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For the past year or more, I have been trying to track down the elusive report which "funded by" the British Department for International Development and claims that Transnistria is a "smuggling company masquerading as a state." It is not on the department's website and when I contacted them, they said that they have no knowledge of such a report. I have also done all sorts of web searches, and the only references we get are citations of earlier Wikipedia articles and of the BBC article. One paper included it, but it had obviously gotten the quote from the BBC story and not from the report, and in fact no one to date even knows the title of the report or who wrote it. The fact that BBC published it is not proof of anything. BBC has also published that one of the Smirnov sons own Sheriff, and we now know - thanks to Moldpres, no less - that this is not the case. I would appreciate if anyone could help me track down this report. It has been a quest of mine for a long time to find out if it exists. - Mauco 22:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I have exported to and from many countries and I can tell you that the Transnistrian border is just about the most protected and secure border in Europe, I challange anyone to try and smuggle anything across it.Don't believe the propaganda. MarkStreet Oct 12th
Sheriff is a company with many stockholders - how do you know that Smirnov's son is not between them?-- MariusM 09:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
In order to shorten the history section, I propose removing the following sentence:
"In May 2005, the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yushchenko proposed a seven-point plan for the settlement of the conflict between Transnistria and Moldova."
It will not disappear from Wikipedia because it is already present in
History of Transnistria and will stay there. However, in the summary (on the main Transnistria article) we should only include important key points and the Yushchenko plan has turned out to not be one of those. When it was put forward, everyone had great hopes, but now it just fiddled out and has been relegated to a not-very-important part of history. I am posting this proposal here, in case anyone has any objections to this edit, so we can get a chance to discuss it first. -
Mauco
23:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I am opposed to the use of the word 'Conflict'. The conflict ended 16 years ago. I suggest using the word 'inter-relations. MarkStreet Oct 12th 2006
The flag shown at the Transnistria page is not the current one, just have a look at Transnistria's homepage: http://www.president-pmr.org/english/index_e.htm
The flag used is indeed correct. Some people inTD drop the hammer and sickle for different reasons, including the fact it can be difficult to incorporate into homemade flags. MarkStreet
This part needs an update from someone. I looked at the main article Ukraine-Transnistria border customs conflict and it has no news since March. It is now October. I can not update it: I do not know enough about this subject. I have started to do research but it is complex. (+don't speak Russian). I am trying to learn so I can edit here in the future. But not yet ready now. Can someone else update this part? - Pernambuco 13:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
That is POV. A Moldovan policeman was caught having drugs. Claiming that the whole institution of Moldovan Police is involved is a bit presumptuous, isn't it? bogdan 22:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco, I was just looking over some figures:
How the hell can one country build a stadium which costs more than half of the GDP and more than double the state budget? Economically, it is impossible, unless:
Do you have any logical explanation related to these figures for economy of Transnistria? bogdan 22:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi guys, there is way in this world that stadium cost €250 million. A 90,000 seater stadium was built in the British Isles for that money and salaries and coststhere are many times higher, also they probably borrowed the money. MarkStreet Oct 12
Wikipedia is not supposed to write the truth. We're just writing just major opinions on what the truth might be. That's the policy. If there were a consensus on what the truth is, then we might write it as if it were the truth. When the BBC, Washington Post and the like are saying something on an issue, you can't just discard because "western press are biased", "they know nothing on this", the POV they present is a notable POV and should be mentioned. bogdan 08:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the dispute was settled: we don't now exactly who owns Sheriff. I never asked for an inclusion of a statement that Sheriff is owned by Smirnov in any Wikipedia article, I just wanted to remind you that, as we don't know the truth, we can not label BBC's article as "plain journalistic error" or "journalistic screwup", as you did.-- MariusM 00:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Two days ago, British journalist Shaun Walker just published a report where he points out the danger of relying on sensationalist media reports as the main source of Transnistria info. See
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/05/009.html and note that Shaun Walker has actually visited Transnistria (which is more than can be said for 95%+ of the editors of Wikipedia Transnistria-related articles). He wrote:
With my information about the places filtered through the occasional sensationalist Western media report, I turned up in both cases excitedly expecting to find the final frontier; a gangster-ridden epicenter of weapons and human smuggling; a dark and wild version of the Soviet Union. Instead, what I got in both wannabe capitals was a sleepy provincial town, with tree-lined streets and ordinary people going about their business trying to make ends meet.
His onsite research match other recent reports from organizations who have taken the trouble to go there and spend time on doing the needed research, including the British government funded Saferworld in their newly published United Nations study on weapons. -
Mauco
13:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't remember when I was "all over" User:Jonathanpops, what I did so bad to this poor guy? 100% sure I didn't accuse him to be a sockpuppet. Mauco, is so difficult for you to avoid telling fake things about me? The only Request for checkuser I did was in MarkStreet - Henco - Gallenweekend case, however I may ask other requests in the future.-- MariusM 21:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I submited a request for checkuser and have the confirmation [3] that Henco, an user who voted for external links in our article [4] is a sockpuppet of MarkStreet, editor of Tiraspol Times (his vote was meantime removed). It seems that MarkStreet learned in Transnistria how to falsify a vote, Transnistrian referendum was a good lesson for him.
I suspected also Gallenweekend to be a sockpuppet, as he registered at Wikipedia in 7 october and the only thing he did was to vote for "Tiraspol Times" [5], no other contribution at Wikipedia. This suspicion was not confirmed, however I still have doubts, as MarkStreet was aware as of 6 October about the fact that he is suspected of sockpuppetry [6] [7] and could take measures to hide his sockpuppetry.
Not surprisingly, User:William Mauco was against investigation about possible sockpuppetry of MarkStreet, trying to accuse the scape goat Bonaparte for such behaviour [8]
"Tiraspol Times" received a narrow vote for inclusion in out article, but I doubt about its merit, as is obvious that his editor is not an onest person. After a request to confirm that he is indeed editor of "Tiraspol Times", MarkStret put a link to his page on Wikipedia at "Tiraspol Times" webpage [9] -- MariusM 23:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't apologize to you, Mauco, but I expect you to apologize from me, as you wrote that I lied. I told that you were trying to accuse Bonaparte as being Henco and I gave the refference [10]. Quote: "In case of User:Henco he may be Bonni or he may be MarkStreet". Bonni is Bonaparte. And telling that "it doesn't matter" is a way to be against investigation of this sockpuppetry case. I don't know about any sockpuppet on "my" side, if you have such suspicions why you didn't ask a RCU?-- MariusM 21:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
For Bogdan and others, a source of numbers can be found here: http://www.cbpmr.net/?id=10&lang=ru (for instance No.6-7, 2006). Detailed. Personally, I would not rely on the Finance Ministry numbers, but the ones from the Republican Bank look OK. Also keep an eye on the press service of the Supreme Soviet. So far, they are off to a good start, at http://www.vspmr.org - Mauco 03:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at the main page article on smuggling. What evidence is there that woman are being smuggled. This is a Moldovan problem rather than a TD problem.
Feedback please MarkStreet Oct 12th
I hope more vandals will follow this shining example and will mark their edits as such. :D
Still, I wonder if the page should be semiprotected again? -- Illythr 20:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Bogdan, was that really you? -- Illythr 20:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I blocked Bonaparte and his little friend and sprotected the page. bogdan 21:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Blurb sock is Khoikhoi ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)....
I understand that Tyras is the first recorded settlement in the area. Where does the information on prior inhabitants come from? -- Illythr 19:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
At Kievan Rus article we have a map of this country [14], from where is not clear if Transnistria was part of it (maybe the northern area). Which historical refferences we have about the exact borders of Kievan Rus? Also, where Romanians part of the population of this country? Is possible, as at that time Romanian was not a written language, Slavonic was the language used in writing by all Romanians, the differences between Romanians and Slavs were not considered important as those people were both orthodox (and religion, not language was important in Middle Age). I heard about an Ukrainian hatman with a Romanian name: Dănilă Apostol.-- MariusM 20:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
If we look at the map revealed by User:PANONIAN not only Transnistria but also the entire Moldova belonged to Kievan Rus. The problem is like User:bogdangiusca told: there are plenty of modern-day nationalist claims but few original documents. Crimean Khanate should be mentioned: Dabija's book also mention the Tatars and Edisan article -- MariusM 14:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I also think that MaGioZal was rather too quick to remove the reference only half an hour after you inserted the tags. Aren't we to wait a while, until someone knowledgeable has a chance to react?
Way too fast:
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. --
Illythr
20:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree, a Lithuanian Army was enough. From Crimean khanate map we can see that Transnistria was a disputed teritory even at that time (and no Lithuania around, only Poland). I believe is a general agreement to keep the fact tag now and to look for more informations. Or maybe we should vote at what country to asign Transnistria (Lithuania, Poland, Crimean Khanate, Kievan Rus)? :-) I read that in the time of Moldavian king Duca Vodă this area belonged also to Moldavia, I will check my sources.-- MariusM 21:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
MaGioZal probably meant this map: [16] -- Illythr 22:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
That map ( [17]) it shows Bessarabia separate color from Podolia and Kherson. The river Nistru in as the border. The earliest I could find: Scythia. Shows the Sarmathia/Dacia border on the Nistru river. [18]. The one for the fact tag in fifteen century is (Part of Grand Duchy of Lithuania on 15th century) is this [19] - Pernambuco 02:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
"Trans-Dniester," or "Trans-Dnjester," or "Transdniestria" would be more appropriate than using "Transniestria." The historical territory of Transniestria is all the territory between the Dniester and the Bug, not just the Dniester's left bank. Furthermore, the PMR's north-eastern boundary matches closely to the historical ethnic boundary of the Romanians, that is: Transylvania, Walachia, Moldavia, and in particular, Bessarabia on the right bank of the Dniester and then extending beyond Bessarabia on to the left bank of the Dniester to essentially the same boundary as the PMR. Reference is "Historical Atlas of East Central Europe," by Magocsi. Regarding Kievan Rus, it did extend to the Dniester and beyond (1000's), that being Galicia-Volhynia, however that was far inland, not where the PMR is: if you divided the territory between the Black and Baltic Seas into thirds, Galicia would have been the "middle" third. Galician (Kievan Rus) influence extended to the Black Sea only for a relatively short period from 1160 to 1240, mainly south of the Dniester to the Siret. (The "swath" along the Black Sea was Pechenegs, later the Golden Horde.) By 1480, that territory was part of Lithuania, with the Ottoman empire displacing Lithuania along the Black Sea coast a century later. — Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
No one is disputing that Transnistria had Romanian settlements at various times throughout history. This is an inevitable feature of being a borderland. Who was there first? Does it even matter? Well, it matters to some Romanians (like perma-banned Bonaparte and often-banned User:Greier) who want to make Romania appear larger than it ever was, and want to show that half of the world was Dacia. But to put some balance into the overall interpretation of history, I would - once again - like to call attention to the following historic notes, written from a Romanian point of view and generally accepted by all mainstream Romanian historians:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
All quotes are from NICHOLAS DIMA 1991: East European Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, and can be seen online at http://ivantoc.org/moldova.htm This is a Romanian source. Other historians and sources (which I can also quote) are even more clear on the matter, and emphasize that the role of the Romanians in Transnistria has always been relatively limited and always as a minority compared to other groups. - Mauco 17:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
In response to the above by Mauco: I have scrupulously re-read Magocsi's maps and all pertinent text. The Kievan Rus province of Galicia extended west to Hungary but did not extend any further downriver, speaking of the Dniester, than the furthest upriver border of present-day Moldova. With respect to your quotes:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
There's nothing worse than making a case by spewing a mountain of seemingly incontrovertible facts driving them home with bolded sledgehammers and having it all totally wrong. I suppose that now you realize what you're quoting not only totally invalidates your position but proves that of the "opposition," you'll dismiss Romanian historians as "biased." You have just proven that Kievan Rus never controlled Transnistria/PMR; that Romanians have been the primary inhabitants of left bank of the Dniester and eastward, i.e., the territory of the current PMR and beyond, since at least the 1400's; and that Russian influence only arrived with the partition of Poland and did not affect the ethnic demographics of the Romanian population on the Dniester's left bank and beyond. So-called "historical Russian claims to the territory of the PMR" completely (and thank you for your emphasis) disproven.
