , this ch.).
The first democratic elections to the Moldavian SSR's Supreme Soviet (see Glossary) were held February 25, 1990. Runoff elections were held in March. The Popular Front won a majority of the votes. After the elections, Mircea Snegur, a communist, was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet; in September he became president of the republic. The reformist government that took over in May 1990 made many changes that did not please the minorities, including changing the republic's name in June from the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova and declaring it sovereign the same month.
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Secession of Gagauzia and Transnistria
In August the Gagauz declared a separate "Gagauz Republic" (Gagauz-Yeri) in the south, around the city of Comrat (Komrat, in Russian). In September, Slavs on the east bank of the Nistru River proclaimed the "Dnestr Moldavian Republic" (commonly called the "Dnestr Republic") in Transnistria, with its capital at Tiraspol. Although the Supreme Soviet immediately declared these declarations null, both "republics" went on to hold elections. Stepan Topal was elected president of the "Gagauz Republic" in December 1991, and Igor' N. Smirnov was elected president of the "Dnestr Republic" in the same month.
Approximately 50,000 armed Moldovan nationalist volunteers went to Transnistria, where widespread violence was temporarily averted by the intervention of the Russian 14th Army. (The Soviet 14th Army, now the Russian 14th Army, had been headquartered in Chisinau under the High Command of the Southwestern Theater of Military Operations since 1956.) Negotiations in Moscow among the Gagauz, the Transnistrian Slavs, and the government of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova failed, and the government refused to join in further negotiations.
In May 1991, the country's official name was changed to the Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova). The name of the Supreme Soviet also was changed, to the Moldovan Parliament.
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Independence
During the 1991 August coup d'état (see Glossary) in Moscow, commanders of the Soviet Union's Southwestern Theater of Military Operations tried to impose a state of emergency in Moldova, but they were overruled by the Moldovan government, which declared its support for Russian president Boris N. Yeltsin. On August 27, 1991, following the coup's collapse, Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union (see Appendix B).
In October, Moldova began to organize its own armed forces. The Soviet Union was falling apart quickly, and Moldova had to rely on itself to prevent the spread of violence from the "Dnestr Republic" to the rest of the country. The December elections of Stepan Topal and Igor' Smirnov as presidents of their respective "republics," and the official dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of the year, led to increased tensions in Moldova.
Violence again flared up in Transnistria in 1992. A ceasefire agreement was negotiated by presidents Snegur and Yeltsin in July. A demarcation line was to be maintained by a tripartite peacekeeping force (composed of Moldovan, Russian, and Transnistrian forces), and Moscow agreed to withdraw its 14th Army if a suitable constitutional provision were made for Transnistria. Also, Transnistria would have a special status within Moldova and would have the right to secede if Moldova decided to reunite with Romania.
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Progress Toward Political Accommodation
New parliamentary elections were held in Moldova on February 27, 1994. Although the election was described by international observers as free and fair, authorities in Transnistria refused to allow balloting there and made efforts to discourage the inhabitants from participating. Only some 7,500 inhabitants voted at specially established precincts in right-bank Moldova.
The new Parliament, with its Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova majority, did not face the same gridlock that characterized the old Parliament with its majority of Popular Front hard-line nationalists: legislation was passed, and changes were made. President Snegur signed the Partnership for Peace agreement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in March 1994, and in April Parliament approved Moldova's membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS--see Glossary) and in a CIS charter on economic union. On July 28, Parliament ratified a new constitution, which went into effect August 27, 1994, and provided substantial autonomy to Transnistria and to Gagauzia.
Russia and Moldova signed an agreement in October 1994 on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria, but the Russian government balked at ratifying it, and another stalemate ensued. Although the cease-fire was still in effect at the beginning of 1995 and further negotiations were to include the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations, there was little hope for progress in the near future toward settling the dispute and getting the Russian troops to leave.
In March and April 1995, Moldovan college and secondaryschool students staged a series of strikes and demonstrations in Chisinau to protest the government's cultural and educational policies. The students were joined by segments of the local intelligentsia and later by workers and pensioners who were protesting for economic reasons. The most emotional issue was that of the national language: should it be Moldovan, as named in the 1994 constitution, or Romanian as most experts agree? (See Language , this ch.)
In an April 27 speech to Parliament, President Snegur asked Parliament to amend the constitution and change the name of the language to Romanian. The government's final decision was postponed until the fall because of the stipulation that six months must pass before a proposed change to the constitution can be made. The student demonstrators declared a moratorium on further strikes until September 6.
In 1995 Moldova was still faced with substantial domestic social and economic problems, but it seemed to be on the road to making progress toward the ideal of an open-market democracy. The country's complex ethnic makeup and the political legacy of the Soviet period continued to contribute to the government's difficulties, but the fall from power of the extreme nationalists in the 1994 parliamentary elections lowered ethnic tensions and allowed compromises to be made with the major ethnic groups. With Russia now a partner in negotiations on Transnistria and with pledges by the new government to respect the rights of the country's Russian-speaking populace, the threat of international hostilities has been greatly reduced.
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PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
Located in southeastern Europe, Moldova is bordered on the west by Romania and on the north, south, and east by Ukraine. Most of its territory lies between the area's two main rivers, the Nistru and the Prut. The Nistru (Dnister, in Ukrainian; Dnestr in Russian) forms a small part of Moldova's border with Ukraine in the northeast, but it mainly flows through the eastern part of the country, separating Bessarabia and Transnistria. The Prut River forms Moldova's entire western boundary with Romania.
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Topography and Drainage
Most of Moldova's approximately 33,700 square kilometers of territory (about the size of Maryland) cover a hilly plain cut deeply by many streams and rivers. Geologically, Moldova lies primarily on deep sedimentary rock that gives way to harder crystalline outcroppings only in the north, where higher elevations are found on the margins of the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.
The gently rolling Balti Plain (Stepa Balti, in Romanian; Bel'tskaya ravnina, in Russian) in northern Moldova (lying at ninety to 600 meters in elevation in the north) gives way to thick, deciduous forests in the Codri Hills (Podisul Codrilor, in Romanian; Kodry, in Russian), averaging 350 to 400 meters in elevation, where the most common trees are hornbeam, oak, linden, maple, wild pear, and wild cherry. The country's highest point, Mount Balanesti (Balaneshty, in Russian), is located in the west central portion of the country and reaches 430 meters.
The Bugeac Plain (Budzhak, in Russian) in the south has numerous ravines and gullies. Transnistria has spurs of the Volyn-Podolian Upland (Podisul Podolie, in Romanian; VolynoPodil 's'ka vysochyna, in Ukrainian), which are cut into by tributaries of the Nistru River.
