Moldova, my country

1. History
2. Economy
3. People
4. Final thoughts

Preamble
This is not a scientific study, but a subjective view, as much as an expat can get about a country in several months living. It is like a snapshot of a space and its time, less known to the people who egocentrically claim they have a right on it. They might do historically, but nowadays unions or segregations – see Kosovo – are not made on historic “truths”, but rather on reality facts and present rapprochements. And in our case, Romania is getting further and further from Moldova, by people, culture and most of all, politics.

1. History
It is difficult to say that this land has a history as an independent country. It was more like table tennis ball that successively went in the court of Russia or Soviet Union, and its first mother, the larger Moldova or later Romania.
1812 is the moment when the adventure in history of this small territory started off, at the discretionary will of the Russian tsar, Alexander I. Until then, there was no question of speaking of Moldova as a split body. It was all one ancient Romanian province that half of it later on in the 19th century (1859) united with traditional Walachia, to form present-day Romania.
But once the Napoleon’s France grew stronger, Austria became more and more preoccupied on its western affairs, leaving Russia a free hand to act in South-Eastern Europe. And it did, by defeating the Ottoman Empire after a series of confrontations between 1806-1812, when it occupied both Romanian provinces. It ended with the Bucharest peace treaty in 1812 (held at the inn “Hanul lui Manuc”), considered a lousy move of Turkish diplomacy a l’époque (the Turks accepted this peace just weeks before the “Great Army” of Napoleon was to invade the tsarist territory), which let the Russians take over the eastern half of Moldova.