Oops! Feeling the need to quote some other sources? — Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's make sure that the interpretations of words match the realities of maps. Confusing the territory of the ruler Besaraba with the later territory of Bessarabia is quite understandable if you don't have a map showing Besaraba ruled Walachia (some place completely different) in 1308. I sectioned this off so it can be edited/commented without needing to sift through endless screens of text. I invite Mauco (or anyone else, obviously!) to post another source for discussion. (One source at a time, please!) — Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
We should congratulate wikipedian User:William Mauco (William Maurice) who just wrote an article for "Tiraspol Times" [20] (see end of article). His wikibreak was fruitfull. I allways believed that "Tiraspol Times" is the right place for Mauco's opinions.-- MariusM 14:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Now, I suggest we cease with this flooding, as it is quite irrelevant to THIS article. -- Illythr 21:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
What is a Bolohovenian? Did they exist? Never heard of them. Neither has Google [22] or Yahoo [23] The article said that they inhabited this land. - Pernambuco 22:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
No.-- MariusM 06:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems that Transnistria was indeed nominally part of Lithuania and later Poland, but nobody actually enforced the rule over the region, presumably because it was underpopulated and not valuable enough to worth it. bogdan 22:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to voice my objection to Transnistria being refered to as a 'region'. Wikipedia has its own definition of what it determines a region's status as a country to be..
A country ought to have all or most of the following;
1 Its own government 2 Its own administration 3 Its own consitution 4 Its own Police force 5 Its own Military 6 Its own tax 7 its own laws,
obvious additions I could include would be
8 its own unique curremcy ( bank notes and coins)) and central bank 9 Its oen state symbols / flag etc. 10 customs posts 11 patroled borders 12 own airforce. 13. Prime minister/President/ Ministers. Parliment buildings.
Transnistria has every single one of the above. Therefore it MUST be termed a country.
I accept there is a dispute and Moldova claims this territory , this however does not take away from the de-facto independence that exists.
It is also wrong to say she is not internationally recognised. There is not a single country in the world that has full interrnational recognition. Whether you have mass recognition or not does not determine whether you exist as a country. As it happens there are several countries that recognise Transnistria and Russia is included.
I suggest that the wording in describing Transnistria be changed to state it is an independent country yet to be recognised by the vast majority of western countries and whose territory is claimed by neighbouring country of Moldova . This the most apt description. To merely discribe it as a region is innacurate and political. Lets try to be scientific about this and call it exactly what it is.
MarkStreet Mark Street . Editor Tiraspol Times News, Transnistria, October 20th 2006
The point is this, For example, imagine the entire world broke diplomatic relations with the old South Africa ( whuch nearly happened) and a ecomonic and diplomatic blockade took place. Would this mean South Africa could no longer be refered to as a country?. Clearly it would remain as one. albeit unrecognised diplomatically internationally. So in effect TD is the same it is a country unrecognised diplomatically by everyone bar a few 'countries in a similar situation. Notwithstanding that it is a country and noboby can dispute that. Therefore Wikipedia should refrain from calling it what it is not. Its not proper for Mauco to push this vital point off on a 'technicality'.It is the very essence of the entire TD page. It is vital to get 'hung up' on this, as this point is of the most paramount importance to this entire page, This is not a huge task. It just needs to be changed in the main introduction paragraphs on the main article page to begin with. I suggest it never be refered to as a region as this is confusing . Remember South Africa in diplomatic blockade and non recognition would NOT be a region but STILL a country. It is highly offensive to the 97% of TD pro-independence votes to be refered to as a regiion. Call it was it is , a country as of yet unrecognised. It is time to be precise and work under the very guidelines Wikipedia uses itself and not political agendas and wishes. MarkStreet Mark Street Oct 20 2006
This link obtained a narrow "for" vote when we voted for external links, but the vote was poisoned through proved sockpuppetry. There were plenty of proofs in this talk page (moved in archive) that this is not a real newspaper, only a propaganda tool of Tiraspol regime, it was not proved that this newspaper is available in the streets of Tiraspol, has no address, is pretending "100% truth and accuracy", claim that "Tiraspol Times reports straight from Tiraspol: Not from Chisinau, Moscow, Brussels, Kiev, Washington or Cairo. So you get the news about Tiraspol fresh, first-hand and unfiltered" [26] but it is a lie, as MarkStreet recognized "We don't publicise our address and phone numbers becaise we operate online and to be frank we simply are not there a lot of the time" [27]. I see that his editor, MarkStreet, is not busy with his newspaper but with Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not be the place for self-promotion and plain falacities, the credibility of this resource will suffer if we allow this.-- MariusM 18:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
On the "other side" you didn't show any fraudulent vote, you just make misleading comments.-- MariusM 21:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Are we on the verge of a new and pointless edit war? If so, how about some civility and self-control, guys?
We are dealing with a self-confessed edit warrior, User:EvilAlex, who says that it is "fun" to edit war, and that it would be "boring without those small wars". [31] He has a history of being rude and using misleading edit comments. Today, he has wholesale reverted twice [32], [33] for some fairly simple edits which I made: 1. Removal of a contested statement until a second source is found, due to another editor not considering the single source reliable in itself. 2. Phrasing on "region/country", discussed here and solved. 3. Tiraspol Times link, which passed the vote like several other links who are there too, and which are not removed (despite my concerns in general about the vote).
We are also dealing with User:Greier who has an extensive history of being blocked for disruptive behavior on nationalist Romanian topics. [34] and who likes to add large chunks of contested statements to controversial articles without raising the issues first with any other editors on the Talk pages. He did this again today. [35] Both of them have shown troll-like behavior in the past, so I am reluctant to engage them and would hope that someone else has the patience to do so.... - Mauco 16:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco stop this nonsens, link should be removed for breaking rules of fare vote! I knew exactly what in Archive 6 – i participated in creation of it. What exactly you wont me to see there? And You shold be banned for breaking the rules of 3RR :( EvilAlex 18:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Well known Russian disident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book "Rossiia v obvale" (I used the Romanian translation, Humanitas, Bucharest 2000), in the part "The slav tragedia" is writing against Ukrainian nationalist pretentions: "Ukraine obtained teritories which never belonged to it before Lenin: 2 regions on Don, the entire Sudic Novorosia (Melitopol - Herson - Odesa) and Krimeea". The opinion of Soljeniţîn is that Ukraine has no right to those lands (including Odesa - that show that Transnistria is one of non-Ukrainian land considered by Soljeniţîn). He has a valid point of view, as Transnistria and other teritories were conquered with Russian blood through Russian-Turkish/Tatar wars, without being previously inhabited by Slavs. No mention in Soljeniţîn that Transnistria was inhabited by Ukrainians before Russian-Turkish wars. Slav colonization started in those region after Russian conquer (1792 for Transnistria). It was mainly an Ukrainian colonization (we know from historical demographic data that Russians came here mainly in Soviet times and established themselves in cities; countriside was and still is Ukrainian/Moldovan; everywhere in the world people from cities are more likely newcomers in a region). In Soljeniţîn's reckoning, as the right to colonize this region was granted to ukrainians by Russia, is not fair that those regions are now part of Ukraine. "When Hmelniţki united Ukraine to Russia, Ukraine was a fifth of today Ukraine", Soljeniţîn wrote.-- MariusM 16:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
To put some balance into the overall interpretation of history, I would like to call attention to the following historic notes, written from a Romanian point of view and generally accepted by all mainstream Romanian historians:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
All quotes are from NICHOLAS DIMA 1991: East European Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, and can be seen online at http://ivantoc.org/moldova.htm In light of the above, and all the other data from other historians that suppport this, I don't see how we can claim (at least not with a straight face) that there was ever any serious "Moldovan rule in Transnistria" in the time periods mentioned. - Mauco 03:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose the inclusion of a link to Tiraspol Times [38] in the external links section, specificially in the part labelled "Transnistrian side" in order to show its POV.
Tiraspol Times is worthy of inclusion because it is the only news source with a Transnistrian viewpoint which appears in English. We are currently including several links to Moldovan news sources in the same article, under "Moldovan side". For balance, it is fair to have at least one similar link on the Transnistrian side.
Since the article deals with Transnistria (and not Moldova, per se) the link is more relevant than the Moldovan news sources. However, I am not proposing that they be deleted. This suggestion merely deals with the relevancy and usefulness of inclusion of http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/
I may add that in the course of research, I have often found a bits of information which was reported elsewhere in Russian, in several places, but which was never reported anywhere in English except for Tiraspol Times. As such, it fills a unique niche and is a "must" in an English language article dealing with Transnistria. - Mauco 17:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. Imagin that we all agreed and added link to “Tiraspol Times”, then few month later an article appears with a headings:
'Since independence in 1990, Transnistria has a free market economy, 200% growth, and a multi-party democracy with the opposition in control of parliament.
And then one of the wikipedians, hrrrr lets say
User:William_Mauco decidet to rewrite Transnistrian article based on article in “Tiraspol Times”,yes he will give you all of the references to “Tiraspol Times” Did you get the picture? Where is the line between just placing a link and referencing to it? How reliable is “Tiraspol Times” to be in Wikipedia? Answers are here:
[39]
Reputation -0. Do we need a site like that here?