About 75 percent of Moldova is covered by a soil type called chernozem (see Glossary). In the northern highlands, more claytextured soils are found; in the south, red-earth soil is predominant. The soil becomes less fertile toward the south but can still support grape and sunflower production. The uplands have woodland soils, while southern Moldova is in the steppe (see Glossary) zone, although most steppe areas today are cultivated. The lower reaches of the Prut River and the southern river valleys are saline marshes.
Drainage in Moldova is to the south, toward the Black Sea lowlands, and eventually into the Black Sea, but only eight rivers extend more than 100 kilometers. Moldova's main river, the Nistru, is navigable throughout almost the entire country, and in warmer winters it does not freeze over. The Prut River is a tributary of the Danube River, which it joins at the far southwestern tip of the country.
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Climate
Moldova's climate is moderately continental: the summers are warm and long, with temperatures averaging about 20°C, and the winters are relatively mild and dry, with January temperatures averaging -4°C. Annual rainfall, which ranges from around 600 millimeters in the north to 400 millimeters in the south, can vary greatly; long dry spells are not unusual. The heaviest rainfall occurs in early summer and again in October; heavy showers and thunderstorms are common. Because of the irregular terrain, heavy summer rains often cause erosion and river silting.
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Environmental Concerns
Moldova's communist-era environmental legacy, like that of many other former Soviet republics, is one of environmental degradation. Agricultural practices such as overuse of pesticides, herbicides, and artificial fertilizers were intended to increase agricultural output at all costs, without regard for the consequences. As a result, Moldova's soil and groundwater were contaminated by lingering chemicals, some of which (including DDT) have been banned in the West.
Such practices continue in Moldova to the present day. In the early 1990s, per hectare use of pesticides in Moldova averaged approximately twenty times that of other former Soviet republics and Western nations. In addition, poor farming methods, such as destroying forests to plant vineyards, have contributed to the extensive soil erosion to which the country's rugged topography is already prone.
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POPULATION AND ETHNIC COMPOSITION
Population Characteristics
Source: Based on information from World Bank, Statistical Handbook: States of the Former USSR, Washington, 1992, 279; and United Nations, Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis, Demographic Yearbook (Annuaire démographique), 1992, New York, 1994, 184.
Although Moldova is by far the most densely populated of the former Soviet republics (129 inhabitants per square kilometer in 1990, compared with thirteen inhabitants per square kilometer for the Soviet Union as a whole), it has few large cities. The largest and most important of these is Chisinau, the country's capital and its most important industrial center. Founded in 1420, Chisinau is located in the center of the republic, on the Bîc (Byk, in Russian) River, and in 1990 had a population of 676,000. The city's population is slightly more than 50 percent ethnic Romanian, with ethnic Russians constituting approximately 25 percent and Ukrainians 13 percent. The proportion of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in the capital's population decreased in the years immediately after 1989 because of the emigration resulting from Moldavia's changing political situation and civil unrest.
The second largest city in the republic, Tiraspol, had a population of 184,000 in 1990. It is located in Transnistria and served as the capital of the Moldavian ASSR from 1929 to 1940. It has remained an important center of administration, transportation, and manufacturing. In contrast to Chisinau, Tiraspol had a population of only some 18 percent ethnic Romanians, with most of the remainder being ethnic Russians (41 percent) and Ukrainians (32 percent).
Other important cities include Balti (Bel'tsy, in Russian), with a population of 162,000 in 1990, and Bender (or Bendery, in Russian; Tighina in Romanian), with a population of 132,000 in the same year. As in Tiraspol, ethnic Romanians are in the minority in both of these cities.
Traditionally a rural country, Moldova gradually began changing its character under Soviet rule (see table 7, Appendix A). As urban areas became the sites of new industrial jobs and of amenities such as clinics, the population of cities and towns grew. The new residents were not only ethnic Romanians who had moved from rural areas but also many ethnic Russians and Ukrainians who had been recruited to fill positions in industry and government (see Ethnic Composition , this ch.)
In 1990 Moldova's divorce rate of 3.0 divorces per 1,000 population had risen from the 1987 rate of 2.7 divorces per 1,000 population (see table 9, Appendix A). The usual stresses of marriage were exacerbated by a society in which women were expected to perform most of the housework in addition to their work outside the home. Compounding this were crowded housing conditions (with their resulting lack of privacy) and, no doubt, the growing political crisis, which added its own strains.
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Ethnic Composition
One of Moldova's characteristic traits is its ethnic diversity. As early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, Moldovan prince and scholar Dimitrie Cantemir observed that he "didn't believe that there [existed] a single country of the size of Moldova in which so many and such diverse peoples meet."
At the time of the 1989 census, Moldova's total population was 4,335,400. The largest nationality in the republic, ethnic Romanians, numbered 2,795,000 persons, accounting for 64.5 percent of the population. The other major nationalities were Ukrainians, about 600,000 (14 percent); Russians, about 562,000 (13.0 percent); Gagauz, about 153,000 (4 percent); Bulgarians, about 88,000 (2 percent); and Jews, about 66,000 (2.0 percent). There were also smaller but appreciable numbers of Belarusians, Poles, Roma (Gypsies), and Germans in the population (see fig. 16). In contrast, in Transnistria ethnic Romanians accounted for only 40 percent, of the population in 1989, followed by Ukrainians (28 percent), Russians (25 percent), Bulgarians (2 percent), and Gagauz (1 percent) (see fig. 17).
In the early 1990s, there was significant emigration from the republic, primarily from urban areas and primarily by Romanian minorities. In 1990 persons emigrating accounted for 6.8 percent of the population. This figure rose to 10 percent in 1991 before dropping sharply to 2 percent in 1992.
Ethnic Romanians made up a sizable proportion of the urban population in 1989 (about half the population of Chisinau, for example), as well as a large proportion of the rural population (80 percent), but only 23 percent of the ethnic Romanians lived in the republic's ten largest cities. Many had emigrated to Romania at the end of World War II, and others had lost their lives during the war and in postwar Soviet purges. As a consequence of industrial growth and the Soviet government's policy of diluting and Russifying ethnic Romanians, there was significant immigration to the Moldavian SSR by other nationalities, especially ethnic Russians and Ukrainians.
Unlike ethnic Romanians, ethnic Russians tend to be urban dwellers in Moldova; more than 72 percent of them lived in the ten largest cities in 1989. Many of them came to the Moldavian SSR after it was annexed by the Soviet government in 1940; more arrived after World War II. Ostensibly, they came to alleviate the Moldavian SSR's postwar labor shortage (although thousands of ethnic Romanians were being deported to Central Asia at the time) and to fill leadership positions in industry and the government. The Russians settled mainly in Chisinau and Bender and in the Transnistrian cities of Tiraspol and Dubasari (Dubossary, in Russian). Only about 25 percent of Moldova's Russians lived in Transnistria in the early 1990s (see fig. 18).
