The Country That Doesn't Exist

Transnistria is a small country that proudly flies the hammer and sickle but goes completely unrecognised by the rest of the world.

Victory Day in Transnistra. Image source

Where in the world?

Transnistria? Yes, really. It's a country—no bigger than a mid-sized city, occupying a sliver of land between Moldova and Ukraine. It has all the trappings of a country: a democratically-elected parliamentary government, a president, passports for its citizens, a standing army and its own currency. Yet, it technically doesn't exist.

Yet there it is. Image source

Transnistria—or officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, or also known as “Trans-Dniestr” or “Transdniestria”—broke away from Moldova after the dissolution of the USSR in 1990. This wasn't done peacefully, however. In fact, it caused an armed conflict, called the Transnistria War with pro-Transnistria forces clashing with pro-Moldovan troops and police. A ceasefire was declared on 21 July 1992, which has held ever since. In 2005 Transnistria was declared an “autonomous territorial unit” within the Republic of Moldova.

The Transnistrian flag. [Image: WikiCommons]

Flying the flag

There's a Soviet whiff about Transnistria, not the least of which is that the country's flag sports the old Soviet hammer and sickle—the only national flag still doing that. Its road names, statues and national heroes all hark back to the Soviet and earlier Russian eras.

Where it differs from the Soviet Union is that it is a multi-party democracy and its president is elected by popular vote. (There are, however, some serious doubts about how free and fair the elections really are.)

So the question of the flag really comes down to the people, who don't seem to have the will to change it. They are generally intensely patriotic and cling tenaciously to their Soviet symbols and all things Russian. This affinity for Russia is rewarded by Russia providing free gas and contributions to pensions. Although the biggest group, Russians still only make up 34% of the territory's some 476,000 residents. (This is closely followed by Moldovans, 32% and Ukrainians, 27%.)