EvilAlex
12:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to all for your input. I think we have settled it now. Mauco, Jonathanpops, Pernambuco, Ronline, MarkStreet in favor (but don't count MarkStreet, due to conflict of interest.) Illythr, no clear opinion expressed. EvilAlex against. - Mauco 03:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
We can NOT use the EU list as reference. It is full of errors and is NOT a reliable source. There are only 17 names on the list, so any inferences to the "leadership" must take into account that the list is not representative.
Some of the job titles and names are wrong, with some not in leadership positions. Only 10 of them can be considered leadership. Of those ten, there is wrong information on 40% of them, such as wrong birth places and birth dates, among other things. Overall, if we include all 17 names, there is wrong information on the list in the case of 10 out of 17, or an error rate of 59%.
To make matters even worse, there is NO consistent standard for why a name was included in the list. Parliament has 43 deputies, but only some of them were included. Why? There are also more than a dozen ministries, but only a handful of ministers were included. Why? In contrast, the list includes some names which are out of office, and even one who no longer lives in Transnistria. Why?
It is sloppy list and useless as a source or reference to prove anything. If we had to do a serious, professional list, we could include people such as -
There are errors in 10 out of 17 cases, and that is putting it mildly. The errors are gross. In some cases (and Shevchuk is not the only one of these), they are compound errors. All in all, to anyone who seriously knows anything about this subject, the whole list is laughable.
1. SMIRNOV, Igor. Born in Russia.
2. SMIRNOV, Vladimir. His son. Not a political leader. Born in Ukraine.
3. SMIRNOV, Oleg. Another son. Head of a bank. Not a political leader. NOT "Adviser to the State Customs Committee", as the list claims. Born in Ukraine.
4. LEONTIYEV, Serghey Fedorovich. Born in Ukraine.
5. MARAKUTSA, Grigory. Born in Transnistria.
6. KAMINSKY, Anatoly. Ukrainian, born in Russia. Moved to Transnistria when he was 7 years old. NOT "Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet", as the list claims.
7. SHEVCHUK, Yevgeny. Born in Transnistria (in 1968). NOT born in 1946. NOT born in Russia, as the list claims.
8. LITSKAI, Valery. Born in Russia.
9. KHAZHEYEV, Stanislav. NOT his correct name, as the list claims. (It is Hazheev). Born in Russia.
10. ANTYUFEYEV, Vladimir. Born in Russia.
11. KOROLYOV, Alexandr. Born in Poland. NOT born in Russia, as the list claims (and his name is Korolev)
12. BALALA, Viktor. NOT part of the leadership, as the list claims. Was fired last year (for corruption), and left Transnistria. Not a political leader.
13. AKULOV, Boris. NOT the "Representative of Transnistria in Ukraine", as the list claims. (That post is held by Vladimir Bodnar, born in Transnistria). Not a political leader either.
14. ZAKHAROV, Viktor. Born in Transnistria. However, the list is wrong. He is NOT the "Prosecutor of Transnistria", as the list claims. That job is held now by Anatoliy Guretskiy (also born in Transnistria). Not a political leader.
15. LIPOVTSEV, Alexey. Born in Tighina (Transnistria). However, NOT "Deputy Chairman of State Customs Service", as the list claims. Not a political leader.
16. GUDYMO, Oleg. Born in Kazakhstan.
17. KOSOVSKY, Eduard. Not a political leader. Born in Moldova.
For any kind of research, it is useless. The definition of political leadership should not be what the EU says (and especially not the sloppy way they picked these names), but should be objective criteria: The cabinet (president and government ministers), the mayors, and the members of parliament. If you do that, you will see that the majority are NOT newcomers to Transnistria and the majority are native-born Transnistrians. That holds true even if you want to exclude those who arrived as babies, when they were just a few months old or two years old. Hardly newcomers, but if you want to make a point, then go ahead and twist it. It still won't stand. -
Mauco
20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
In contradiction to your clime that they are ” Not a political leader”
Also according to EU list
Vladimir SMIRNOV - Chairman of the State Customs Committee
Oleg SMIRNOV - Adviser to the State Customs Committee
I think that EU knew better who is in charge of the country.
Also there is not a single reference to back you clime.
Credibility of EU is much bigger than credibility of Mauco.
EvilAlex
22:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The majority of the members of parliament are from Transnistria. is what Mauco wrote. This is plain fallacy. From official site with biographies of PMR deputies we can find (I copied first part of their biography, is in Russian - cyrillic, I added with Latin script the country where they were born)-- MariusM 00:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Only 16 out of 43 members of Transnistrian parliament were born in Transnistria. In 2 cases the place of birth is not clearly mentioned, in one of this cases is mentioned that he went to school in Transnistria. I may made some mistakes with my poor understanding of Russian, please Russian speakers correct me if I'm wrong and let's do a statistic of those 43 members of parliament, based on the country they were born.-- MariusM 00:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oleg Smirnov (president son) is not a political leader. Other falacy. He is member of the parliament.-- MariusM 00:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Just for the record (since I know that MariusM has some shortcomings when it comes to Russian), the following MPs are born in Transnistria:
CHEBAN Sergey, CHERVONOOKIY Valerie, SHEVCHUK Yevgeny, TYURYAEVA Ilona, TULGARA Valerianus NOT TRUE, TRESKOVA Klavdiy, POTOLYA Anatoliy, SPORISH Yuri, TOBUKH Vyacheslav, KUZMENKO Yuri PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (Rybnitsa, Transnistria), LEONTYEV Oleg PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (Grigoriopol, Transnistria), MARAKUTSA Grigoriy, MORARU Vasiliy, PASAT Peter, BODNAR Vladimir NOT TRUE (well - - actually, to be specific: года в поселке Старая Ушица, Каменец-Подольского района, Хмельницкой области.Гражданин Приднестровской Молдавской Республики и Украины), VASILYEV Ilya, GERVAZYUK Yuri PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (just Google him, he is the head of one of the top 10 largest companies and very well known), DIRUN Anatoliy, EVSTRAT Grigoriy, KOVAL Efimiy NOT TRUE(Родился в с. Василиуцы, Рышканского района)
These are also certainly NOT newcomers -
ONUFRIYENKO Anton Nikolayevich: Born in Sverdlovsk, came to Transnistria when he was not even a year old.
CRESTS Aleksey valentinovich: Born in Leipzig, came to Transnistria when he was 2 years old.
KAMINSKY, Anatoly: Born in Ukraine, came to Transnistria when he was just 7 years old.
BEYS Oleg Markovich: Born in Odessa, came to Transnistria as a teenager.
BABENKO Sergey Ivanovich: Born in Saratov, came to Transnistria as a teenager.
GUZUN Victor Mikhaylovich: Born in Dnestrovske, came to Transnistria as a teenager
All of these were minors. This is hardly a "Russian-installed dictatorship" or the case of a leadership which is stage managed from the outside. They have lived in Transnistria most of their lives, for God's sake.
We can also argue a borderline case -
DYACHENKO Grigoriy Ivanovich: Born in Odessa, came to Transnistria when he was 25 years old.
Whether or not he should be included, that gives you a total of either 27 or 28 locals, which is a majority (out of 43). I certainly fail to see what the problem is, but I wouldn't be surprised to see you or your Evil friend start to split hairs now... -
Mauco
01:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
With the exception of Smirnov, we can not ignore that much of the Transnistrian leadership has been composed of Transnistrians (not newcomers) right from the start. I quote from a couple of well-esteemed Western sources -
1. Stefan Troebst: "We Are Transnistrians! Post-Soviet Identity Management in the Dniester Valley": "Ethnic Moldovans from the left bank figure prominently among today’s TMR leadership, such as the former chairman of the Union of Moldovans of Transnistria Vasilii N. Jakovlev; the speaker of the TMR Supreme Soviet, Grigorii S. Maracuta; or TMR Vice-President, Aleksandr A. Karaman."
2. John O’Loughlin: "National Construction, Territorial Separatism and Post-Soviet Geopolitics": "The president, Smirnov, is Russian; the president of the Supreme Soviet, Marakutsa, vice-president Karaman, and the president of the Defense Council, General Kitsak are Moldovans, as are the majority of the other leaders of the TMR and the personnel of the armed forces"
What was that? Oh, just that little word "majority". - Mauco 00:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
We have the official list of the 43 members of Transnistrian parlament. I don't have time to check what those scholars wrote, anyhow the list is more relevant.-- MariusM 02:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco and MarkStreet, you are trolling here. Indeed. From the official biographies it is obvious that most of the Transnistrian leadership comes from elsewhere. Dpotop 10:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Not so, we can only deal with facts and the fact is it did not exist when they were born. It a silly issue for us to be even debating MarkStreet Oct 23rd
The opening lines on the main page state Transnistria is a region of Moldova'.
This is incorrect and needs to be changed as soon as possible with agreement of all.
As a nuetral foreign reporter with expertise in this area I suggest the following .
Transnistria is an internationally unrecognised independent state created in 1990 before the formation of Moldova, however its sovereignty is disputed by the Republic of Moldova and currently peacekeeping forces line the border that divides the Transnistria and Moldova'.
This should be inserted and locked.
Also it is not a 'separist' government . They are seperate not serparist. They never serparated from anyone given their country existed before Moldova existed. This word should be changed.
Lets see how nuetral Mauco is now ?
MarkStreet oct 23 2006
The paragrapgh on the main page regarding Weapons Trade MUST now be removed completely. The EUropean Unions border monitors have today confirmed at an international press conference in Odessa that they have spent one year monitoring the border of Transnistria snd have not found a single occurence of weapons smuggling. The allegations have be firmly investigated and found to be false.
The United Nations observers have added their voice to this and even the Moldovan supporting OSCE always never really fully accepted the claims.
Also the Russian Generals have conformed they have not lost a single bullet from there arms stores there.
The rumours have been proven to be untrue.
Delete now please.
MarkStreet Oct 23 2006
I wish to point out that there appears to be not a single pro-transdniestrian advocate on these pages and the TD viewpoint is barely represented. . If there is such a person will they please identify themselves.
I am not , cannot, nor wish to be their advocate, as a westerner nor would they want me to be.
I can say this The main page is completely biased against the TDians.
Also there is hardly any control over the main page and edits. Its an anti TD site laced with propaganda, All the parts about smuggling, Terrorism, Crime. Sheer nonsense!. Mauco has admited it and EU reports UN reports all ignored/
To be frank I'm considering withdrawing from these pages unless there is some progress and real balance.
If the real editors of Wikipedia ever consider establishing a proper page I am happy to try and present TD in a balanced and scientific manner and we can use journalists from other conflict zones accross the globe to assist. Meanwhile the page is really a Moldovan propaganda front. Its a pity because it does little to help illuminate the interesting territory/country that is Transnistria.