Ethnic Ukrainians in Moldova are more evenly distributed between rural and urban areas. Forty-seven percent of them resided in large cities in 1989; others lived in long-settled villages dispersed throughout the region, but particularly in the north and in Transnistria.
The Gagauz, Turkic-speaking Orthodox Christians (unlike most Turks, who are Muslims), are concentrated in rural southern Moldova, mainly around the cities of Comrat, Ciadîr-Lunga (Chadyr-Lunga, in Russian), and Vulcanesti (Vulkaneshty, in Russian). Their ethnic origin is complex and still debated by scholars, but it is agreed that they migrated to Bessarabia from Bulgaria in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Shortly after Moldova declared its sovereignty, in June 1990 the Gagauz declared their own independent "Gagauz Republic" in the southern part of the country. The 1994 constitution accorded them a measure of autonomy, and a decree later that year officially established Gagauzia (Gagauz-Yeri, in Gagauz).
Ethnic Bulgarians in Moldova live mainly in the southern part of the country. Most of them are descendants of eighteenthcentury settlers who came to the region because of persecution by the Turks. Others came to Bessarabia when Imperial Russia encouraged their emigration in the nineteenth century. Their numbers declined from 177,000 when the Moldavian SSR was formed in 1940 to 88,000 in the 1989 census.
Although considered a religious affiliation in the West, "Jewish" was considered a nationality by Soviet authorities, even though Judaism was suppressed as a religion.
Although Jews had lived in Bessarabia and the region of Moldova for centuries before Empress Catherine II of Russia established the Pale of Settlement, Jews in Russia were restricted to living and traveling solely within the Pale as of 1792. By the nineteenth century, the Pale included Russian Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, most of Ukraine, Crimea, and Bessarabia. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that exceptions were made.
Most of the prolonged military conflict of World War I and the Russian Civil War took place in the Pale, inflicting heavy losses of life and property on Jews. When it was created in 1940, the Moldavian SSR (mainly Chisinau) held more than 200,000 Jews. However, their numbers plummeted to only several thousand as a result of emigration. Their ranks increased again during the 1960s and 1970s, only to decline afterward, mainly the result of emigration.
In general, Jews in independent Moldova were not discriminated against. But problems in Transnistria (home to almost one-quarter of Moldova's Jews) and the anti-Semitic attitudes of the "Dnestr Republic" authorities prompted many of them to think of emigration.
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LANGUAGE, RELIGION, AND CULTURE
Language
The Moldovan dialect of Romanian, spoken by the majority of the people of Bessarabia, was viewed by both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an impediment to controlling the local populace. Under the tsars, Romanian-language education and the Romanian press were forbidden as part of a process of forced Russification.
Stalin justified the creation of the Moldavian SSR by claiming that a distinct "Moldavian" language was an indicator that "Moldavians" were a separate nationality from the Romanians in Romania. In order to give greater credence to this claim, in 1940 Stalin imposed the Cyrillic alphabet on "Moldavian" to make it look more like Russian and less like Romanian; archaic Romanian words of Slavic origin were imposed on "Moldavian"; Russian loanwords and phrases were added to "Moldavian"; and a new theory was advanced that "Moldavian" was at least partially Slavic in origin. (Romanian is a Romance language descended from Latin.) In 1949 Moldavian citizens were publicly reprimanded in a journal for daring to express themselves in literary Romanian. The Soviet government continued this type of behavior for decades.
Proper names in Moldova were subjected to Russianization (see Glossary) as well. Russian endings were added to purely Romanian names, and individuals were referred to in the Russian manner by using a patronymic (based on one's father's first name) as a middle name.
In 1989 members of most of the Moldavian SSR's nationalities claimed their national language as their mother tongue: Romanians (95 percent), Ukrainians (62 percent), Russians (99 percent), Gagauz (91 percent), Bulgarians (79 percent), and Roma (82 percent). The exceptions were Jews (26 percent citing Yiddish), Belarusians (43 percent), Germans (31 percent), and Poles (10 percent).
Although both Romanian written in the Cyrillic alphabet (that is, "Moldavian") and Russian were the official languages of the Moldavian SSR, only 62 percent of the total population claimed Romanian as their native language in 1979. If ethnic Romanians are subtracted from this number, the figure falls to just over 1 percent. Only 4 percent of the entire population claimed Romanian as a second language.
In 1979 Russian was claimed as a native language by a large proportion of Jews (66 percent) and ethnic Belarusians (62 percent) and by a significant proportion of ethnic Ukrainians (30 percent). Proportions of other nationalities naming Russian as a native language ranged from 17 percent of ethnic Bulgarians to 3 percent of ethnic Romanians (urban Romanians were more Russianized than rural Romanians). Russian was claimed as a second language by a sizable proportion of all the nationalities: Romanians (46 percent), Ukrainians (43 percent), Gagauz (68 percent), Jews (30 percent), Bulgarians (67 percent), Belarusians (34 percent), Germans (53 percent), Roma (36 percent), and Poles (24 percent).
On August 31, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of Moldavia passed the Law on State Language, which made Moldovan written in the Latin alphabet the state language of the Moldavian SSR. Because of pressure exerted by non-Romanian ethnic groups, Russian was retained as the language of interethnic communication. In areas where non-Romanian ethnic groups were the majority, the language of that majority could also be used as a means of communication. Because of strong objections raised by the non-Romanian nationalities, implementation of the law was delayed.
The new Moldovan constitution, adopted August 27, 1994, states that Moldovan, written in the Latin script, is designated as the official language, but provisions were made for Russian and other languages to be used in areas of minority concentrations. Russian was also to be the language of interethnic communication.
On April 27, 1995, President Snegur asked Parliament to change the name of the language in the constitution, from Moldovan to Romanian, in response to demonstrations and strikes led by students. According to Moldovan law, it would be six months before a proposed change to the constitution could be made.
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Religion
Most of Moldova's population are Orthodox Christians. In 1991, about 98.5 percent of the population belonged to this faith.
The Soviet government strictly limited the activities of the Orthodox Church (and all religions) and at times sought to exploit it, with the ultimate goal of destroying it and all religious activity. Most Orthodox churches and monasteries in Moldova were demolished or converted to other uses, such as warehouses, and clergy were sometimes punished for leading services. But many believers continued to practice their faith in secret.
