This territory remained faithful to the USSR until the last moment (1991), when the fifteen Soviet republics had already broken ties with Mikhail Gorbachev.
No place preserves the essence of the USSR like Moldovan Transnistria, which proudly wears the hammer and sickle, and where thirty years later the figure of Lenin still presides over the main state buildings.
“Without a past, there is no future,” says a poster from the Sheriff corporation, lord and master of the pro-Russian enclave, in its capital, Tiráspol.
This territory remained faithful to the USSR and its Constitution until the last moment (1991), when the fifteen Soviet republics had already broken ties with the then tenant of the Kremlin, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Hammer and sickle on the skin
Thirty years after the fall of the USSR, busts and statues of Lenin still stand the test of time in many places in the post-Soviet space, from Crimea to Saint Petersburg, but it is that in Transnistria they occupy a place of honor.
The founder of the Soviet Union presides over the Parliament and Government building, as well as the House of Soviets, the current municipal administration in Tiráspol.
“We owe everything to Lenin,” a resident of Transnistria, where a third of the population are pensioners, told EFE, many of them nostalgic for the USSR.
The hammer and sickle figure on the flag and the coat of arms of the republic on the left bank of the Dniester River, where Russian is the lingua franca and half of its inhabitants have Russian passports.
In the heart of the city there is a memorial dedicated to those who fell in the Great Patriotic War between the Red Army and the Nazis. The star is the legendary Soviet tank T-34 with the motto “For the fatherland!”
“Transnistria is mostly made up of people who were born in the USSR. Our people want to live and develop in their land and in the cultural paradigm and civilization that is closest to them, ”Transnistrian Foreign Minister Vitali Ignátiev told Efe.
Soviet nostalgia as a business
In the middle of the city one can come across a giant poster of the first cosmonaut in history, Yuri Gagarin, who also has a bust and a street with his name on it.
Local authorities embrace that Soviet past. In fact, many Western tourists travel to Tiráspol in search of that long-lost socialist paradise. In Tiráspol there is nowhere to find a McDonald’s, but there is a restaurant called “Snova v CCCP” (Back in the USSR).
The waitresses’ dresses look like something out of a Soviet movie, as do the lamps and the music that entertains the diners.
A bust of Lenin welcomes the visitor on the street and as soon as they enter paintings and statuettes of Marx and Stalin they introduce them into a time machine whose stop is the USSR.
“It is our history. Why be ashamed? ”, Commented to Efe Igor, the owner of the restaurant.
The menu is debated between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but Soviet furniture and television, gramophone, decor and radio that adorn the room where banquets are held. Even to pay you have to put the money in a Matrioshka, a true tribute to the most socialist kitsch.
Next stop, Russia
Transnistria looks back with pride, but does not live in the past. It argues that since Moldova renounced its Soviet past, it has “no political, legal or moral rights” over a territory that was part of the same republic between 1945 and 1991.
“We are a small state that lives under permanent external pressure. There is no alternative to our independence. It is our best defense ”, emphasizes Ignátiev.
In the reception room of the Transnistrian president, Vadim Krasnoselski, one photo stands out above the rest, that of the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin.
With Putin, the slogan “A strong Russia is a united Russia” and the symbol of the Kremlin party, a bear, in the background, several people apply for Russian citizenship in the hope of traveling, working or receiving pensions from Moscow.
“Of course, Transnistria wants to be close to Russia. The most optimal form of integration will be decided jointly ”, explains the diplomat and recalled the 2006 referendum in which the inhabitants of the enclave supported independence and a future and“ free ”integration in the Russian Federation.
For this reason, he calls on the West to mediate before Moldova, since, he argues, the sooner the conflict that unleashed a war in 1992 is settled, the sooner the presence of the Russian peacekeeping forces will be reduced and the Soviet weapons stored in a tinderbox will be withdrawn. in the north of the territory.
“Does Europe need an old frozen conflict? No, you don’t. Is this conflict a security threat? This is not like Kosovo and it is not like the South Caucasus. It is totally different ”, he emphasizes. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
