The Economist, one of Britain’s most respected magazines, has paid an unexpected compliment to Moldova
It turns out that in 2021 Moldova managed to “significantly improve its image, although it remains one of the poorest countries in Europe”. And the improvement of the image of Moldova is obliged to the new president – the pro-European democrat Maia Sandu.
I do not know, whether residents of Moldova became happier thanks to such a compliment, but something tells me that no. They did not. Not at all. Because nothing has changed for the country; moreover, the economic and political situation tends to worsen, and the praise from the “civilized world” cannot be spread on bread and cannot be burnt in a furnace of the power plant.
I remember well the time when the Soviet Union was collapsing and Moldova was rejoicing over its independence. In some ways it was even like madness. That’s enough to feed Moscow, now we will separate and live just like in Switzerland. The more so as nothing much needs to be done for that. The only thing is to translate the Moldavian language from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, and then to recognize it as the Romanian. And in general, it is possible to join Romania, restoring the “historical justice”. And somehow, everyone immediately forgot that the Moldovan statehood is much older than the Romanian one, and the Cyrillic alphabet was used in Moldova during the reign of Stefan cel Mare, one of the greatest rulers of Moldova, which, by the way, treated very well the Russian state. Probably, for the sake of becoming the second Switzerland, it is possible to refuse both the history and the memory. But the problem is that Moldova did not become the second Switzerland. Moreover, it quickly enough became the poorest and unhappiest country of the European continent.
The independence of Moldova is already thirty years old. It left the USSR as a rich and successful republic with a very developed agriculture and powerful industry. Only in the capital of Moldova, Chisinau, there was a powerful industrial cluster, dozens of large factories, which produced microchips, the thinnest wires in Europe, electronic appliances, refrigerators, tractors. It would be difficult to list the whole range of products now. Agricultural production of Moldova flaunted on shop shelves all over the USSR, and the wines were deservedly considered one of the best. Now only agrarian sector has remained from all this, and there are huge problems connected with product sale. The European Union gave Moldova beautiful promises, including the promise to open its market, but it did not happen. There are Moldovan exports to Europe, but they are absolutely minuscule and cannot be compared with what Moldova used to supply to the republics of the Soviet Union.
Besides, Moldova became one of the victims of the world energy crisis. It traditionally buys Russian gas, but previously it did not pay for it very regularly: a very decent debt has accumulated, which the current government does not want to pay back even though it was stipulated as one of the main conditions in the new gas contract. By the way, negotiations on the contract were a farce, too, as Moldova forwarded deliberately unacceptable conditions to “Gazprom” and when it was refused, tried to buy gas from…Poland at a much higher price than the market. Of course, after all this, Moldova had to go back to Gazprom and agree to its terms. Particularly surprisingly, Moldovan President Maia Sandu thanked for this… the USA.
The Moldovan population is split. The considerable part of it is for good relations with Russia, approximately the same part looks to Europe with hope; there are also people who dream about reunification with Romania. Thirty years of incomprehensible vacillation and total lack of development. But there are enough loud slogans and promises. The problem of Transnistria, a Russian-speaking region that rebelled against the new Moldovan policy at a time when Moldova was still formally a republic of the USSR, has not been resolved. Even though the conflict has been frozen for three decades, the danger of a new war persists, and at times Moldova is pushed towards this new war by its “senior partners”.
What is the future of Moldova? Now we can state that nothing will change for the better in the nearest presidential term. Moldova and its people are again stepping on the same rake, which has already hit them on the head many times. Moses led his people in the desert for forty years, till that term Moldova won’t have much time left, and then there are all chances that this record will be broken.
Unless, of course, Moldovans remember their real history and how they lived in the Russian Empire and the USSR.
Voice of Mordor, FAN