The Tsar’s eager desire was to conquer both above mentioned Romanian provinces from the Turks, but the incoming war against France pressured him to cut the negotiations and accept only the eastern part of Moldova (between Prut and Nistru rivers), which they subsequently renamed Basarabia – a name previously held by the south of the this territory (belonging to Walachia’s dynasty of Basarabs). Even Karl Marx condemned the act, considering it a deep violation of international law. Besides, Russia had no historic right whatsoever on the land, as it first reached the eastern border of Basarabia, the Nistru river, only in the 18th century!
After 1812 a sustained campaign of russification was initiated; after a transitory period, in 1843 Russian became mandatory and sole language in public administration while some 20 years later the Romanian language was banned in schools and churches. In parallel, colonization moves saw important groups of Russian, Ukrainians, Bulgarians and other Slavic people moving in, diminishing the previously overwhelming Moldavian (Romanian) population to just 50% of total by the end of 19th century.
WWI
In spite of severely limiting any forms of manifestations from Romanian side, national movements started to gain shape before WWI and they developed to such extent that, when the opportunity arose – just after the Bolshevik revolution burst and Russia was in confusion – they declared the autonomy of Moldova at the beginning of 1918 and in couple of months distance (March 27th) the independence and Union with its first parent, Romania. The decision was taken by a large majority of the new Republic’s Parliament (“Sfatul ţării”), and despite later soviet accusations regarding an allegedly pressure from Romanian army, the result stood as a free political will of its people, which rectified the first rupture of the Moldavian territory some 100 years earlier, by the tsar Alexander I.
However, the Soviet Union did not recognize it, and set up in 1924 an artificial state, The Soviet Autonomic Socialist Moldavian Republic at east of Nistru river (a territory that was never related to Moldova!) as a political arm to pressure on the Union with Romania.
WWII
In August 1939, the world found with surprise that between the two great powers, Germany and USSR, thought to be dead enemies, was signed a non-aggression pact. Among other things, it drew up the split of Poland between the two and gave Russians a free hand to annex Basarbia / Moldova.
Preoccupied with its northern affaires (mainly the surprising Finnish opposition), the USSR were in no hurry of doing so, as they expected a long and weakening confrontation between Germany and western countries just like in WWI. But as France surprisingly surrendered after a few weeks of fight, the USSR rushed to make it happen; just a week after the French armistice (June 17th 1940) they sent an ultimatum to Romanian government asking an unconditional retreat from Basarabia and Northern Bucovina in 48 hours. This was a dramatic moment of WWII for Romania, as it had to defend 650 km in front of a power 20 times bigger. The decision, arguably one of our biggest political mistakes of the 20th century influenced deeply the whole evolution of the WWII not only Romania’s: we withdrew with no fight (there could have been anticipated that Germany would have never permitted a Russia invasion in Romania, considering our oil fields, so much needed in the incoming eastern campaign).
Encouraged by our passive attitude, Hungary and Bulgaria asked and obtained the north-west of Transylvania and south of Walachia respectively. Thus, in few months of 1940 we lost a third of our territory without a single fire shot! Responsible for this disaster, the king Carol II was consequently forced to abdicate, leaving the power to the dictator general Antonescu, who decided to largely engage the country in the hard war against the USSR, in 1941.
Romania was Germany’s major allied in its eastern campaign, engaging more than 2 thirds of its army in this purpose. Few people know that, for instance, the large soviet Odessa harbor was taken solely by the Romanian army, as Hitler considered is was our duty in doing so.
The 1941 campaign got us back Basarabia / Moldova and, as a bonus demanded by Romania’s government for a year of exploiting it, a strip of land from east of Nistru river, a territory that was never Romanian. The Germans called it Transnistria (the land beyond Nistru) and agreed to temporarily let us take over it, as our help was most needed. Although we had no right to annex Transnistria, it was somehow justified by the fact that some 200,000 Romanians (in a total population of 3,000,000) were deported in Siberia by the USSR in only year (1940-41).
This takeover backfired in 1992, when the Transnistria province, with help from Russian army, started a small civil war and became a separatist territory from the newly independent Moldova, status that it is still present, and stands as another form of political pressure on Chisinau from Russian side.
Basarabia / Moldova remained within Romania’s borders until 1944, when USSR gained control of the war, also helped later on by the Romania’s controversial act to sudden change camps, in august 1944. The debatable gesture of Carol’s II son, Mihai l, although it had terrible side effects (we all know what the soviet dominance brought in afterwards) shortened the WWII with at least 6 months as the Carpathians with their Focşani gate were considered by the specialists, including the Soviets, as “one of the strongest strategic defending positions in Europe”.
Fast-forward about 50 years. From now on it’s politics and not history anymore.
In all this time, hundreds of thousands of Moldavians of Romanian nationality were deported to Siberia or Kazakhstan, and the country was embedded into communist roots. But it still remained an agricultural country, as heavy investments in hard industries almost lacked. Because of that, in order not to have economic discrepancies, Romania had to leave its side of Moldova somehow underdeveloped; even today, some of the poorest areas in the country are found here.
For the first time in its history, Moldova became independent in 1991, once the USSR collapsed. Unfortunately, there were too many forces against a Union with Romania, while we were not prepared enough too to bring pressure on such move. So, from this point, the country was thrown into a life on its own, although it was never historically prepared for such a challenge.

We finally must mention that during USSR governance, despite the Romanian population, the south of Basarabia / Moldova was passed to Ukraine, for political reasons. The two departments in south that linked Moldova to Black Sea, not only they were traditional Romanian land, but they were never a Ukrainian territory until WWII. Of course, after USSR broke, the Ukraine did not even consider in ceding this space which it unjustifiably got after WWII, either to Moldova or Romania. Moreover, in our rush to join NATO, we signed an agreement with Ukraine, where we gave up on all our historic rights and potential demands on the two former departments of Basarabia (Moldova), the Snakes Island and Northern Bucovina (all traditional Romanian land)! The guy who signed it (it is hard to pronounce his name after that moment)) had no right whatsoever to produce such historic damage to Romania territory, and to make a mock of national ideals, ambitions and lives of generations of people. It was probably the deepest foreign policy mistake of Romania in the period after 1989.