In 1991 Moldova had 853 Orthodox churches and eleven Orthodox monasteries (four for monks and seven for nuns). In addition, the Old Russian Orthodox Church (Old Believers--see Glossary) had fourteen churches and one monastery in Moldova.
Before Soviet power was established in Moldova, the vast majority of ethnic Romanians belonged to the Romanian Orthodox Church (Bucharest Patriarchate), but today the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has jurisdiction in Moldova. Russian, Romanian, and Turkic (Gagauz) liturgies are used in the church. After the recent revival of religious activity, most of the clergy and the faithful wanted to return to the Bucharest Patriarchate but were prevented from doing so. Because higherlevel church authorities were unable to resolve the matter, Moldova now has two episcopates, one for each patriarchate. In late 1992, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia issued a decree upgrading the Eparchy of Chisinau and Moldova to a metropolitan see (for definition of eparchy--see Glossary).
Moldova also has a Uniate minority, mainly among ethnic Ukrainians, although the Soviet government declared the Uniate Church (see Glossary) illegal in 1946 and forcibly united it with the Russian Orthodox Church. The Uniate Church survived underground, however, outlasting the Soviet Union itself.
Despite the Soviet government's suppression and ongoing harassment, Moldova's Jews managed to retain their religious identity. About a dozen Jewish newspapers were started in the early 1990s, and religious leaders opened a synagogue in Chisinau; there were six Jewish communities of worship throughout the country. In addition, Moldova's government created the Department of Jewish Studies at Chisinau State University, mandated the opening of a Jewish high school in Chisinau, and introduced classes in Judaism in high schools in several cities. The government also provides financial support to the Society for Jewish Culture.
Other religious denominations in Moldova are the Armenian Apostolic Church, Seventh-Day Adventists, Baptists, Pentecostals, and Molokans (a Russian Orthodox sect).
Citizens in independent Moldova have much greater religious freedom than they did under the Soviet regime. Legislation passed in 1992 guaranteed religious freedom but did require that all religious groups be officially recognized by the government. In 1992 construction or restoration of 221 churches was under way, but clergy remained in short supply.
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Culture
Moldova's cultural tradition has been influenced primarily by the Romanian origin of its majority population and cannot be understood outside of the development of classical Romanian culture, in which it played a significant role.
The roots of Romanian culture reach back to the second century A.D., the period of Roman colonization in Dacia. During the centuries following the Roman withdrawal in A.D. 271, the population of the region was influenced by contact with the Byzantine Empire, neighboring Slavic and Magyar populations, and later the Ottoman Turks. Beginning in the nineteenth century, a strong West European (particularly French) influence came to be evident in Romanian literature and the arts. The resulting mélange has produced a rich cultural tradition. Although foreign contacts were an inevitable consequence of the region's geography, their influence only served to enhance a vital and resilient popular culture.
The regional population had come to identify itself widely as "Moldovan" by the fourteenth century but continued to maintain close cultural links with other Romanian groups. The eastern Moldovans, however, those inhabiting Bessarabia and Transnistria, were also influenced by Slavic culture from neighboring Ukraine. During the periods 1812-1917 and 1944-89, the eastern Moldovans were influenced by Russian and Soviet administrative control as well and by ethnic Russian immigration.
Bessarabia was one of the least-developed and least-educated European regions of the Russian Empire. In 1930 its literacy rate was only 40 percent, according to a Romanian census. Although Soviet authorities promoted education (not the least to spread communist ideology), they also did everything they could to break the region's cultural ties with Romania. With many ethnic Romanian intellectuals either fleeing, being killed, or being deported both during and after World War II, Bessarabia's cultural and educational situation worsened.
To fill the gap, Soviet authorities developed urban cultural and scientific centers and institutions that were subsequently filled with Russians and with other non-Romanian ethnic groups, but this culture was superimposed and alien. Urban culture came from Moscow; the rural ethnic Romanian population was allowed to express itself only in folklore or folk art.
Although the folk arts flourished, similarities with Romanian culture were hidden. Music and dance, particularly encouraged by Soviet authorities, were made into a showcase but were subtly distorted to hide their Romanian origins. An example is the national folk costume, in which the traditional Romanian moccasin (opinca) was replaced by the Russian boot.
Moldova's folk culture is extremely rich, and the ancient folk ballad, the "Miorita," plays a central role in the traditional culture. Folk traditions, including ceramics and weaving, continue to be practiced in rural areas. The folk culture tradition is promoted at the national level and is represented by, among other groups, the republic's dance company, Joc, and by the folk choir, Doina.
The first Moldovan books (religious texts) appeared in the mid-seventeenth century. Prominent figures in Moldova's cultural development include prince and scholar Dimitrie Cantemir (1673- 1723), historian and philologist Bogdan P. Hasdeu (1836-1907), author Ion Creanga (1837-89), and poet Mihai Eminescu (1850-89).
Prominent modern writers include Vladimir Besleaga, Pavel Botu, Aureliu Busioc, Nicolae Dabija, Ion Druta, and Grigore Vieru. In 1991 a total of 520 books were published in Moldova, of which 402 were in Romanian, 108 in Russian, eight in Gagauz, and two in Bulgarian.
In the early 1990s, Moldova had twelve professional theaters. All performed in Romanian except the A.P. Chekhov Russian Drama Theater in Chisinau and the Russian Drama and Comedy Theater in Tiraspol, both of which performed solely in Russian, and the Licurici Republic Puppet Theater (in Chisinau), which performed in both Romanian and Russian. Members of ethnic minorities manage a number of folklore groups and amateur theaters throughout the country.
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EDUCATION, HEALTH, AND WELFARE
Education
In the decades prior to independence, the Moldavian SSR's education system made substantial progress toward being available to all citizens. At the beginning of the twentieth century, illiteracy had been common among Moldova's rural population. But by 1992, the adult literacy rate had risen to 96 percent. In 1990 the mean duration of schooling was six years, and 30 percent of the population aged fifteen and older had completed general secondary education.
Under the Soviet education system, the Moldavian SSR had parallel systems of Romanian-language and Russian-language education through secondary school, although Russian was seen as the key to advancement. In 1990 a total of 614 preschools were taught in Romanian, 1,333 were taught in Russian, and 373 were taught in both Romanian and Russian. There were 1,025 Romanianlanguage primary and secondary schools with 399,200 students; 420 Russian-language schools with 239,100 students; and 129 mixedlanguage schools with 82,500 students studying in the Russian and Romanian languages, with more than half of the students studying in Russian. Change occurred slowly at the university level, however, and 55 percent of students continued to study in the Russian language as of 1992.