MarkStreet Oct 23rd
Thanks MarkStreet for your clear picture of Transnistrian democracy. There is a pro-separatist side, and there is a "pro-moldovan" side with people like Mauco, which are free to express their opinions. See your talk page, Mauco asked you to write an article [41], write it and then he will asked to include this refference in Wikipedia. So is the world moving: Tiraspol Ties publish articles from Wikipedia source and Wikipedia publish article sourced from Tiraspol Times. Keep up the good job!-- MariusM 13:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Based on data official data from separatist site, this is the statistic:
As natives, will qualify those born in Transnistria and those born in the part of Basarabia which is controlled by separatist government of Transnistria (Bender - Tighina, Chiţcani). That mean 12 + 3 = 15. 15 out of 43. Even if we add the 3 with birth place not mentioned, we have 18, which is a minority. The majority of transnistrian separatist leaders are not natives in the area. This is a fact. MarkStreet claim that is not important. Maybe he is right, but then why such opposition to include in the article the 100% "truth and accurate" (I'm quoting Tiraspol Times) fact?-- MariusM 12:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
It is now clear that there is not a single person represnting TD sentiment editing these pages. The best offer by Marius was Evilalex,
Mauco is not in the least bit acceptable.
My interests is clearly pro-democracy and scientific fact.
I am going to suggest some proper changes to the main page and I am asking for all perspectives to support these and I will take into account everyones positions.
Firstly, do I have agreement that TD is ' an unrecognised country whose sovereignty is under dispute'. Lets change that.
Also to remove that it is part of Moldova because technically it is not even though there is a Moldovan aspriration for this to happen by reintegration
MarkStreet Oct 23rd 2006
Secondly, I concede the reintegration point as its not a fact and we must base it around fact. Evil alex is a self confessed edit warrior and if he continues we have options to deal with that then, for now he has his view and as long as he behaves he should be encouraged to debate the facts before us. Mauco you claim to be nuetral, sometimes you are and I accept that, but the main page is badly warped. If you want I can get a panel of journalists for the European Parliment media room to offer a suggested approach of wording and get it endorsed by the independent conflict experts. This is not the ideal approach but it's just about the only way I can see forward.
MarkStreet oct 23
This one: The Montevideo Convention sets out four criteria for statehood: "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." On this measure, Transnistria is already a country, but of course an unrecognized one. Does lack of recognition invalidate the statehood qualification? International law says no, since article 3 explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states."
Transnistria is listed on List of countries, and, get this, on the List of sovereign states.
However, in the interest of neutrality, we can agree to not call it a "country" but merely an "unrecognized country". Transnistria is also listed on List of unrecognized countries.
Will anyone here, except for the edit warrior (who says that he loves to get his war on), please explain how in any way, shape or form it would be factually incorrect to call Transnistria an unrecognized country? Comments, please. - Mauco 18:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
The EU list the same EU list here is completely unreliable, and must not be used here if we are to follow WP:RS.
First of all, it includes people who are not part of the political leadership: Vladimir Smirnov, Viktor Balala, Boris Akulov, Viktor Zakharov, Alexey Lipovtsev, Eduard Kosovsky.
Secondly, it is full of other errors as well. Some of the worst errors are - 1. Oleg Smirnov is head of Gazprombank. He is NOT an "Adviser to the State Customs Committee". 2. Anatoly Kamninsky is NOT "Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet". 3. Yevgeny Shevchuk was born in Transnistria in 1968. He was not born in 1946 in Russia, as the list claims. 4. Alexandr Korolev was born in Poland, not in Russia, as the list claims. 5. Viktor Balala is not in power. Was fired last year, and left Transnistria. 6. Boris Akulov is not the "Representative of Transnistria in Ukraine". 7. Viktor Zakharov is not "Prosecutor of Transnistria". 8. Alexey Lipovtsev is not "Deputy Chairman of State Customs Service".
In a list of 17 people, that is 14 errors. Please find a secondary source if you want to keep referring to this list as proof of anything. - Mauco 18:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Any reference to back your statement, or... should I believe you again? Re: Vladimir Smirnov is the president of the customs, having the rank of a minister. [43] 1 proven error in your listed errors, how can I believe that you didn’t make other errors to prove your position? Re: Wrong birth places; many of them hold 2 or 3 passports if not more. How do you know which passport was submitted for EU entry visa? And how do you know which birth place was written in each? Ref? EvilAlex 18:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
OK!Look many in TD have 2 or more Passports :
1. Transnistrian
2. And any other such as Russian, Moldavian, Ukrainian or others, usually for travelling abroad.
Example of confused data:
How can EU source be wrong if EU source references for example to the data from Russian Passport and TD governmental website references to the data from Transnistrian passport?
Is it possible? Yes!
Why? Because TD passport is unrecognized around the word and that is why the government officials uses second passport for abroad travelling.
EvilAlex
20:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
In a nutshell: Mauco says that official EU data is unreliable because some "official" Prednistrovian web site gives different data. I'm sorry, but I profoundly distrust all Prednistrovian data, be it official or not. It's coming from some very devious leaders whose recent "free elections" are recognized by nobody. Moreover, this regime has set up an intoxication campaign that almost had us all here. I changed it in text, and I'm going to revert it until Mauco brings some credible sources.
I also presume the vast majority of Wikipedia editors and admins will accept this position: Pridnestrovian data is not trustworthy. Moreover, EU data generally is, so that if you want to contest it, you should come with better sources. Dpotop 06:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
From User:Jamason, a person who was recomended by Mauco, I received the complete list of the members of first PMR Supreme Soviet: N. Shestakov; A. Efanov; V. Sheremetenko; G. Pologov; Iu. Svishchev; I. Mil’man; O. Zapol’skii; V. Kogut; Iu. Levitskii; V. Kharchenko; F. Dobrov; O. Orlov; V. Finagin; V. Diukarev; S. Pokotilo; A. Belitchenko; N. Chegurko; B. Akulov; V. Voevodin; N. Bogdanov; V. Arestov; V. Emelianov; A. Morozov; An. Bol’shakov; V. Volkova; A. Saidakov; S. Moroz; V. Ordin; V. Zagriadskii; A. Manoilov; V. Potashev; Al. Bol’shakov; V. Iakovlev; V. Charyev; V. Ryliakov; P. Zalozhkov; I. Smirnov; A. Donnik; S. Leont’ev; B. Bodnar; I. Tsynnik; V. Peretiatko; V. Kozhukhar’; S. Sokolov; G. Marakutsa; V. Khlystal; G. Evstratii; G. Podgorodetskii; V. Gonchar; M. Malai; Iu. Zatyka; A. Salamandik; V. Baboi; N. Ostapenko; V. Balyka; M. Kirichenko; A. Bulychev; V. Labunskii; V. Karamanutsa; A. Karaman; N. Mitish; V. Efimets; V. Zadir. (Viktor Emel’ianov, Za rodinu i prava cheloveka: desiat’ let bor’by pridnestrovtsev za svobodu pod znamenem OSTK, 1989-1999 gg. (Tiraspol’: Tipar, 1999), 10.
I reproduced this list only because we have an argument on this talk page, User:William Mauco pretended that ethnic Moldovans are well represented in the leadership of PMR (he gave refferences as John O'Loughin etc). While ethnicity is not mentioned, from the names we can have a hint. I guess Moldovans were: V. Iakovlev, V. Kozhuhar, G. Marakutsa, G. Evstratii, M. Malai, Iu. Zatyka, V. Baboi, V. Karamanutsa, A. Karaman, V. Efimets. 10 out of 63. 15.8% while the proportion of Moldovans in Transnistrian teritory (including Tighina) was 38%. Same trend of underrepresentation of ethnic Moldovans can be seen in actual PMR Soviet. Just for clarification - John O'Loughin and others are writing bullshits.-- MariusM 09:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted to my last version because:
Dpotop 12:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
When 'Dpotop' did his revert, he also overwrote some of my changes. [51] Probably unintentional. The things that he point out can be discussed with the person he reverted (Mauco). But in my case, I had made a change by removing a repetitive statement. It was about O.S.C.E. and that it had not recognized/monitored. It was said in two paragraphs, one right after the other. I spliced this into one. Please, I ask, When you revert someone, you should be careful to not overwrite the edits of other people that were done in the meantime. - Pernambuco 13:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Doptop may be interested to hear that the EU is very very carefully examining the result of the blockade and subsequent referendum and a policy change is happening. The blockade has failed and pushed TD closer to Russia. Its been a disaster. Nobody could have guessed this was going to happen but it has . now its change of plans time. It's time easier to examine alternatives. . Last week in Moscow the EU comissioner stated that the EU and Russia had to draw closer together on the issue. Everyone knew what she was getting at. Its either a 'deal' or its 'lets talk' For now lets get this done MarkStreet 25
On the main page under the policy of accuracy I request the following changes be made and invite opinion on the matters. Firstly, I believe that date of independence 2nd Sept 1990 should be inserted. Secondly, it should be clearly stated that the Transnistrian government is in full command and control of Transnistria. Thirdly, i request the incorrect POV that the country is under 'the effective authority of Russia' be removed. There is no basis of truth let alone evidence that this is the case. Clearly the TD government is completely independent from Russian authority and enact their own laws in their own parliment without interference. 25th Oct 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkStreet ( talk • contribs)
About Russia's involvement, yes, the section can be improved. First, we have this sentence:
The Russian authorities contributed both militarily and politically to the creation of a separatist government in Transnistria.
Militarily, this is debatable. You have heard the old saw that "winners write history", right? Well, in this case, there are no clear winners ... and as a result, there are two different versions of history. The Moldovan side overstates Russia's role. The Russian side tries to minimize it. ECHR was divided between a majority opinion and some fairly substantial minority arguments of a good segment of their judges. Jamason has started to work on some indepth research, and it has been covered by some German scholars in the recent past too. As regards our sentence, the word "contributed" is a bit imprecise but it wouldn't necessarily be inaccurate.
Next sentence:
The PMR remained under the effective authority, or at the very least under the decisive influence, of Russia, and in any event it survived by virtue of the military, economic, financial and political support that Russia gave it.
This is crapola. Even the author of the sentence knew the problem. "PMR is under Russian authority" .. erm.... "Well, maybe not, but at the very least under decisive Russian influence" ... wait, hold on, maybe not that either ... "well, at least at any event, then it survives because of Russian help..."
