At the beginning of 2022, war broke out between Russia and Ukraine around the Wudong region, and the Russian army attacked Ukraine from the north, east and south, relying on Belarus, the independent region of Eastern Ukraine, and the Crimean Peninsula.
But strangely, in the westernmost part of Ukraine, there is a narrow area that is Russia's sphere of influence, which is the "Transnistrian Republic".
This Transnistrian left republic does not belong to Ukraine, but is the land of Moldova, a poor and small country in Europe.
Although Moldova claims sovereignty here, the long and narrow region has long since voted for independence and become a separatist regime.
Compared with the German Left Republic, Moldova is even less famous than this small regime.
In Europe, the richest region in the world, Moldova is the penultimate economy, the country relies on farming to eat, and the output value of industry and mining is almost negligible.
The poverty of this small country was not caused by a day or two, it was occupied by germany during World War II, and the German mountain division reported to the Nazis: "The poverty of Moldova reminds us of the Middle Ages." ”
As a former member of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union was unable to solve the local economic problems, and now Moldova is a european labor importer, and even hundreds of thousands of women are engaged in customs overseas to earn foreign exchange.
So, what kind of country was Moldova in history, and why was it not unified by the surrounding countries? As a member of the former Soviet Union, why is the industrialization here so backward?
And as a country of population outflow, where is moldova's way out?
Moldova: the heir of Rome, the colony of Tsarist Russia
Located in Eastern Europe, east of the Carpathian Mountains, Moldova has a total area of more than 33,000 square kilometers and a population of only a pitiful 3.5 million, which may be a prefecture-level city in China. The per capita GDP is less than $4,000, the lowest in Europe.
As for the real income of the local area, the average monthly salary is around 2,000 yuan, compared with those Western European countries with monthly salaries of tens of thousands, Moldova is like a fourth- and fifth-tier township hiding next to the first-tier cities.
The main ethnic group of Moldovans is Moldovans, and in Eastern Europe, which is dominated by Slavs, Moldovans do not belong to the Slavic ethnic group, but the ancient and mysterious "Dacians".
The Dacians, also known as the "Dakians", are an ancient people of the Danube region of Eastern Europe, who lived in the northern Balkan Peninsula more than 2,000 years ago, and today Romania and Moldova are Dacian countries.
This people established a kingdom in Romania and was later conquered by the Roman Empire after BC, becoming the first foreign race in Europe to infiltrate Roman culture.
So for 2,000 years, the Dacians have been considering themselves descendants of Rome and have a very high opinion of themselves.
By the end of the Roman Empire, Western Rome had been destroyed by the Germanics, and the Romanized Dacians had been invaded by the Slavs of Asian immigrants.
However, the Dacians stubbornly gained a foothold in the lower Danube, and incidentally spread Roman culture to the Slavs, promoting the progress of the Slavs.
In the Middle Ages, the Dacians established three major regimes: Moldova, Wallachia, and Transylvania.
It is worth mentioning that dracula, the world-famous earl of vampires, was based on Vlad III, transylvania's "Grand Duke of Piercing".
In the late Middle Ages, the Dacians were attacked by the Ottoman Empire heading north and by the 16th century they were vassals of the Ottoman Empire.
After the rise of Tsarist Russia in the 17th century, Tsarist Russia and Ottomans fought several wars on Dacian lands until the beginning of the 19th century, when the Ottomans were defeated in the Seventh Russo-Turkish War, moldova was ceded to Tsarist Russia and renamed Bessarabia.
Over the next 200 years, The Russians carried out cultural unification in the region, and the Moldovans began to become an independent people, linguistically like Romanians, but with a gradual Slavicization of writing and culture.
By the 20th century, Moldova had become part of Soviet Russia, having only briefly conquered the Axis powers during World War II.
Second, in the mountains of Moldova, the German army was once cried out alive
There is a proverb that goes like this: "The sky is not clear for three days, the earth is not three feet flat, and no one has three points of silver." This old saying alludes to the poor life of the mountain people.
In ancient times, mountainous areas meant inconvenient transportation, and inconvenient transportation meant that it was difficult to get rich.
Moldova is such a typical example. The terrain here is rugged, 90% of the land is mountainous and hilly, with an average altitude of more than 150 meters, and the lack of great plains.
One-third of the country is forested, the east is hilly agricultural belt, the south has small areas of pasture, and before the 20th century, the local mountain people maintained a retro monotonous life for thousands of years.
So when Europe was developing, Moldova was left behind.
In 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union, and Romania, as a member of the Axis Powers, invaded Ukraine on the southern front with the German Army Group South.
The Romanian and German armies easily occupied moldova, but when German soldiers from the rich regions of Western Europe went into the mountains to hunt down the Soviets, the retro life of the locals surprised these Germans.
Moldovans are extremely religious, with all life at the heart of their lives revolving around churches, with priests as local leaders and enforcers, almost as in the Middle Ages.