Under Moldova's education system, ten years of basic education are compulsory, followed by either technical school or further study leading to higher education. In the early 1990s, the Moldovan government restored the Romanian language in schools and added courses in Romanian literature and history to the curriculum. The governments of Romania and Moldova established strong ties between their education systems; several thousand Moldovan students attended school in Romania, and the Romanian government donated textbooks to Moldova to replace books from the Soviet era.
As Moldovan society became more industrialized and more complex under the Soviet regime, the role of higher education also expanded (although ethnic Russian and Ukrainian students were given preference in university admissions during the Soviet era). Although there were only ten students per 10,000 population enrolled in institutions of higher education in 1940, this number increased to 120 per 10,000 population in 1992. In early 1995, Moldova had ten institutions of higher education; four of these institutions had been established since independence. The republic also maintained institutes of agriculture, economics, engineering, medicine, the arts, pedagogy, and physical education.
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Health
In July 1994, Moldova's population was estimated at 4,473,033, with an average annual growth rate of 0.38 percent. In 1992 the population's birth rate was 16.1 per 1,000 population (compared with Romania's fourteen per 1,000), the death rate was 10.2 per 1,000 (the same as Romania's), and the rate of natural population increase was 0.7 percent per year (0.9 percent for Romania) (see table 8, Appendix A). The instability that had occurred throughout the Soviet Union at the time of its dissolution had a significant impact on these figures. By 1992, the birth rate had fallen from 18.9 in 1989 to 16.1 per 1,000, mortality had increased from 9.2 in 1989 to 10.2 per 1,000, and the natural population increase had declined from 1.0 in 1989 to 0.6 percent per year. In 1992 the infant mortality rate was thirty-five per 1,000 live births (compared with Romania's twenty-two per 1,000 live births). In 1989 the size of the average Moldovan family was 3.4 persons.
In 1991 about 28 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age, and almost 13 percent was over sixty-five years of age (see fig. 19). Life expectancy in 1994 was sixty-five years for males and seventy-two years for females.
Although the Soviet government had built health care facilities in the Moldavian SSR, modern equipment and facilities were in short supply in the early 1990s. In 1990 there were 129 hospital beds and forty doctors per 10,000 inhabitants. The 1991 state budget allocated approximately 12 percent of the total budget to health care, most of which was provided to citizens free of charge.
The leading causes of death in Moldova are cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases, and accidents. Other major health problems are high levels of alcohol consumption and illnesses resulting from the extensive and indiscriminate use of herbicides and pesticides (see Environmental Concerns , this ch.).
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Welfare
Although Moldavia's official standard of living had long been below the average for the Soviet Union, there were two mitigating factors. The rural character of the country accounted for many households receiving goods (mainly food) as well as cash wages. In addition, Moldavian industry was based on consumer goods (including textiles, consumer appliances, and processed agricultural goods), making them relatively plentiful throughout the republic (see table 10, Appendix A).
The hostilities in Transnistria and the turmoil surrounding the demise of the Soviet Union were the major reasons for the falling standard of living in Moldova in the early 1990s. The outbreak of hostilities in Transnistria interrupted not only the flow of fuels and goods from former Soviet republics through Transnistria into right-bank Moldova but also cut off valuable inputs (for example, fertilizer) that were produced in Transnistria. These, in turn, indirectly affected such indicators as food consumption, a sign that everyday life was affected (see table 11, Appendix A).
In 1991 Moldova set up the Social Assistance Fund (to provide assistance to the needy) and the Social Security Fund (SSF). The SSF is composed of the Pension Fund, the Social Insurance Fund, the Unemployment Fund, and the Reserve Fund. Funding for the SSF comes mainly from a payroll tax and from direct budget transfers.
The Pension Fund includes old-age pensions (age fifty-five for women who have worked at least twenty years, and age sixty for men who have worked for twenty-five years), pensions for invalids, pensions for women who have raised three or more children, military and special merit pensions, and pensions for people of retirement age or for people who receive disability pensions yet continue to work.
In early 1994, approximately 900,000 people (about 20 percent of the total population) received pensions. Legislation increased both benefits for dependent children and the minimum pension in 1992, and a law was passed to index benefits to inflation, but it had not been fully implemented by the end of the year. Many felt that passage of this law would add significantly to the demands on an already overburdened budget.
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Housing
Even before independence, much of Moldova's housing stock was in private hands because of the country's strong tradition of private home ownership, especially in rural areas. In 1994 some 90 percent of rural and 36 percent of urban apartments were held privately.
At the time of Moldova's independence, housing construction was hampered by severe shortages of building materials and disruptions in deliveries. However, the housing stock continued to expand in both rural and urban areas. In 1990 private builders accounted for only 26 percent of construction in urban areas, but they accounted for 95 percent of construction in rural areas. In 1990 per capita housing space averaged eighteen square meters (fourteen square meters in urban areas and twenty-one square meters in rural areas).
All state-owned housing was scheduled for privatization, in stages, beginning in May 1993 and using government-issued vouchers. Apartments that did not exceed state norms for per capita space utilization were to be turned over to their occupants free of charge. People living in apartments that exceeded space norms would have to pay the state a premium based on the average cost per meter of housing construction. Privatization using vouchers was scheduled to be completed in the summer of 1995, at which time there would be an open housing market (see Postindependence Privatization and Other Reforms , this ch.).
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THE ECONOMY
Historically, the region now encompassed by the Republic of Moldova was poorly developed. Economic activity was principally agricultural, rural poverty was endemic, and the urban economy, such as it was, was based almost entirely on commerce, food processing, and the production of consumer goods. Development prior to the mid-eighteenth century lagged for a variety of reasons, but principally because of limited resources and political instability. The region of Moldova was relatively backward in comparison with the rest of Romania.
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The Economy in the Soviet Period
Under Soviet rule, the Moldavian ASSR (1924-40) experienced considerable industrial development between the two world wars, particularly in and around Tiraspol, the site of new manufacturing activity. After World War II, substantial industrialization occurred throughout the Moldavian SSR (1940- 91), especially in Chisinau, but with a continuing focus on Transnistria as well. In addition to further developing the foodprocessing industry, the government introduced the textile, machine tool, and electronics industries.
Until independence, Moldova's economy was organized along standard Soviet lines: all industry was state owned, as were commerce and finance. Approximately one-third of all enterprises (see Glossary) were subordinate to the economic ministries of the Soviet Union, and two-thirds were subordinate to republic-level authorities. Agriculture was collectivized, and production was organized principally around state farms (see Glossary) and collective farms (see Glossary).
The Moldavian economy, robust in the 1970s, slowed down somewhat in the early 1980s and contracted sharply in 1985, mainly as a result of declining activity in the wine sector, a casualty of Gorbachev's antialcohol campaign. In the late 1980s, the economy briefly regained strength and grew faster than the economy of the Soviet Union as a whole.