So what is it? If we are not sure, it shouldn't be included. If we are sure, then that should be included and it should be accurate. Russia has certainly given aid to PMR, but so has Ireland, and the United States' State Department, and several other countries within the last year alone. -
Mauco
23:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this is worth including in the article anywhere or not, but I for one have wondered about all the different spelling variations of Transnistria. I must have seen at least half a dozen. Would it be useful to list them all and their origins, or isn't that possible because they are often made up willy nilly? Does the spelling give any indication of the writer's origins? Is the spelling sometimes used to make a point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by jonathanpops ( talk • contribs)
We've had people indicate "I was there...," that the PMR is just fine, they're people just like us, etc., etc. I post this link to another [ "I was there"] experience. — Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Let us archive it, but keep summaries of the topics open where we still need discussion: Intro para, the Ilascu sentence, referendum summary, and so on. - Mauco 17:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
For the past year or more, I have been trying to track down the elusive report which "funded by" the British Department for International Development and claims that Transnistria is a "smuggling company masquerading as a state." It is not on the department's website and when I contacted them, they said that they have no knowledge of such a report. I have also done all sorts of web searches, and the only references we get are citations of earlier Wikipedia articles and of the BBC article. One paper included it, but it had obviously gotten the quote from the BBC story and not from the report, and in fact no one to date even knows the title of the report or who wrote it. The fact that BBC published it is not proof of anything. BBC has also published that one of the Smirnov sons own Sheriff, and we now know - thanks to Moldpres, no less - that this is not the case. I would appreciate if anyone could help me track down this report. It has been a quest of mine for a long time to find out if it exists. - Mauco 22:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I have exported to and from many countries and I can tell you that the Transnistrian border is just about the most protected and secure border in Europe, I challange anyone to try and smuggle anything across it.Don't believe the propaganda. MarkStreet Oct 12th
Sheriff is a company with many stockholders - how do you know that Smirnov's son is not between them?-- MariusM 09:18, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
In order to shorten the history section, I propose removing the following sentence:
"In May 2005, the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yushchenko proposed a seven-point plan for the settlement of the conflict between Transnistria and Moldova."
It will not disappear from Wikipedia because it is already present in
History of Transnistria and will stay there. However, in the summary (on the main Transnistria article) we should only include important key points and the Yushchenko plan has turned out to not be one of those. When it was put forward, everyone had great hopes, but now it just fiddled out and has been relegated to a not-very-important part of history. I am posting this proposal here, in case anyone has any objections to this edit, so we can get a chance to discuss it first. -
Mauco
23:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I am opposed to the use of the word 'Conflict'. The conflict ended 16 years ago. I suggest using the word 'inter-relations. MarkStreet Oct 12th 2006
The flag shown at the Transnistria page is not the current one, just have a look at Transnistria's homepage: http://www.president-pmr.org/english/index_e.htm
The flag used is indeed correct. Some people inTD drop the hammer and sickle for different reasons, including the fact it can be difficult to incorporate into homemade flags. MarkStreet
This part needs an update from someone. I looked at the main article Ukraine-Transnistria border customs conflict and it has no news since March. It is now October. I can not update it: I do not know enough about this subject. I have started to do research but it is complex. (+don't speak Russian). I am trying to learn so I can edit here in the future. But not yet ready now. Can someone else update this part? - Pernambuco 13:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
That is POV. A Moldovan policeman was caught having drugs. Claiming that the whole institution of Moldovan Police is involved is a bit presumptuous, isn't it? bogdan 22:18, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco, I was just looking over some figures:
How the hell can one country build a stadium which costs more than half of the GDP and more than double the state budget? Economically, it is impossible, unless:
Do you have any logical explanation related to these figures for economy of Transnistria? bogdan 22:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi guys, there is way in this world that stadium cost €250 million. A 90,000 seater stadium was built in the British Isles for that money and salaries and coststhere are many times higher, also they probably borrowed the money. MarkStreet Oct 12
Wikipedia is not supposed to write the truth. We're just writing just major opinions on what the truth might be. That's the policy. If there were a consensus on what the truth is, then we might write it as if it were the truth. When the BBC, Washington Post and the like are saying something on an issue, you can't just discard because "western press are biased", "they know nothing on this", the POV they present is a notable POV and should be mentioned. bogdan 08:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the dispute was settled: we don't now exactly who owns Sheriff. I never asked for an inclusion of a statement that Sheriff is owned by Smirnov in any Wikipedia article, I just wanted to remind you that, as we don't know the truth, we can not label BBC's article as "plain journalistic error" or "journalistic screwup", as you did.-- MariusM 00:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Two days ago, British journalist Shaun Walker just published a report where he points out the danger of relying on sensationalist media reports as the main source of Transnistria info. See
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/10/05/009.html and note that Shaun Walker has actually visited Transnistria (which is more than can be said for 95%+ of the editors of Wikipedia Transnistria-related articles). He wrote:
With my information about the places filtered through the occasional sensationalist Western media report, I turned up in both cases excitedly expecting to find the final frontier; a gangster-ridden epicenter of weapons and human smuggling; a dark and wild version of the Soviet Union. Instead, what I got in both wannabe capitals was a sleepy provincial town, with tree-lined streets and ordinary people going about their business trying to make ends meet.
His onsite research match other recent reports from organizations who have taken the trouble to go there and spend time on doing the needed research, including the British government funded Saferworld in their newly published United Nations study on weapons. -
Mauco
13:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't remember when I was "all over" User:Jonathanpops, what I did so bad to this poor guy? 100% sure I didn't accuse him to be a sockpuppet. Mauco, is so difficult for you to avoid telling fake things about me? The only Request for checkuser I did was in MarkStreet - Henco - Gallenweekend case, however I may ask other requests in the future.-- MariusM 21:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I submited a request for checkuser and have the confirmation [3] that Henco, an user who voted for external links in our article [4] is a sockpuppet of MarkStreet, editor of Tiraspol Times (his vote was meantime removed). It seems that MarkStreet learned in Transnistria how to falsify a vote, Transnistrian referendum was a good lesson for him.
I suspected also Gallenweekend to be a sockpuppet, as he registered at Wikipedia in 7 october and the only thing he did was to vote for "Tiraspol Times" [5], no other contribution at Wikipedia. This suspicion was not confirmed, however I still have doubts, as MarkStreet was aware as of 6 October about the fact that he is suspected of sockpuppetry [6] [7] and could take measures to hide his sockpuppetry.
Not surprisingly, User:William Mauco was against investigation about possible sockpuppetry of MarkStreet, trying to accuse the scape goat Bonaparte for such behaviour [8]
"Tiraspol Times" received a narrow vote for inclusion in out article, but I doubt about its merit, as is obvious that his editor is not an onest person. After a request to confirm that he is indeed editor of "Tiraspol Times", MarkStret put a link to his page on Wikipedia at "Tiraspol Times" webpage [9] -- MariusM 23:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't apologize to you, Mauco, but I expect you to apologize from me, as you wrote that I lied. I told that you were trying to accuse Bonaparte as being Henco and I gave the refference [10]. Quote: "In case of User:Henco he may be Bonni or he may be MarkStreet". Bonni is Bonaparte. And telling that "it doesn't matter" is a way to be against investigation of this sockpuppetry case. I don't know about any sockpuppet on "my" side, if you have such suspicions why you didn't ask a RCU?-- MariusM 21:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
For Bogdan and others, a source of numbers can be found here: http://www.cbpmr.net/?id=10&lang=ru (for instance No.6-7, 2006). Detailed. Personally, I would not rely on the Finance Ministry numbers, but the ones from the Republican Bank look OK. Also keep an eye on the press service of the Supreme Soviet. So far, they are off to a good start, at http://www.vspmr.org - Mauco 03:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at the main page article on smuggling. What evidence is there that woman are being smuggled. This is a Moldovan problem rather than a TD problem.
Feedback please MarkStreet Oct 12th
I hope more vandals will follow this shining example and will mark their edits as such. :D
Still, I wonder if the page should be semiprotected again? -- Illythr 20:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Bogdan, was that really you? -- Illythr 20:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I blocked Bonaparte and his little friend and sprotected the page. bogdan 21:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Blurb sock is Khoikhoi ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)....
I understand that Tyras is the first recorded settlement in the area. Where does the information on prior inhabitants come from? -- Illythr 19:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
At Kievan Rus article we have a map of this country [14], from where is not clear if Transnistria was part of it (maybe the northern area). Which historical refferences we have about the exact borders of Kievan Rus? Also, where Romanians part of the population of this country? Is possible, as at that time Romanian was not a written language, Slavonic was the language used in writing by all Romanians, the differences between Romanians and Slavs were not considered important as those people were both orthodox (and religion, not language was important in Middle Age). I heard about an Ukrainian hatman with a Romanian name: Dănilă Apostol.-- MariusM 20:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
If we look at the map revealed by User:PANONIAN not only Transnistria but also the entire Moldova belonged to Kievan Rus. The problem is like User:bogdangiusca told: there are plenty of modern-day nationalist claims but few original documents. Crimean Khanate should be mentioned: Dabija's book also mention the Tatars and Edisan article -- MariusM 14:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I also think that MaGioZal was rather too quick to remove the reference only half an hour after you inserted the tags. Aren't we to wait a while, until someone knowledgeable has a chance to react?
Way too fast:
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. --
Illythr
20:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree, a Lithuanian Army was enough. From Crimean khanate map we can see that Transnistria was a disputed teritory even at that time (and no Lithuania around, only Poland). I believe is a general agreement to keep the fact tag now and to look for more informations. Or maybe we should vote at what country to asign Transnistria (Lithuania, Poland, Crimean Khanate, Kievan Rus)? :-) I read that in the time of Moldavian king Duca Vodă this area belonged also to Moldavia, I will check my sources.-- MariusM 21:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
MaGioZal probably meant this map: [16] -- Illythr 22:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
That map ( [17]) it shows Bessarabia separate color from Podolia and Kherson. The river Nistru in as the border. The earliest I could find: Scythia. Shows the Sarmathia/Dacia border on the Nistru river. [18]. The one for the fact tag in fifteen century is (Part of Grand Duchy of Lithuania on 15th century) is this [19] - Pernambuco 02:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
"Trans-Dniester," or "Trans-Dnjester," or "Transdniestria" would be more appropriate than using "Transniestria." The historical territory of Transniestria is all the territory between the Dniester and the Bug, not just the Dniester's left bank. Furthermore, the PMR's north-eastern boundary matches closely to the historical ethnic boundary of the Romanians, that is: Transylvania, Walachia, Moldavia, and in particular, Bessarabia on the right bank of the Dniester and then extending beyond Bessarabia on to the left bank of the Dniester to essentially the same boundary as the PMR. Reference is "Historical Atlas of East Central Europe," by Magocsi. Regarding Kievan Rus, it did extend to the Dniester and beyond (1000's), that being Galicia-Volhynia, however that was far inland, not where the PMR is: if you divided the territory between the Black and Baltic Seas into thirds, Galicia would have been the "middle" third. Galician (Kievan Rus) influence extended to the Black Sea only for a relatively short period from 1160 to 1240, mainly south of the Dniester to the Siret. (The "swath" along the Black Sea was Pechenegs, later the Golden Horde.) By 1480, that territory was part of Lithuania, with the Ottoman empire displacing Lithuania along the Black Sea coast a century later. — Pēters J. Vecrumba 23:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
No one is disputing that Transnistria had Romanian settlements at various times throughout history. This is an inevitable feature of being a borderland. Who was there first? Does it even matter? Well, it matters to some Romanians (like perma-banned Bonaparte and often-banned User:Greier) who want to make Romania appear larger than it ever was, and want to show that half of the world was Dacia. But to put some balance into the overall interpretation of history, I would - once again - like to call attention to the following historic notes, written from a Romanian point of view and generally accepted by all mainstream Romanian historians:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
All quotes are from NICHOLAS DIMA 1991: East European Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, and can be seen online at http://ivantoc.org/moldova.htm This is a Romanian source. Other historians and sources (which I can also quote) are even more clear on the matter, and emphasize that the role of the Romanians in Transnistria has always been relatively limited and always as a minority compared to other groups. - Mauco 17:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
In response to the above by Mauco: I have scrupulously re-read Magocsi's maps and all pertinent text. The Kievan Rus province of Galicia extended west to Hungary but did not extend any further downriver, speaking of the Dniester, than the furthest upriver border of present-day Moldova. With respect to your quotes:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
There's nothing worse than making a case by spewing a mountain of seemingly incontrovertible facts driving them home with bolded sledgehammers and having it all totally wrong. I suppose that now you realize what you're quoting not only totally invalidates your position but proves that of the "opposition," you'll dismiss Romanian historians as "biased." You have just proven that Kievan Rus never controlled Transnistria/PMR; that Romanians have been the primary inhabitants of left bank of the Dniester and eastward, i.e., the territory of the current PMR and beyond, since at least the 1400's; and that Russian influence only arrived with the partition of Poland and did not affect the ethnic demographics of the Romanian population on the Dniester's left bank and beyond. So-called "historical Russian claims to the territory of the PMR" completely (and thank you for your emphasis) disproven.
