We're putting the band back together...
Posted on 03/09/2014 8:32:04 PM PDT by Lorianne
As Moldova prepares to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, Russia is stepping up attempts to keep the country in its fold. It has found some willing helpers in the country.
If Mihail Formuzal had his way, the revolution in Kiev never would have happened. Then, Moldova would choose Russia instead of Europe, and the planned Association Agreement with the EU would already be history. The 54-year-old Formuzal is president of the autonomous Gagauzia region in Moldova. In early February he carried out a referendum by polling the approximately 155,000 members of the Gagauz Orthodox Christian minority here.
The Kremlin is currently expending significant effort to loosen Europe's grasp on Moldova -- and using the Gagauz to do so. The Gagauz capital, Comrat, is a sleepy town in the south Moldavian steppe where the only language spoken aside from Gagauz is Russian and people watch Moscow's Channel One.
The rest of Moldova has also changed its attitude towards Europe -- only 44 percent of them are still in favor of integration into the EU, while, at the same time, the number of people in favor of entering the Customs Union with Russia has grown from 30 to 40 percent. Formuzal claims the Moldovan government has erected an "African democracy" in the country -- claiming that it has tightened its control over ministries, courts and public prosecutors' offices and is handing out money to party members and relatives, while the Gagauz minority receives nothing.
"We want our own state," he says. "We want the same status as the Republic of Transnistria." That strip of land, which separated from Moldova in 1992 in a civil war, has been kept alive by Russia ever since.
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
We're putting the band back together...
Look for the russian version of 1950s crooner Perry Como singing “For The Good Times”.
Moldova is in a real pickle.
By the time Obumster steps down (voluntarily, are you kidding?!) as POTUS, the New Improved Soviet Union will be ready for him to sit down on the gensec throne. The Soviets have always been progressive about birf certificates.
Divide et impera. Russia is playing it to the hilt. All to keep ex-Soviet republics in line.
Apparently, there was an influx of Moldovians in the 19th Century to the Carolinas.
Moravians?
“The `Mamalizhnikii’ are not a nation, but a whore.”
- Nikita Khrushchev describing Romanians, 1959
Why should Russians feel any differently about Moldovans?
Now that the Crimea and most of the Ukraine’s Black Sea exclusive economic zone will soon be Russian, South Stream can be routed more directly through Romania. Romanians will soon be esteemed friends of Russia.
“We want the same status as the Republic of Transnistria.”
I had a coworker from there.
He always had a big smile on, worked very hard and was a fast learner.
After talking to him I found out why he smiled so much.
It was sort of a miracle he made it to America, he felt like he had won the lottery by coming here. His ideology seemed a good fit for FR. No country recognizes his country and their passports are looked at as sort of a joke. It’s sort of a place the world forgot.
He described it as really corrupt and suffocating.
So I laughed out loud when I read the sentence that says these people want the same status as the Republic of Transnistria.
The alternative must be incredibly bad for them to want that.
The Gagauz are interesting — they are a Turkic people but Orthodox Christian
well, Moldovans mostly ARE Romanians
it might be because the Gagauz are a tiny ethnic group and fear Romanianization.
Anybody recall his handle?
Yeah, the article hints at that.
I can’t pretend to understand any of this, and my comment didn’t really add to the discussion. My information is badly out of date.
I just enjoyed sharing the story because I was shocked to see mention of the tiny place no one ever heard of, and I had good memories of this person.
Did I mix them up? Eastern Czechoslovakia v. Eastern Yugoslavia?
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