German vehicles were difficult to advance on the dirt roads here, and once it rained, it was difficult for the army to move.
There is no shadow of modern society in the mountains here, the German army can not get any supplies and help here, and even some soldiers really can't look down on the poor here, and will bring out medical supplies and military food to help the locals.
After World War II, the Soviets retook Moldova from Romania, and the Soviet government conducted intensive exploration there, and finally made a judgment that the land was almost unmined.
In order to support local development, the Soviet Union carried out industrial construction on the left bank of the Transnistria River in Moldova, using Ukrainian ores and fuels to develop heavy industries, such as light machinery and agricultural vehicle manufacturing.
After 20 years of development, the Dezuo region, which accounts for only 10% of moldavia's area, has a GDP of 50% of Moldova's own country.
As for Moldova itself, communism's policy of "distribution" guarantees that all countries have something to do.
Moldova, which was also called "Moldavia" at that time, became an agricultural country, with high local fruits, corn, rapeseed, sunflowers, sugar beets and other crops, half of the country's GDP came from agriculture, and once covered 30% of the Soviet Union's juice production and 50% of wine production.
The Moldovans of the Soviet era lived well, at least with a planned economy to ensure food and clothing.
But in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moldova wanted to merge with Romania, but Russia did not allow it. Want to develop on your own, but lack resources.
To make matters worse, the German Left Republic in the west was fighting for independence and a civil war broke out with Moldova, after which the Russian army was stationed in Germany, which was equivalent to inserting a sword at Moldova's side.
10% of women go to Western Europe for gold, where is the road in Moldova?
There is a European proverb: "When God closes a door, he opens a window." ”
In the 30 years after independence, Moldova basically lived on agricultural production, of which the wine industry was the country's calling card and pillar.
Although the local mountainous conditions are harsh, the abundant "black calcium soil" is very suitable for fruit growth, especially grapes.
There are hundreds of large and small wine companies in Moldova, and it also has the world's largest underground wine cellar, the Klikova Underground Cellar, which has millions of bottles of wine in storage, and the longest vintage is more than 130 years.
Moldovan wines are sold worldwide, but 80% of production is sold to Ukraine and Russia, so it is not difficult to understand why they dare not join Romania.
But in addition to the star industry of wine, moldova, a small country, lacks other large industries and industries, and the per capita salary in the country is around 2,000 yuan.
Although the price here is also very cheap, but the quality of life is not good, in the face of the temptation of foreign consumer goods, most of moldovan young people choose to go abroad to work.
The small country of Moldova, like the Philippines and Indonesia, is an important labor exporter in the world, and a large part of the country's GDP is remittances from foreign workers.
But moldovan men and women work differently, men go to England, Germany, France to do basic industries, while women mostly go to the Netherlands to work, mainly in the customs industry.
In many of the customary streets of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, blonde beauties rub shoulders, almost all of them from Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria, moldova are the main sources.
The women went abroad before the age of 20, worked in the Netherlands and other Western European countries, and even traveled to the Middle East and East Asia, where they either changed careers or returned home to marry and have children.
According to a survey by the European Human Rights Organization, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 400,000 Moldovan women have voluntarily or forcibly sold their lives, which is 10% of the country's population, and its proportion is rare in the world.
With the rise of this gray industry, the local drug trade, human trafficking, and organ trafficking have also been repeatedly prohibited.
At the same time, many young women have been lured into working overseas as bait to sell slaves abroad, for 100,000-500,000 pounds per person, mainly from American and Middle Eastern customers.
Although the trade in agricultural products can feed the country, it is not competitive internationally and the people cannot get rich.
Romania, which is next to it, has also always had ideas for the unification of Moldova, after all, the two countries are of the same language and ethnic group.
The Romanian president even publicly stated: "Romania is the only remaining divided country in Europe." This means that the land of Moldova has not yet returned.
Moldova also has "unification factions" active in the country, but both governments are cautious about unification, Romania itself is not rich, and if Moldova is merged, it may lead to economic difficulties.
The upper echelons of Moldova also want to maintain independence, after all, they can be the emperor of the local area, and they may be an ordinary official in Romania.
In recent years, the Moldovan government has been actively seeking to join the European Union in order to improve its economic conditions.
In March 2022, Moldovan President Sandu submitted his application to the European Union and officially began to advance the issue of joining the European Union.
If it joins the EUROPEAN Union, Western European countries will invest more, tariffs will be lower, imports will be greater, and Moldova may get rid of the situation of going it alone and eat the big pot of Food in Europe.
Text/Shogakuno
Resources:
1. "An Analysis of the Reasons for Moldova's Pursuit of a "Near Europe" Foreign Policy", Chen Xiang
2. "Escape from the Clutches of adultery: A Blood and Tears Complaint of a Rescued Moldovan Sex Slave", Jiao Gong