Oops! Feeling the need to quote some other sources? — Pēters J. Vecrumba 02:12, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's make sure that the interpretations of words match the realities of maps. Confusing the territory of the ruler Besaraba with the later territory of Bessarabia is quite understandable if you don't have a map showing Besaraba ruled Walachia (some place completely different) in 1308. I sectioned this off so it can be edited/commented without needing to sift through endless screens of text. I invite Mauco (or anyone else, obviously!) to post another source for discussion. (One source at a time, please!) — Pēters J. Vecrumba 13:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
We should congratulate wikipedian User:William Mauco (William Maurice) who just wrote an article for "Tiraspol Times" [20] (see end of article). His wikibreak was fruitfull. I allways believed that "Tiraspol Times" is the right place for Mauco's opinions.-- MariusM 14:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Now, I suggest we cease with this flooding, as it is quite irrelevant to THIS article. -- Illythr 21:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
What is a Bolohovenian? Did they exist? Never heard of them. Neither has Google [22] or Yahoo [23] The article said that they inhabited this land. - Pernambuco 22:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
No.-- MariusM 06:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems that Transnistria was indeed nominally part of Lithuania and later Poland, but nobody actually enforced the rule over the region, presumably because it was underpopulated and not valuable enough to worth it. bogdan 22:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I would like to voice my objection to Transnistria being refered to as a 'region'. Wikipedia has its own definition of what it determines a region's status as a country to be..
A country ought to have all or most of the following;
1 Its own government 2 Its own administration 3 Its own consitution 4 Its own Police force 5 Its own Military 6 Its own tax 7 its own laws,
obvious additions I could include would be
8 its own unique curremcy ( bank notes and coins)) and central bank 9 Its oen state symbols / flag etc. 10 customs posts 11 patroled borders 12 own airforce. 13. Prime minister/President/ Ministers. Parliment buildings.
Transnistria has every single one of the above. Therefore it MUST be termed a country.
I accept there is a dispute and Moldova claims this territory , this however does not take away from the de-facto independence that exists.
It is also wrong to say she is not internationally recognised. There is not a single country in the world that has full interrnational recognition. Whether you have mass recognition or not does not determine whether you exist as a country. As it happens there are several countries that recognise Transnistria and Russia is included.
I suggest that the wording in describing Transnistria be changed to state it is an independent country yet to be recognised by the vast majority of western countries and whose territory is claimed by neighbouring country of Moldova . This the most apt description. To merely discribe it as a region is innacurate and political. Lets try to be scientific about this and call it exactly what it is.
MarkStreet Mark Street . Editor Tiraspol Times News, Transnistria, October 20th 2006
The point is this, For example, imagine the entire world broke diplomatic relations with the old South Africa ( whuch nearly happened) and a ecomonic and diplomatic blockade took place. Would this mean South Africa could no longer be refered to as a country?. Clearly it would remain as one. albeit unrecognised diplomatically internationally. So in effect TD is the same it is a country unrecognised diplomatically by everyone bar a few 'countries in a similar situation. Notwithstanding that it is a country and noboby can dispute that. Therefore Wikipedia should refrain from calling it what it is not. Its not proper for Mauco to push this vital point off on a 'technicality'.It is the very essence of the entire TD page. It is vital to get 'hung up' on this, as this point is of the most paramount importance to this entire page, This is not a huge task. It just needs to be changed in the main introduction paragraphs on the main article page to begin with. I suggest it never be refered to as a region as this is confusing . Remember South Africa in diplomatic blockade and non recognition would NOT be a region but STILL a country. It is highly offensive to the 97% of TD pro-independence votes to be refered to as a regiion. Call it was it is , a country as of yet unrecognised. It is time to be precise and work under the very guidelines Wikipedia uses itself and not political agendas and wishes. MarkStreet Mark Street Oct 20 2006
This link obtained a narrow "for" vote when we voted for external links, but the vote was poisoned through proved sockpuppetry. There were plenty of proofs in this talk page (moved in archive) that this is not a real newspaper, only a propaganda tool of Tiraspol regime, it was not proved that this newspaper is available in the streets of Tiraspol, has no address, is pretending "100% truth and accuracy", claim that "Tiraspol Times reports straight from Tiraspol: Not from Chisinau, Moscow, Brussels, Kiev, Washington or Cairo. So you get the news about Tiraspol fresh, first-hand and unfiltered" [26] but it is a lie, as MarkStreet recognized "We don't publicise our address and phone numbers becaise we operate online and to be frank we simply are not there a lot of the time" [27]. I see that his editor, MarkStreet, is not busy with his newspaper but with Wikipedia. Wikipedia should not be the place for self-promotion and plain falacities, the credibility of this resource will suffer if we allow this.-- MariusM 18:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
On the "other side" you didn't show any fraudulent vote, you just make misleading comments.-- MariusM 21:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Are we on the verge of a new and pointless edit war? If so, how about some civility and self-control, guys?
We are dealing with a self-confessed edit warrior, User:EvilAlex, who says that it is "fun" to edit war, and that it would be "boring without those small wars". [31] He has a history of being rude and using misleading edit comments. Today, he has wholesale reverted twice [32], [33] for some fairly simple edits which I made: 1. Removal of a contested statement until a second source is found, due to another editor not considering the single source reliable in itself. 2. Phrasing on "region/country", discussed here and solved. 3. Tiraspol Times link, which passed the vote like several other links who are there too, and which are not removed (despite my concerns in general about the vote).
We are also dealing with User:Greier who has an extensive history of being blocked for disruptive behavior on nationalist Romanian topics. [34] and who likes to add large chunks of contested statements to controversial articles without raising the issues first with any other editors on the Talk pages. He did this again today. [35] Both of them have shown troll-like behavior in the past, so I am reluctant to engage them and would hope that someone else has the patience to do so.... - Mauco 16:05, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco stop this nonsens, link should be removed for breaking rules of fare vote! I knew exactly what in Archive 6 – i participated in creation of it. What exactly you wont me to see there? And You shold be banned for breaking the rules of 3RR :( EvilAlex 18:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Well known Russian disident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his book "Rossiia v obvale" (I used the Romanian translation, Humanitas, Bucharest 2000), in the part "The slav tragedia" is writing against Ukrainian nationalist pretentions: "Ukraine obtained teritories which never belonged to it before Lenin: 2 regions on Don, the entire Sudic Novorosia (Melitopol - Herson - Odesa) and Krimeea". The opinion of Soljeniţîn is that Ukraine has no right to those lands (including Odesa - that show that Transnistria is one of non-Ukrainian land considered by Soljeniţîn). He has a valid point of view, as Transnistria and other teritories were conquered with Russian blood through Russian-Turkish/Tatar wars, without being previously inhabited by Slavs. No mention in Soljeniţîn that Transnistria was inhabited by Ukrainians before Russian-Turkish wars. Slav colonization started in those region after Russian conquer (1792 for Transnistria). It was mainly an Ukrainian colonization (we know from historical demographic data that Russians came here mainly in Soviet times and established themselves in cities; countriside was and still is Ukrainian/Moldovan; everywhere in the world people from cities are more likely newcomers in a region). In Soljeniţîn's reckoning, as the right to colonize this region was granted to ukrainians by Russia, is not fair that those regions are now part of Ukraine. "When Hmelniţki united Ukraine to Russia, Ukraine was a fifth of today Ukraine", Soljeniţîn wrote.-- MariusM 16:48, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
To put some balance into the overall interpretation of history, I would like to call attention to the following historic notes, written from a Romanian point of view and generally accepted by all mainstream Romanian historians:
1. "The eastern boundary of Moldavia as well as the extent of the Romanian mass settlements remained, however, along the Dnestr river."
2. "During the fourteenth century, Prince Bogdan and his successors established their sovereignty over most of the land between the Carpathian mountains and the Dnestr river already populated by Romanians."
3. "Then, Prince Alexandre the Good (1400- 1432) drove the Tatars (remnants of the last great Asian invasion into Europe) beyond the Dnestr and established his boundary along the river. At the beginning, however, in the course of repopulating the new lands and extending state authority, the region between the Prut and Dnestr rivers adjacent to the Danube and the Black Sea, belonged to the Wallachian dynasty Basarab, after whom the entire province was later named."
4. "As a matter of fact, the northern and eastern boundaries of the Principality were fixed by the Prince of Moldavia and the King of Poland as early as 1433. The boundary followed the Ceremus river in the north and the Dnestr in the east, unquestionably including within Moldavia what later came to be known as Bukovina and Bessarabia. Soon after, the Moldavian princes began to fortify the Dnestr against the Tatars and built several fortresses which stand to this day. No fortress was ever built along the Prut River which flowed through the middle of the country."
5. "advancing from the west beyond Dnestr, the Romanian natural expansion encountered the Slavic colonization and the two cultures collided."
6. "1792: For the first time in history, Russia established its boundary along the Dnestr in the immediate vicinity of Moldavia. At that time, Moldavia had been in existence for almost five hundred years and her eastern boundary had been the Dnestr for all this time."