2. Economics
The economic issue is the key point to the political future of Moldova (MD), as a country and nation.
Just like a branch ripen off the main body of a tree, if left alone dies, MD, with virtually no history as an independent country until 1991, cannot create by itself enough wealth to enrich or even feed its people. In order to survive it has to be connected to structural synergies with a larger entity or just be planted in the ground, to become a tree by itself, with its own strength. But this solution is costly, and the necessary resources (capital and time) are not really available.
The long term solution seems to be the EU, as it proved to be the only entity capable of a creating a legal and business framework that originates economic wealth, in good synergies with its members. Russia has a good track record of helping its satellite countries to create negative economic value; even for itself, the management of macroeconomic environment is poor, and sustained mainly by its natural resources. But the accession to EU is lengthy process, while the country needs its daily food.
Officially, there is a market economy in MD: there is a stock exchange, some half of the banking assets are privately held, there are malls, supermarkets, and plenty of small businesses. Theoretically, anyone who wants to start a business can do it. But any attractive well-grown business is submitted to the risk of getting the interest of communist power (they are no real communists, just a gang who defend its interests and uses this name to squeeze some votes from nostalgic people) and be consequently taken over – there were banks, pizza restaurant chains, drug store networks etc. which suddenly changed ownership…
But MD has poor conditions to sustain an economic development. The figures of the Moldavian economy speak by themselves, and show a country that always struggled at the edge of national bankruptcy.
In spite of a blooming start of the century, which saw an average annual economic growth of 6.3% between 2001-2008 – one of the highest in the region – the GDP barely reached some USD 6.03 bln in 2008 (vs. more than USD 200 bln Romania’s level), meaning a GDP / capita below 1,700 USD (almost 9,400 USD / capita in Romania).
However, this performance is far from being the result of a sound economic management of the communist government. Its only quality may reside with the fact that it offered a certain political stability, and put a halt to the crimes of the ’90, which allowed some small businesses to start off.
The main driver of the development was the exported labor of Moldavian people or better said, its results: the remittances sent home grew steadily each year, to reach almost USD 1.9 bln in 2008, meaning more than 31% of the GDP!
In the last years, all this money inflow from Moldavian workers from Italy, Spain of France sustained the currency, the National Bank of Moldova’s foreign reserves, the real estate market with all its players and supported the internal demand; a demand, which unfortunately – lack of economic strategy and government policies – turned toward imports that exploded last year: USD 4,870 mln (a freaking weight of 80% of GDP!), generating a trade deficit of more than 50% of GDP; for instance, Romania’s trade deficit, which is considered by analysts as highly insane, stood at “only” 17.3% of GDP in 2008.
These deep macro imbalances show, on one hand the poor degree of economic development, and of the other hand the lack of concern and knowledge of the communist government in coping with such challenges. The agriculture, which development should have been the main focus of any government, as the industry is virtually inexistent in MD, remained underdeveloped, and there was a comfortably appeal to Ukrainian and Russian food products for the internal needs; a luxury that a country like MD cannot afford. It has to assure an alimentary security, but not substitute the local production by imports: in a country overwhelmingly agricultural, the weight of this industry in GDP fell to less than 9% in GDP in 2008, from almost 30% in the late nineties. The sectors that exploded instead were trading (read imports), transportation, real estate and banking (to finance the afore mentioned industries). This pattern is unacceptable, and now, in crisis conditions it backfires drastically. The imports diminished, as well as the remittances from people working abroad (-30% vs. 2008), and the state revenues hardly cover its expenses. As well, NBM reserves dropped by more than 30% from the beginning of 2008, in its efforts to artificially sustain a currency that has no support in the real economy. The state is close to insolvency.
As to exports, they reside on products with low degree of manufacturing, e.g. textiles, food products and beverages (wine & cognac) – that supported more than 60% of 2008 foreign selling.