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Postindependence Privatization and Other Reforms
Once independence was achieved, Moldova's government undertook measures to begin privatization, which included passing a law mandating privatization and establishing the State Department for Privatization to direct the process. The overall reform policy was guided by "The Draft Economic Reform Program of the Government of Moldova," a 1991 document calling for establishment of a market economy but permitting significant provisions for government intervention.
In late 1992, the government presented Parliament with a more market-oriented policy in its "Program of Activity of the Government of Moldova for 1992-1995." Its goal was to form a new social pact as a basis for a new society and economy for Moldova. The two-part program would first aim at stabilizing the country and then provide for the economy's recovery and growth by such means as agrarian and trade reform, social protection, and a legal framework for a market economy. The direction of the new government was elaborated in the "Program of Activity of the Government of the Republic of Moldova for 1994 to 1997," which was adopted by Parliament and which focuses on restructuring the economy, reorganizing enterprises, privatizing small and mediumsized enterprises, promoting entrepreneurship, decreasing the budget deficit, implementing an efficient fiscal policy, and formulating new mechanisms to create a market economy. Another bill, the "Program for Privatization for 1995-1996," was approved by Parliament in March 1995. It focuses on foreign investment, privatization of agricultural land, the introduction of cash auctions, mass privatization, and the development of capital markets. Over 1,450 state enterprises are to be auctioned off.
During 1992 enterprise privatization committees inventoried assets at each enterprise in the republic; the aggregate result of this inventory became the basis of calculations of Moldova's total industrial wealth. Each citizen was to be provided with vouchers (or Patrimonial Bonds) in 1993, endowing him or her with a share of this total wealth based on years of employment in the economy. Citizens would receive one voucher point per year of work in the republic. Enterprise employees were to be allowed to purchase up to 30 percent of the value of their enterprises at nominal value. By special arrangement, 40 percent of the value of enterprises in the food-processing sector was to be allocated to suppliers. The program was to be completed by the summer of 1995. As of the beginning of 1995, Moldova had 4,400 state and 57,000 private enterprises.
Employees of collective and state farms were also to be provided with vouchers based on the length of their employment in the agricultural sector. In January 1992, Moldova expanded the amount of free land that eligible families would receive from state farms to 0.5 hectare per family, with an additional 0.1 hectare to be added for fourth and subsequent family members up to a maximum of one hectare per family, on the condition that it not be resold before 2001 (although it could be bequeathed).
Collective and state farms were to be converted into jointstock companies first, and the land and property were to be allocated later. In 1993 Moldova had 481 small private farms; by 1995 this number had increased to 13,958. In 1995 1.5 percent of agricultural land in Moldova was held by these small farmers. The reasons for slow privatization of the agricultural sector include slow privatization of large organizations, the use of outmoded production methods and equipment, poor accounting practices, and a shortage of processing facilities.
At the same time that privatization plans were under way, actual reform efforts were halting and relatively ineffectual, and Moldova's economy declined. A number of factors contributed to the decline, including the complicated political situation in the republic (which had seen several changes of leadership in its first years of existence) and the political and military conflict with Transnistria. Substantial industrial capacity is located in Transnistria, and the disruption of traditional economic ties with enterprises there has had a negative effect on the economy of right-bank Moldova.
Further, because Moldova's economy was firmly embedded in the broader economic structures of the former Soviet Union, it also suffered damage from the breakdown in interrepublic trade, abrupt increases in external prices, and inflation resulting from the Russian government's policy of printing large amounts of money. (Moldova retained the Russian ruble as its currency until November 1993.) The consequence of all these factors has been a substantial economic downturn in both industry and agriculture, accompanied by increased unemployment and a decline in labor productivity. In 1991 Moldova's national income was only at 1985 levels. Moldova's industrial output in early 1995 was half of the output of 1990. Moldova's gross domestic product (GDP--see Glossary) declined by 30 percent in 1994 (by 5 percent in 1993 and by 28 percent in 1992), and its industrial output declined by 34 percent (by 12 percent in 1993 and by 27 percent in 1992).
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Labor Force
Moldova's labor force still reflects the structure of the economy under communism. In 1991, 78 percent of the population employed outside the home worked in the state sector, 19 percent worked on collective farms, and 3 percent worked in the private sector. The private sector employed 9 percent of the workforce in 1995. In early 1995, the official unemployment rate was 1 percent, but experts put the real rate at between 10 and 15 percent.
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Agriculture
Source: Based on information from International Monetary Fund, Moldova, Washington, 1993, 31.
At the time of Moldova's independence, agriculture continued to play a major role in the country's economy, as it had during the Soviet period. In 1991 agriculture accounted for 42 percent of the net material product (NMP--see Glossary) and employed 36 percent of the labor force (see fig. 21).
The organizational backbone of independent Moldova's agriculture continues to be its system of former state and collective farms, one-quarter of which were transformed into joint-stock companies by 1994 and are now owned in shares by the people who work them. In 1993 Moldova's 600 collective farms covered 16.2 million hectares of land and employed 401,300 persons; in the same year, its 389 state farms encompassed 600,500 hectares of land and employed 168,200 persons. Agricultural output from private farms increased from 18 percent in 1990 to 38 percent in 1994.
Moldova possesses substantial agricultural resources; its climate and fertile soils (1.7 million hectares of arable land in 1991) support a wide range of crops. The country is an important regional producer of grapes and grape products, and its orchards produce significant amounts of fruit, including plums, apricots, cherries, and peaches. Fruit production is concentrated in the north, in the central region, and in the Nistru River area. Tobacco is also an important commercial crop. Sugar beets are grown throughout the republic and provide raw material for a substantial (although antiquated) sugar-refining industry, and sunflowers are grown for their oil. Cereal crops, including wheat, are grown widely (corn is the leading grain) and are used for domestic consumption, export, and animal feed.
Meat accounts for less than half of total agricultural production. In 1991 about half of total meat output was accounted for by pork (145,000 tons), followed by beef and veal (97,000 tons), chicken (56,000 tons), and lamb (5,000 tons). From 1990 to 1994, the amount of arable land used for livestock production decreased by some 25 percent; the number of livestock in 1994 was 400,000.
Probably the most widely known products of Moldova are its wines, sparkling wines, and brandies, which were recognized as among the finest in the former Soviet Union. In 1991 these accounted for 28 percent of the output of the food-processing sector, followed by meat processing with 22 percent of production and fruit and vegetable processing (including the production of canned fruits and vegetables, jams, jellies, and fruit juices) with 15 percent. Moldova also produces sugar and sugar products, perfume, vegetable oils, and dairy products.
