1/29 Courting...Moldovan style. With little money and usually living at home until being married, dating presents unique obstacles in Moldova. It is all a very tame adventure by American standards. The couple strolls through a park chatting, holding hands, usually smoking cigarettes; until they sit on a park bench and begin "making-out." I must say that it is all rather romantic even in the icy winter (I snapped a photo of an unsuspecting couple). On Saturdays it is common to see brides and grooms in the park all dressed up getting their wedding photos taken. Maybe, it allows them to remember dating <grin>.

The main park in the city is called Stefan cel Mare (1457-1504) after the king who held the Turks and others at bay in somewhere between 30 and 40 battles in the area. At this time there was a loose confederation of four principalities that spoke a common Latin-based language known as Rumanian. In the same general era of Stefan cel Mare was Vlad Tepes (also know as the "impaler"), whose particularly bloody and brutal punishment of the Turkish invaders eventually giving rise to the legend of Dracula. By 1600, the Turks had prevailed and dominated the area then known as Moldavia and brought it into the Ottoman Empire (as did Wallachia and Transylvania). Later, after a war between the Turks and the Russians, most of what was Moldavia became a part of Russia. After World War I, the area voted to become a part of Romania. In 1940, as part of the secret pact between Hitler and Stalin, about half of Moldova was ceded to the Soviet Union and became the the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR). During World War II Moldova was occupied by the Nazis and later was liberated by the Soviets after almost all of Chisinau was decimated by bombing from the opposing air forces.

In 1991, The MSSR became the Republic of Moldova--an independent state. You would have to go all the way back to the reign of Stefan cel Mare to have seen an independent state here! Trying to define Moldova in post-Soviet times has been difficult to say the least. About two-thirds of the country are ethnically Moldavian, almost all speaking a dialect of Romanian as their first language. About 15% of the country are of Russian origin or descent and speak Russian as their first language, another 15% are of Ukrainian decent and also tend to be Russian speakers. Added to this mix are some Turkish speakers in the Gauguz region and Bulgarians in the south. One of the more interesting facets of Soviet-ification of Moldova was to teach Moldovan children to write Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet (like Russian) , though today the local language is written in the Latin alphabet.

With all that complicated history, it makes me happy just to see people in love...

Gardina Publica Stefan cel Mare, Chisinau, 28 January 2006. Temperature: 20 degrees F.

Arc de Triumf and the Chisinau Cathedral

Links to all of my on-line ramblings and other useful information.	The Moldova Blog:
	*Adventures of an American in Chisinau*