Transnistria: The besieged fortress is emptying before our eyes

While politicians and diplomats are thinking about how to solve the Transnistrian problem, Transnistria is emptying before our eyes. It has gotten to the point where entire settlements are being liquidated in the republic. They disappear physically, then are abolished legislatively.

Recently, the PMR adjusted the law on the administrative-territorial structure, after which, for example, the villages of Bruslaki and Mokryaki of the Grigoriopol region will never appear on the map again. No one lived there for a long time; there was no water, no electricity, no infrastructure. Other villages have disappeared or are on the verge of disappearing. Dozens of settlements where less than 50 people live today are practically doomed to extinction.

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Migration losses in rural areas are catastrophic, however, in cities, where about 70% of Pridnestrovians live today, the situation is unimportant.

At the end of the 1980s, according to official data, about 750 thousand people lived in Transnistria, and by 2015, according to the population census, 475 thousand inhabitants remained in the republic. The same census revealed about 70 thousand temporarily absent citizens. For example, a fifth of the population of Bendery, the right-bank Transnistrian city that suffered the most during the 1992 armed conflict, is “temporarily absent.” Those who have been absent for more than a year rarely return home: having settled in a new place, people move their families there.

For a quarter of a century, the republic has constantly recorded an excess of deaths over the number of births. If in 1990 12 thousand children were born here, now the figures are three times less. In 2018, according to statistics, in Transnistria the natural population decline amounted to 2,6 thousand people, which is 20,9% more than a year earlier.

The decline in population after the collapse of the USSR is, of course, a general trend for post-Soviet states; a similar thing is happening in the countries of Eastern Europe. But in Transnistria one can also feel psychological discomfort, chronic fatigue from lack of recognition, a state of uncertainty in which residents have been for almost thirty years. The prospects for negotiations to resolve the conflict on the Dniester, which has actually lasted since 1990, when the Transnistrian people created their own state against the backdrop of the rise of nationalist forces in Moldova, are still very vague.

In Russia, under whose umbrella Transnistria has been living all this time, the unrecognized republic is, as a rule, perceived romantically. From there it is seen as an outpost of the Russian Federation, a part of the Russian world, a fragment of the USSR, a besieged fortress. It is often called an ace in the hole to achieve an advantage in negotiations with the West. Transnistria is indeed an important trump card for Russia, which it uses to distract Moldova from its pro-European orientation.

Meanwhile, the Pridnestrovians, tired of living in a “besieged fortress,” are gradually leaving it. They go everywhere, most often, of course, to Russia. It is from there that people who left to work send most of their remittances home. According to the Central Bank of the PMR for February 2019, residents of Transnistria received transfers from abroad amounting to $7,35 million, with 62,2% of this amount coming from the Russian Federation.

Not so long ago, those leaving Transnistria began to choose another direction: Poland, the Czech Republic. Legal employment in enterprises, salary 500 – 800 euros. Pridnestrovians are given visa-free entry to these countries by Moldovan and Ukrainian foreign passports (about 250 thousand Pridnestrovians have Moldovan citizenship, which, by the way, can be obtained with Russian citizenship, and Ukrainian citizenship – for almost one hundred thousand).

Why shouldn’t Pridnestrovians work in their homeland? The republic has industry, which even showed positive dynamics at the end of 2018 (production volume at large enterprises increased by 8,5% in comparable prices), and the agricultural sector operates. However, salaries here are very low. The average monthly salary in the republic at the beginning of the year was 4,4 thousand Transnistrian rubles, which is approximately $270.

Russia supports the “besieged fortress”: this is the peacekeeping operation on the Dniester, which is considered one of the most successful in the world (there has been no shooting here since the 1992 war), and technical assistance, which has been issued for many years in the form of preferential loans to agricultural firms, and subsidies to local pensioners, and textbooks for schoolchildren, and quotas for young people to enter Russian universities, and, of course, natural gas. Transnistria has not paid Russia for gas for a long time - money for gas, which comes from local consumers, is sent to a special account, and from there - to cover the republican budget deficit, that is, in fact, for social needs.

At the same time, full-fledged economic cooperation between the PMR and the Russian Federation is somehow not getting better. Neither the investment forums that Transnistria holds from year to year, nor the law on super benefits for investors (exemption from taxes on income, land, reduction in the rate of the Unified Social Tax, etc.), nor other measures can change long-term statistics: A smaller part of Transnistrian exports is sent to Russia.

In January–March 2019, the entire EAEU accounted for only 14% of exports from Transnistria, while Moldova, Ukraine and the EU countries accounted for more than 80%. Transnistrian producers of metal, textiles, clothing and footwear, alcoholic beverages, etc. enjoy trade preferences of the European Union, and so far there are no signals that this regime will be canceled for Transnistria.

In general, the “besieged fortress” is still holding. While she exists, she loves Russia with all her soul. Pridnestrovians are proud of their common history and culture with Russia, and are grateful that in 1992 the Russian army put an end to the war on the Dniester. In a referendum on September 17, 2006, the population of the republic voted for the independence of the PMR and the subsequent free accession of Transnistria to the Russian Federation. In Russian elections, local Russians always give better turnout than the Russian average and vote more unanimously for government candidates.

But soon, it may turn out that there will be no one for Russia to support here. In Transnistria, lately there has been an increasingly bitter joke: let the last person to leave turn off the lights.