Approximately half of Moldova's agricultural and food production is sold to former Soviet republics. Traditional markets are Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Agricultural production has been in serious decline since the late 1980s, both in terms of overall production levels and in terms of per-hectare production of most crops (see table 12, Appendix A). Overall agricultural output in 1991 was at 1970 levels. A number of factors contributed to the decline, including difficulties in providing necessary inputs and agricultural machinery, disruption of the transportation system, failures in the incentive system, difficulties related to political instability in Transnistria, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, and, not the least, Moldova's variable weather. In 1990 a drought resulted in a serious decline in production. On the heels of the drought, 1991 saw a spring freeze, severe summer flooding, and then the worst drought in some fifty years. Overall agricultural output in 1993 was down 15 percent from the previous year; grain production, one-third less than in 1991, was particularly affected (especially corn, which was down over 50 percent on average). The trend continued into 1994 when drought and storms with hurricane-force winds caused agricultural output to decline 58 percent from 1993 levels. Although Moldova was traditionally a wheat exporter, it had to import 100,000 to 200,000 tons of wheat as a result of a 1994 harvest that was 800,000 tons less than the harvest of 1993.
In fiscal year (FY--see Glossary) 1992, Moldova participated in the United States Department of Agriculture's P.L. 480 Title I program, which provided US$7 million in long-term credit for government-to-government concessional sales, offered repayment terms of ten to thirty years (with grace periods of up to seven years), and provided low interest rates. Moldova's line of credit was scheduled to increase to US$10 million in 1993.
By the beginning of 1994, total United States assistance to Moldova included approximately US$12 million in technical assistance, in support of Moldova's transition to a market economy and democracy, and US$68 million in humanitarian assistance. In 1995 the United States was scheduled to provide US$22 million in technical assistance for economic restructuring and privatization. This amount brings total United States assistance to Moldova since 1992 to more than US$200 million.
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Industry
In 1991 industry accounted for approximately 38 percent of the NMP and employed 21 percent of the work force. Some of the main products of Moldova's industry include electrical motors and equipment, pumps for industrial and agricultural use, and agricultural equipment, including tractors and automobile parts. There is also a small chemical industry, which produces plastics, synthetic fibers, paint, and varnish, and a construction industry, which produces cement and prefabricated reinforcedconcrete structures.
The Moldovan consumer goods industry in the early 1990s was faced with the same problems affecting the rest of the Moldovan economy. The supply of cheap fuels and raw materials, provided to Moldavia under the Soviet economic system (under which Moldavia specialized in consumer goods and agricultural products), dried up with the demise of the Soviet Union and the hostilities in Transnistria. Together with high inflation, the cost of goods went up tremendously, sometimes doubling in the course of one year.
In 1991 consumer goods accounted for 22 percent of Moldova's industrial output; the textile industry accounted for approximately 50 percent of this, and food processing accounted for 40 percent. Clothing manufacturing made up another 29 percent of total production.
In 1994 Moldova had eleven military-goods producing enterprises. Attempts were being made to convert ten of them to civilian production. However, these facilities were operating at only 15 to 20 percent of capacity, as compared with the industrywide average of 40 percent of capacity. As a result, conversion prospects were not bright.
Moldova's heavy industry is almost entirely the product of development during the Soviet period. Machine building predominates within heavy industry, accounting for 16 percent of total industrial production.
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Energy and Fuels
Among the most pressing difficulties facing the republic's economy is a near total lack of energy resources. Moldova's own primary energy sources consist of small hydroelectric power plants on the Nistru River at Dubasari and Camenca (Kamenka, in Russian); minor thermal electric power plants at Balti, Rîbnita (Rybnitsa, in Russian), Ungheni (Ungeny, in Russian), and Chisinau; and firewood, all of which combine to meet only 1 percent of domestic needs. A coal-fired power plant was under construction at Cuciurgan (Kuchurgan, in Russian), in Transnistria, in 1995.
Another source of problems is the fact that almost 90 percent of power and 100 percent of power transformers are produced in politically troubled Transnistria. In addition, Transnistria's adversarial "government" has frequently disrupted the flow of fuels into Moldova from Russia and Ukraine.
Moldova has an electric power production capacity of 3.1 million kilowatts, and it produced 11.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 1993. By 1994 electricity production had decreased 14 percent in comparison with 1993. Over the same period, thermal electric production decreased 22 percent.
Despite its lack of energy resources, the country continues to export some of the electricity it generates to Romania and Bulgaria. However, these exports have been cut back (the countries receive electricity only to the extent to which they supply fuel). Some electricity shortages have occurred in Moldova, mostly in winter, and have been dealt with by rationing. Much of the country's generating equipment (which is not produced by Moldova) and approximately one-quarter of its transmission and distribution lines are in need of repair.
In the early 1990s, energy shortages were prevalent, and energy availability was sporadic, leading to disruptions in economic activity; imports of coal, natural gas, diesel fuel, and gasoline declined by an estimated average of 40 percent from 1991 to 1992. In 1994 the picture was somewhat different. Gasoline imports were up 33.6 percent and coal imports increased 15.4 percent, while imports of diesel fuel, mazut, and natural gas fell 25 percent, 51.5 percent, and 3.1 percent, respectively.
In 1994 Moldavia was dependent on Russia for 90 percent of the fuel needed for its electric-power generation plants: diesel oil (88,000 tons), gasoline (65,000 tons), fuel oil (365,000 tons), and natural gas (2.8 billion cubic meters). By March 1995, Moldova owed Russia US$232 million for fuel, with half of this amount owed by the "Dnestr Republic."
Moldova had started paying off this debt in goods, including agricultural products, but beginning in late 1994 the government paid these debts by giving Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas company, equity stakes in key Moldovan enterprises. In January 1995, Moldova gave control of Moldovagas, the state-owned gas company, to Gazprom.
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Banking and Finance
Moldova's banking system, part of the Soviet system during the communist era, underwent major changes in 1991. The National Bank of Moldova (NBM), established in June 1991 and modeled on the Bank of Romania, is subordinate to Parliament. It has an extensive set of monetary policy instruments (such as maximum lending rates and reserve requirements) and is legally responsible for bank supervision. However, shortages of trained staff and a lack of experience in making and executing monetary policy caused the NBM difficulties in its early years.
In 1995 Moldova's banking system was composed of the NBM and twenty-six private, joint-stock commercial banks, including the Joint Bank for Export and Import (Banca Mixta Pentru Export i Import). In 1995 the largest commercial banks were Moldindconbanc, Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala, Agroindbanc, Victoriabanc, and Interprinzbanca. The banking system also includes four branches of foreign (Romanian and Russian) banks.