A brief mention on the wine industry may worth the effort. Arguably, Moldova is well known for its distinguished wines and glamour girls; and both are natural.
The wines met here several conditions to be tasty: the hilly lands provide proper conditions for grapevines, a long-term tradition of wine-making – which boomed in the 19th century after large investments – and more importantly, the modern chemistry did no yet reach Moldova.
Just like the bio food is far more expensive and rare in Western Europe, the wine seems to follow the same trend in developed countries. The U.S. chemical solutions allowed American producers to get great wine taste without much help from the grapes, inducing wine makers even from France or Italy to follow the same pattern in order to survive.
In its turn, Romania has become a pioneer in Eastern Europe, as the lower-end products of the large producers like Murfatlar, Jidvei and many others are all in the great competition of no-grapes wines.
Unlike its western countries, in Moldova you can buy almost any bottle in the supermarket and enjoy a clean, fruity and natural wine, not speaking about the top-notch products which are remarkable. It is pretty hard when you think the most of the Romanian shelves have that synthetic, head aching and belly messing liquids, which some people call wine.
However, Russia did not share this opinion and banned all Moldavian wine imports in 2005 on the account of their weak quality! It was obviously a political move to cut Moldova’s efforts to get close to EU.
The impact was hard on the wine making industry that altogether provides more than 20% of the Moldova’s GDP (!). Thus, the exports of alcoholic beverages (read 90% wine) which in 2005 reached USD 315 mln (30% of total exports at the time) – directed mainly to Russia – dropped to only USD 135 mln in 2007. The recovery was difficult even after the ban was raised, as most of producers did not want to have an exposure again on the Russia market. Thus, in 2008 alcoholic beverages exports did not surpass USD 200 mln – thereof only some USD 50 mln went to Russia.
This was just a demonstration – among others – that you do not want to mess with the big bear.

Another measure of its poverty is the 180 EUR average monthly salary, while the average monthly pension, is, read correctly, 40 EUR (forty euros). And there are 600,000 people retired (17% of population) in MD. If the young people can find solutions for living, this category is doomed. And they still vote for the communists.

All in all, just like Romania, MD did not take advantage of the booming years and now finds itself again on the edge of an economic meltdown. Its survival relies heavily on external help.
On this basis, the only way to “conquer” MD is economically. Whoever takes this challenge will have a big veto right on its future. This explains the present willingness of both Russia and China to lend money in good conditions. If there is still some interest in Romania for an ancient territory, we can only get it back by strengthening our economic support.
Before any multinationals, there has to be Romanian capital in MD. A hard task considering that we did not manage to create a strong class of Romanian owned businesses in our own territory. Currently, the MD exports in Romania are 9%. This is way insufficient. It has to be 50%. MD pays the same price as the big countries for gas and oil. It should buy it from Romania at half level. The country lacks of investments; this should be covered by Romanian capital.
If we create an economic umbilical cord for MD, by intensifying commercial exchanges, financial support (energy, gas, oil, etc.) and Romanian investments in the country, the Union could become superfluous; the country is ours.

3. People
The common origin draws many similarities with the Romanian people, though some differences are significant.
Likewise, the propensity for work is not really elevated, although here is a strong mitigating factor: that capitalism with its multinationals did not step in to provide a blooming career and 1,000 EUR / month in exchange for the tiring and never ending extra hours and weekends. The communism flavor is still in the work air. So the lunch break between 13.00 and 14.00 hours is strictly respected, and the work program ends up in a lovely manner at 17.30h.
However, I must state that the seriousness and dedication people put into their work is sensibly superior to their brothers from west side of Prut river; the conscience of having the job done is much higher, and it’s not necessarily related to the retribution, which in most cases is pathetic.
Another (positive) aspect of a weakly developed market economy and mainly of the absence of multinational companies is that people remained warm and genuine, almost everywhere. Of course, the economic interests as presented by Adam Smith exist and are defended, but the ferocity of the selfishness as stated by the same author, and validated by ultra liberal, globalized economies, lacks in MD. Usually, a warm hand it is just a warm hand, although situation is likely to change a lot in the near future.
I am not fond of the centralized economic model, on the contrary, I am a deep supporter of the market economy, but the never-ending gaining opportunities (real of virtual), most of them provided by a global territory that no one can control, brought about deviated behaviors at both social and economic levels.

