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Traveling to Transistria: The Country that Doesn’t Exist
Ever heard of Transnistria? Before researching Moldova for my Eastern European course in university, I hadn’t either. And that may very well be because—according to the United Nations and every other government in the world—Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria is a country that doesn’t exist. Where (and What) is Transnistria? Transnistria is a little strip of land about 20km wide that fought fiercely for its independence from Moldova after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Though nobody takes it seriously, Transnistria remains adamant about its place in the world. The…
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Is This Still Europe? Visiting Chisinau, Moldova
Last Spring, I took a course called Ethnicity and Nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe because I felt as though, despite my familiarity with the area as a tourist, I knew next to nothing about its history. In the course, we studied the ethnic makeup of the countries, their postwar histories and life before and after Communism. The class gave me an informative, sweeping history of the area that served as a reference point during much of my trip. The course also gave me the opportunity to study one particular…