All quotes are from NICHOLAS DIMA 1991: East European Monographs, Boulder, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York, and can be seen online at http://ivantoc.org/moldova.htm In light of the above, and all the other data from other historians that suppport this, I don't see how we can claim (at least not with a straight face) that there was ever any serious "Moldovan rule in Transnistria" in the time periods mentioned. - Mauco 03:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
I propose the inclusion of a link to Tiraspol Times [38] in the external links section, specificially in the part labelled "Transnistrian side" in order to show its POV.
Tiraspol Times is worthy of inclusion because it is the only news source with a Transnistrian viewpoint which appears in English. We are currently including several links to Moldovan news sources in the same article, under "Moldovan side". For balance, it is fair to have at least one similar link on the Transnistrian side.
Since the article deals with Transnistria (and not Moldova, per se) the link is more relevant than the Moldovan news sources. However, I am not proposing that they be deleted. This suggestion merely deals with the relevancy and usefulness of inclusion of http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/
I may add that in the course of research, I have often found a bits of information which was reported elsewhere in Russian, in several places, but which was never reported anywhere in English except for Tiraspol Times. As such, it fills a unique niche and is a "must" in an English language article dealing with Transnistria. - Mauco 17:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. Imagin that we all agreed and added link to “Tiraspol Times”, then few month later an article appears with a headings:
'Since independence in 1990, Transnistria has a free market economy, 200% growth, and a multi-party democracy with the opposition in control of parliament.
And then one of the wikipedians, hrrrr lets say
User:William_Mauco decidet to rewrite Transnistrian article based on article in “Tiraspol Times”,yes he will give you all of the references to “Tiraspol Times” Did you get the picture? Where is the line between just placing a link and referencing to it? How reliable is “Tiraspol Times” to be in Wikipedia? Answers are here:
[39]
Reputation -0. Do we need a site like that here?
EvilAlex
12:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to all for your input. I think we have settled it now. Mauco, Jonathanpops, Pernambuco, Ronline, MarkStreet in favor (but don't count MarkStreet, due to conflict of interest.) Illythr, no clear opinion expressed. EvilAlex against. - Mauco 03:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
We can NOT use the EU list as reference. It is full of errors and is NOT a reliable source. There are only 17 names on the list, so any inferences to the "leadership" must take into account that the list is not representative.
Some of the job titles and names are wrong, with some not in leadership positions. Only 10 of them can be considered leadership. Of those ten, there is wrong information on 40% of them, such as wrong birth places and birth dates, among other things. Overall, if we include all 17 names, there is wrong information on the list in the case of 10 out of 17, or an error rate of 59%.
To make matters even worse, there is NO consistent standard for why a name was included in the list. Parliament has 43 deputies, but only some of them were included. Why? There are also more than a dozen ministries, but only a handful of ministers were included. Why? In contrast, the list includes some names which are out of office, and even one who no longer lives in Transnistria. Why?
It is sloppy list and useless as a source or reference to prove anything. If we had to do a serious, professional list, we could include people such as -
There are errors in 10 out of 17 cases, and that is putting it mildly. The errors are gross. In some cases (and Shevchuk is not the only one of these), they are compound errors. All in all, to anyone who seriously knows anything about this subject, the whole list is laughable.
1. SMIRNOV, Igor. Born in Russia.
2. SMIRNOV, Vladimir. His son. Not a political leader. Born in Ukraine.
3. SMIRNOV, Oleg. Another son. Head of a bank. Not a political leader. NOT "Adviser to the State Customs Committee", as the list claims. Born in Ukraine.
4. LEONTIYEV, Serghey Fedorovich. Born in Ukraine.
5. MARAKUTSA, Grigory. Born in Transnistria.
6. KAMINSKY, Anatoly. Ukrainian, born in Russia. Moved to Transnistria when he was 7 years old. NOT "Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet", as the list claims.
7. SHEVCHUK, Yevgeny. Born in Transnistria (in 1968). NOT born in 1946. NOT born in Russia, as the list claims.
8. LITSKAI, Valery. Born in Russia.
9. KHAZHEYEV, Stanislav. NOT his correct name, as the list claims. (It is Hazheev). Born in Russia.
10. ANTYUFEYEV, Vladimir. Born in Russia.
11. KOROLYOV, Alexandr. Born in Poland. NOT born in Russia, as the list claims (and his name is Korolev)
12. BALALA, Viktor. NOT part of the leadership, as the list claims. Was fired last year (for corruption), and left Transnistria. Not a political leader.
13. AKULOV, Boris. NOT the "Representative of Transnistria in Ukraine", as the list claims. (That post is held by Vladimir Bodnar, born in Transnistria). Not a political leader either.
14. ZAKHAROV, Viktor. Born in Transnistria. However, the list is wrong. He is NOT the "Prosecutor of Transnistria", as the list claims. That job is held now by Anatoliy Guretskiy (also born in Transnistria). Not a political leader.
15. LIPOVTSEV, Alexey. Born in Tighina (Transnistria). However, NOT "Deputy Chairman of State Customs Service", as the list claims. Not a political leader.
16. GUDYMO, Oleg. Born in Kazakhstan.
17. KOSOVSKY, Eduard. Not a political leader. Born in Moldova.
For any kind of research, it is useless. The definition of political leadership should not be what the EU says (and especially not the sloppy way they picked these names), but should be objective criteria: The cabinet (president and government ministers), the mayors, and the members of parliament. If you do that, you will see that the majority are NOT newcomers to Transnistria and the majority are native-born Transnistrians. That holds true even if you want to exclude those who arrived as babies, when they were just a few months old or two years old. Hardly newcomers, but if you want to make a point, then go ahead and twist it. It still won't stand. -
Mauco
20:57, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
In contradiction to your clime that they are ” Not a political leader”
Also according to EU list
Vladimir SMIRNOV - Chairman of the State Customs Committee
Oleg SMIRNOV - Adviser to the State Customs Committee
I think that EU knew better who is in charge of the country.
Also there is not a single reference to back you clime.
Credibility of EU is much bigger than credibility of Mauco.
EvilAlex
22:20, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The majority of the members of parliament are from Transnistria. is what Mauco wrote. This is plain fallacy. From official site with biographies of PMR deputies we can find (I copied first part of their biography, is in Russian - cyrillic, I added with Latin script the country where they were born)-- MariusM 00:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Only 16 out of 43 members of Transnistrian parliament were born in Transnistria. In 2 cases the place of birth is not clearly mentioned, in one of this cases is mentioned that he went to school in Transnistria. I may made some mistakes with my poor understanding of Russian, please Russian speakers correct me if I'm wrong and let's do a statistic of those 43 members of parliament, based on the country they were born.-- MariusM 00:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Oleg Smirnov (president son) is not a political leader. Other falacy. He is member of the parliament.-- MariusM 00:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Just for the record (since I know that MariusM has some shortcomings when it comes to Russian), the following MPs are born in Transnistria:
CHEBAN Sergey, CHERVONOOKIY Valerie, SHEVCHUK Yevgeny, TYURYAEVA Ilona, TULGARA Valerianus NOT TRUE, TRESKOVA Klavdiy, POTOLYA Anatoliy, SPORISH Yuri, TOBUKH Vyacheslav, KUZMENKO Yuri PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (Rybnitsa, Transnistria), LEONTYEV Oleg PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (Grigoriopol, Transnistria), MARAKUTSA Grigoriy, MORARU Vasiliy, PASAT Peter, BODNAR Vladimir NOT TRUE (well - - actually, to be specific: года в поселке Старая Ушица, Каменец-Подольского района, Хмельницкой области.Гражданин Приднестровской Молдавской Республики и Украины), VASILYEV Ilya, GERVAZYUK Yuri PLACE OF BIRTH NOT MENTIONED (just Google him, he is the head of one of the top 10 largest companies and very well known), DIRUN Anatoliy, EVSTRAT Grigoriy, KOVAL Efimiy NOT TRUE(Родился в с. Василиуцы, Рышканского района)
These are also certainly NOT newcomers -
ONUFRIYENKO Anton Nikolayevich: Born in Sverdlovsk, came to Transnistria when he was not even a year old.
CRESTS Aleksey valentinovich: Born in Leipzig, came to Transnistria when he was 2 years old.
KAMINSKY, Anatoly: Born in Ukraine, came to Transnistria when he was just 7 years old.
BEYS Oleg Markovich: Born in Odessa, came to Transnistria as a teenager.
BABENKO Sergey Ivanovich: Born in Saratov, came to Transnistria as a teenager.
GUZUN Victor Mikhaylovich: Born in Dnestrovske, came to Transnistria as a teenager
All of these were minors. This is hardly a "Russian-installed dictatorship" or the case of a leadership which is stage managed from the outside. They have lived in Transnistria most of their lives, for God's sake.
We can also argue a borderline case -
DYACHENKO Grigoriy Ivanovich: Born in Odessa, came to Transnistria when he was 25 years old.
Whether or not he should be included, that gives you a total of either 27 or 28 locals, which is a majority (out of 43). I certainly fail to see what the problem is, but I wouldn't be surprised to see you or your Evil friend start to split hairs now... -
Mauco
01:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
With the exception of Smirnov, we can not ignore that much of the Transnistrian leadership has been composed of Transnistrians (not newcomers) right from the start. I quote from a couple of well-esteemed Western sources -
1. Stefan Troebst: "We Are Transnistrians! Post-Soviet Identity Management in the Dniester Valley": "Ethnic Moldovans from the left bank figure prominently among today’s TMR leadership, such as the former chairman of the Union of Moldovans of Transnistria Vasilii N. Jakovlev; the speaker of the TMR Supreme Soviet, Grigorii S. Maracuta; or TMR Vice-President, Aleksandr A. Karaman."
2. John O’Loughlin: "National Construction, Territorial Separatism and Post-Soviet Geopolitics": "The president, Smirnov, is Russian; the president of the Supreme Soviet, Marakutsa, vice-president Karaman, and the president of the Defense Council, General Kitsak are Moldovans, as are the majority of the other leaders of the TMR and the personnel of the armed forces"
What was that? Oh, just that little word "majority". - Mauco 00:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
We have the official list of the 43 members of Transnistrian parlament. I don't have time to check what those scholars wrote, anyhow the list is more relevant.-- MariusM 02:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Mauco and MarkStreet, you are trolling here. Indeed. From the official biographies it is obvious that most of the Transnistrian leadership comes from elsewhere. Dpotop 10:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Not so, we can only deal with facts and the fact is it did not exist when they were born. It a silly issue for us to be even debating MarkStreet Oct 23rd
The opening lines on the main page state Transnistria is a region of Moldova'.
This is incorrect and needs to be changed as soon as possible with agreement of all.
As a nuetral foreign reporter with expertise in this area I suggest the following .
Transnistria is an internationally unrecognised independent state created in 1990 before the formation of Moldova, however its sovereignty is disputed by the Republic of Moldova and currently peacekeeping forces line the border that divides the Transnistria and Moldova'.
This should be inserted and locked.
Also it is not a 'separist' government . They are seperate not serparist. They never serparated from anyone given their country existed before Moldova existed. This word should be changed.