Like probably most of the people from ex-communist countries, the desire to show off is pretty well-grown among Moldavians. I am not socio-psychologist, but it may be related to the frustration of material equality present in all these countries for so many years, which burst when minimum opportunities arose, leading to an appetite for “differentiation”, especially that the measure of success in a market economy is the level of consumption (not limited to houses, cars and services).
Thus, Chisinau is arguably the city with the most Lexus cars / 1,000 inhabitants, being like a measure standard of one’s wealth. Like in Romania, when a small business starts off, the next step is luxury car for the owner, usually externally financed. This explains the crap prices for such cars in Romanian market these days, as the crisis affected the debt service payments, forcing the newly rich to sell their debt-financed jewelry at huge discounts in a market not willing to buy them. These times are heaven for cars’ enthusiasts with lower budgets!
Additionally to cars, the minimum 100 EUR cell phone is must for almost everyone, in spite of the average national salary of 180 EUR monthly. After a couple of months here I had to change my mobile as I was completely outdated and way below any normal standard.
But in spite of all these show-off behaviors, there are some important traits that stand aside from Romanian living model: the aggressiveness and callousness that invaded our social space are not present in MD. In Romania, the felling is that everyone who managed to get some material achievements has a special right, or has more rights than the man next to him with inferior material status.
In this manner there was created a special Jeep priority in traffic, at gas stations, of even in supermarkets. The “peasant” behavior is everywhere in Romania, and core social value is money power.
In MD the respect for each other and for some deeper social values is much stronger. You know you can rely on some authentic, ethical and common sense pointers, also in the day-to-day life. If there will be common future of the two countries, at least from social point of view, the integrator would better be MD.

The young people are fun. They are warm and unsophisticated. And there is a surprisingly large category of teenagers that enjoy retro music. In fact, in most of the clubs in Chisinau you can listen to the music from ’80 and ’90. I felt like in the second adolescence. Some psychologists say that adhesion to the modern clubs music, which is only synthetic drums, crazy rhythm and no melody, might be related to the never ending propensity for consumption of goods and services (you never get enough, and search for the ultimately, hard experience, which sometimes gets to drugs). I fully endorse this opinion, as I cannot explain why 20 years old people with the same access to the same music (internet is widely spread in Chisinau) prefer so different styles.
(plus, it works for me, as I cannot stand modern club mad music without a bottle of vodka onboard).
We also have to mention the fancy restaurants in Chisinau that really make you feel good, as the food and services are well beyond their peers in Bucharest. The prices are equal, but from time to time it worth pay a visit, as you get home with a great feeling.

And there are the girls. I think they make a strong standing everywhere, and easily exceed even the famous sex-appeal of Hungarian females. The Romanian-Russian combination is hard to beat.
Besides the glamour, I fully enjoyed the genuine, simple behavior and approach which it is in attractive opposition to the unnecessary “sophistication” and lavish desires (to use euphemisms) of Romanian girls.
Of course, there is a larger and larger category of capital targeting girls, which inevitably appeared in conditions of poverty and raising consumption opportunities on the local market.
There is sometimes a thin line between the two, but it is a nice challenge.

Final thoughts
If you make a decent gain, MD is a very nice place to live in. I would rate Chisinau high among European capitals, in spite of its low business development.
Politically, MD has some hard choices to make now, despite the color of the new government. And the feeling is the Romania is not helping at all to ease its decisions. As we said, the main support has to come on economic background, and not with flamboyant political declarations in an electoral year, destined to Romanian electors and not to Moldavian people.
Besides the lacking any strong (economic) strategy on MD, Romania is getting away also culturally. The country rests a pretty unknown place, and the social values are becoming quite different. Nowadays historic rights do not represent much (see Kosovo, an incontestable Serbian land), but current relations and rapprochement make the difference.
I believe that if there still are union thoughts in Romania, they should come up stronger, materialized in cultural and social actions with people at east of Prut; and hopefully backed by the support of Romanian authorities – that will eventually reach a minimum of strategic vision in their foreign policies; maybe this autumn can bring that.