After Russia enacted economic reform measures in January 1992, Moldova liberalized prices for most of its commodities (except bread, milk, energy, utilities, and transportation) and raised other prices by 200 to 425 percent. Price controls were eliminated gradually, with none left after May 1994.
In early 1995, the average monthly rate of consumer inflation was estimated at under 5 percent. This represented a major improvement, as the annual inflation rate had been 105 percent in 1994, 415 percent in 1993, and a staggering 1,500 percent in 1992.
In the early years of its independence, Moldova used both the Russian ruble and the Moldovan coupon (issued only to residents of Moldova) as its currencies. The leu (for value of the leu--see Glossary) was introduced in November 1993 to replace these currencies and to escape the inflation in other former Soviet republics. It has remained reasonably stable against major hard currencies despite the country's high rates of inflation.
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Transportation and Telecommunications
In 1995 the main means of transportation in Moldova were railroads (1,150 kilometers) and a highway system (20,100 kilometers overall, including 14,000 kilometers of paved surfaces) (see fig. 22). The major railroad junctions are Chisinau, Bender, Ungheni, Ocnita (Oknitsa, in Russian), Balti, and Basarabeasca (Bessarabka, in Russian). Primary external rail links connect the republic's network with Odesa (in Ukraine) on the Black Sea and with the Romanian cities of Iasi and Galati; they also lead northward into Ukraine. Highways link Moldova's main cities and provide the chief means of transportation within the country, but roads are in poor repair, and gasoline shortages make interurban motor transportation difficult. The country's major airport is in Chisinau.
Shipping is possible on the lower Prut and Nistru rivers, but water transportation plays only a modest role in the country's transportation system. In 1990 a total of 317 million tonkilometers of freight were carried on inland waterways as compared with 15,007 million ton-kilometers on railroads and 1,673 million ton-kilometers on roads (see table 13, Appendix A).
The movement of manufactured goods and of passengers on all means of transportation started to decline in 1989. From 1993 to 1994, for example, the total amount of transported goods fell by 31 percent, passenger traffic decreased by 28 percent, and the number of passengers declined by 24 percent. The main causes for these declines are the high cost of transportation, a lack of fuels, and the poor state of Moldova's transportation infrastructure: approximately 20 percent of Moldova's roads are considered in a critical technical state.
Moldova's telecommunications facilities are poor, but they were being upgraded in 1995. In 1990 Moldova had an average of twelve telephones per 100 inhabitants (heavily concentrated in urban areas), and there were more than 200,000 unfilled orders for telephone installation. In 1994 Moldova installed 23,800 telephone lines, which included public phones with direct international dialing capabilities. Some 10,000 digital lines in Chisinau were upgraded by a German company. In 1994 a new company in Chisinau, a joint venture with partners from Greece and Italy, was soon to produce automatic telephone exchanges at the rate of 50,000 lines a year.
Moldova is connected to Ukraine by landline and is also now linked to countries outside the former Soviet Union via Bucharest rather than via the switching center in Moscow, as had previously been the case.
As of 1993, three television channels were widely available in Moldova: Moldova's two national channels (Radioteleviziunea Nationala), Romanian state television (Televiziunea Româna), and Russian state television (Ostankino Kanal 1). Radioteleviziunea Nationala's daily fifteen hours of broadcasting included five hours of Russian-language broadcasts. Broadcasting in other minority languages was more limited: Ukrainian (three hours per month), Gagauz (three hours per month), Bulgarian (three hours per month), and Hebrew and Yiddish (1.5 hours per month for both together). Televiziunea Româna broadcast fifteen hours per day, and TV Ostankino broadcast nineteen hours per day. In 1995 there was one independent television station in Chisinau (whose coverage included most of the republic).
In 1993 nine AM radio stations were reported broadcasting, in four cities: four in Grigoriopol (Grigoriopol', in Russian), three in Chisinau, one in Cahul (Kagul, in Russian), and one in Edinet (Yedintsy, in Russian). Separatists in the self-proclaimed "Dnestr Republic" had taken over the radio facility in Grigoriopol and broadcast on two of the AM frequencies. The cities of Balti, Cahul, Edinet, Straseni (Strasheny, in Russian), and Ungheni each had one FM radio station broadcasting on the same frequencies used when Moldova was part of the Soviet Union. Plans for international shortwave radio service were delayed because of the loss of the Grigoriopol facility to the separatists. Several private radio stations operated in Moldova in 1995. At least one of these was funded by an American Christian group. The others broadcast music, mostly for young people.
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Foreign Trade
Within the Soviet economy, Moldova was an importer of industrial raw materials, fossil fuels, and manufactured goods. Its primary exports to other Soviet republics included wine and spirits, processed foods, clothing and textiles, and small amounts of electrical equipment.
Since independence, Moldova has struggled to reorganize its domestic economy and at the same time to reorient its foreign trade, finding new markets for its products and new sources for the essential imports it traditionally obtained from the Soviet Union. In 1991, however, 73 percent of Moldova's imports and 96 percent of its exports were still directed toward territories of the former Soviet Union. In addition, Moldova had a surplus of 572 million rubles in its trade with the former Soviet republics but a deficit of 875 million rubles in its trade with the rest of the world. This disparity clearly suggested the difficulty Moldova faced in restructuring its trade relationships, given that in 1994, 73 percent of Moldova's foreign trade was with other members of the CIS, and only 27 percent was with the West. In 1994 exports totaled 2,397 million lei (US$580 million), up 20 percent from 1993, and imports totaled 2,704 million lei (US$662 million), down 12 percent from 1993, resulting in a trade deficit of 307 million lei.
By 1992 Moldova had established joint ventures with Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Vietnam, and the United States, and it had signed bilateral trade agreements with China, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Serbia and Montenegro, and ten of the former Soviet republics. In 1995 Moldova's major CIS trading partners were Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and its major non-CIS trading partners were Romania, Germany, the United States, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Italy. Barter accounted for over 41 percent of Moldova's total volume of foreign trade in 1994.
By the end of 1992, the United States government had signed several agreements with Moldova and had granted Moldova most-favored-nation status (see Glossary). A bilateral investment treaty was signed with the Moldovan government in April 1993. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had signed a bilateral agreement with Moldova authorizing OPIC to provide loans, loan guarantees, and investment insurance to United States companies investing in Moldova. As of September 1994, 314 joint ventures had been established (partners included more than fifty from Romania, more than thirty from the United States, twentyfive from Germany, and twenty from Bulgaria), but only one-third are operational. Joint ventures account for only 2.3 percent of Moldova's industrial output and substantially less than 1 percent of Moldova's employment.
In 1992 Moldova became a member of the International Monetary |