Lets see how nuetral Mauco is now ?
MarkStreet oct 23 2006
The paragrapgh on the main page regarding Weapons Trade MUST now be removed completely. The EUropean Unions border monitors have today confirmed at an international press conference in Odessa that they have spent one year monitoring the border of Transnistria snd have not found a single occurence of weapons smuggling. The allegations have be firmly investigated and found to be false.
The United Nations observers have added their voice to this and even the Moldovan supporting OSCE always never really fully accepted the claims.
Also the Russian Generals have conformed they have not lost a single bullet from there arms stores there.
The rumours have been proven to be untrue.
Delete now please.
MarkStreet Oct 23 2006
I wish to point out that there appears to be not a single pro-transdniestrian advocate on these pages and the TD viewpoint is barely represented. . If there is such a person will they please identify themselves.
I am not , cannot, nor wish to be their advocate, as a westerner nor would they want me to be.
I can say this The main page is completely biased against the TDians.
Also there is hardly any control over the main page and edits. Its an anti TD site laced with propaganda, All the parts about smuggling, Terrorism, Crime. Sheer nonsense!. Mauco has admited it and EU reports UN reports all ignored/
To be frank I'm considering withdrawing from these pages unless there is some progress and real balance.
If the real editors of Wikipedia ever consider establishing a proper page I am happy to try and present TD in a balanced and scientific manner and we can use journalists from other conflict zones accross the globe to assist. Meanwhile the page is really a Moldovan propaganda front. Its a pity because it does little to help illuminate the interesting territory/country that is Transnistria.
MarkStreet Oct 23rd
Thanks MarkStreet for your clear picture of Transnistrian democracy. There is a pro-separatist side, and there is a "pro-moldovan" side with people like Mauco, which are free to express their opinions. See your talk page, Mauco asked you to write an article [41], write it and then he will asked to include this refference in Wikipedia. So is the world moving: Tiraspol Ties publish articles from Wikipedia source and Wikipedia publish article sourced from Tiraspol Times. Keep up the good job!-- MariusM 13:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Based on data official data from separatist site, this is the statistic:
As natives, will qualify those born in Transnistria and those born in the part of Basarabia which is controlled by separatist government of Transnistria (Bender - Tighina, Chiţcani). That mean 12 + 3 = 15. 15 out of 43. Even if we add the 3 with birth place not mentioned, we have 18, which is a minority. The majority of transnistrian separatist leaders are not natives in the area. This is a fact. MarkStreet claim that is not important. Maybe he is right, but then why such opposition to include in the article the 100% "truth and accurate" (I'm quoting Tiraspol Times) fact?-- MariusM 12:53, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
It is now clear that there is not a single person represnting TD sentiment editing these pages. The best offer by Marius was Evilalex,
Mauco is not in the least bit acceptable.
My interests is clearly pro-democracy and scientific fact.
I am going to suggest some proper changes to the main page and I am asking for all perspectives to support these and I will take into account everyones positions.
Firstly, do I have agreement that TD is ' an unrecognised country whose sovereignty is under dispute'. Lets change that.
Also to remove that it is part of Moldova because technically it is not even though there is a Moldovan aspriration for this to happen by reintegration
MarkStreet Oct 23rd 2006
Secondly, I concede the reintegration point as its not a fact and we must base it around fact. Evil alex is a self confessed edit warrior and if he continues we have options to deal with that then, for now he has his view and as long as he behaves he should be encouraged to debate the facts before us. Mauco you claim to be nuetral, sometimes you are and I accept that, but the main page is badly warped. If you want I can get a panel of journalists for the European Parliment media room to offer a suggested approach of wording and get it endorsed by the independent conflict experts. This is not the ideal approach but it's just about the only way I can see forward.
MarkStreet oct 23
This one: The Montevideo Convention sets out four criteria for statehood: "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." On this measure, Transnistria is already a country, but of course an unrecognized one. Does lack of recognition invalidate the statehood qualification? International law says no, since article 3 explicitly states that "The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states."
Transnistria is listed on List of countries, and, get this, on the List of sovereign states.
However, in the interest of neutrality, we can agree to not call it a "country" but merely an "unrecognized country". Transnistria is also listed on List of unrecognized countries.
Will anyone here, except for the edit warrior (who says that he loves to get his war on), please explain how in any way, shape or form it would be factually incorrect to call Transnistria an unrecognized country? Comments, please. - Mauco 18:37, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
The EU list the same EU list here is completely unreliable, and must not be used here if we are to follow WP:RS.
First of all, it includes people who are not part of the political leadership: Vladimir Smirnov, Viktor Balala, Boris Akulov, Viktor Zakharov, Alexey Lipovtsev, Eduard Kosovsky.
Secondly, it is full of other errors as well. Some of the worst errors are - 1. Oleg Smirnov is head of Gazprombank. He is NOT an "Adviser to the State Customs Committee". 2. Anatoly Kamninsky is NOT "Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Soviet". 3. Yevgeny Shevchuk was born in Transnistria in 1968. He was not born in 1946 in Russia, as the list claims. 4. Alexandr Korolev was born in Poland, not in Russia, as the list claims. 5. Viktor Balala is not in power. Was fired last year, and left Transnistria. 6. Boris Akulov is not the "Representative of Transnistria in Ukraine". 7. Viktor Zakharov is not "Prosecutor of Transnistria". 8. Alexey Lipovtsev is not "Deputy Chairman of State Customs Service".
In a list of 17 people, that is 14 errors. Please find a secondary source if you want to keep referring to this list as proof of anything. - Mauco 18:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Any reference to back your statement, or... should I believe you again? Re: Vladimir Smirnov is the president of the customs, having the rank of a minister. [43] 1 proven error in your listed errors, how can I believe that you didn’t make other errors to prove your position? Re: Wrong birth places; many of them hold 2 or 3 passports if not more. How do you know which passport was submitted for EU entry visa? And how do you know which birth place was written in each? Ref? EvilAlex 18:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
OK!Look many in TD have 2 or more Passports :
1. Transnistrian
2. And any other such as Russian, Moldavian, Ukrainian or others, usually for travelling abroad.
Example of confused data:
How can EU source be wrong if EU source references for example to the data from Russian Passport and TD governmental website references to the data from Transnistrian passport?
Is it possible? Yes!
Why? Because TD passport is unrecognized around the word and that is why the government officials uses second passport for abroad travelling.
EvilAlex
20:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
In a nutshell: Mauco says that official EU data is unreliable because some "official" Prednistrovian web site gives different data. I'm sorry, but I profoundly distrust all Prednistrovian data, be it official or not. It's coming from some very devious leaders whose recent "free elections" are recognized by nobody. Moreover, this regime has set up an intoxication campaign that almost had us all here. I changed it in text, and I'm going to revert it until Mauco brings some credible sources.
I also presume the vast majority of Wikipedia editors and admins will accept this position: Pridnestrovian data is not trustworthy. Moreover, EU data generally is, so that if you want to contest it, you should come with better sources. Dpotop 06:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
From User:Jamason, a person who was recomended by Mauco, I received the complete list of the members of first PMR Supreme Soviet: N. Shestakov; A. Efanov; V. Sheremetenko; G. Pologov; Iu. Svishchev; I. Mil’man; O. Zapol’skii; V. Kogut; Iu. Levitskii; V. Kharchenko; F. Dobrov; O. Orlov; V. Finagin; V. Diukarev; S. Pokotilo; A. Belitchenko; N. Chegurko; B. Akulov; V. Voevodin; N. Bogdanov; V. Arestov; V. Emelianov; A. Morozov; An. Bol’shakov; V. Volkova; A. Saidakov; S. Moroz; V. Ordin; V. Zagriadskii; A. Manoilov; V. Potashev; Al. Bol’shakov; V. Iakovlev; V. Charyev; V. Ryliakov; P. Zalozhkov; I. Smirnov; A. Donnik; S. Leont’ev; B. Bodnar; I. Tsynnik; V. Peretiatko; V. Kozhukhar’; S. Sokolov; G. Marakutsa; V. Khlystal; G. Evstratii; G. Podgorodetskii; V. Gonchar; M. Malai; Iu. Zatyka; A. Salamandik; V. Baboi; N. Ostapenko; V. Balyka; M. Kirichenko; A. Bulychev; V. Labunskii; V. Karamanutsa; A. Karaman; N. Mitish; V. Efimets; V. Zadir. (Viktor Emel’ianov, Za rodinu i prava cheloveka: desiat’ let bor’by pridnestrovtsev za svobodu pod znamenem OSTK, 1989-1999 gg. (Tiraspol’: Tipar, 1999), 10.
I reproduced this list only because we have an argument on this talk page, User:William Mauco pretended that ethnic Moldovans are well represented in the leadership of PMR (he gave refferences as John O'Loughin etc). While ethnicity is not mentioned, from the names we can have a hint. I guess Moldovans were: V. Iakovlev, V. Kozhuhar, G. Marakutsa, G. Evstratii, M. Malai, Iu. Zatyka, V. Baboi, V. Karamanutsa, A. Karaman, V. Efimets. 10 out of 63. 15.8% while the proportion of Moldovans in Transnistrian teritory (including Tighina) was 38%. Same trend of underrepresentation of ethnic Moldovans can be seen in actual PMR Soviet. Just for clarification - John O'Loughin and others are writing bullshits.-- MariusM 09:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I reverted to my last version because:
Dpotop 12:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
When 'Dpotop' did his revert, he also overwrote some of my changes. [51] Probably unintentional. The things that he point out can be discussed with the person he reverted (Mauco). But in my case, I had made a change by removing a repetitive statement. It was about O.S.C.E. and that it had not recognized/monitored. It was said in two paragraphs, one right after the other. I spliced this into one. Please, I ask, When you revert someone, you should be careful to not overwrite the edits of other people that were done in the meantime. - Pernambuco 13:26, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Doptop may be interested to hear that the EU is very very carefully examining the result of the blockade and subsequent referendum and a policy change is happening. The blockade has failed and pushed TD closer to Russia. Its been a disaster. Nobody could have guessed this was going to happen but it has . now its change of plans time. It's time easier to examine alternatives. . Last week in Moscow the EU comissioner stated that the EU and Russia had to draw closer together on the issue. Everyone knew what she was getting at. Its either a 'deal' or its 'lets talk' For now lets get this done MarkStreet 25
On the main page under the policy of accuracy I request the following changes be made and invite opinion on the matters. Firstly, I believe that date of independence 2nd Sept 1990 should be inserted. Secondly, it should be clearly stated that the Transnistrian government is in full command and control of Transnistria. Thirdly, i request the incorrect POV that the country is under 'the effective authority of Russia' be removed. There is no basis of truth let alone evidence that this is the case. Clearly the TD government is completely independent from Russian authority and enact their own laws in their own parliment without interference. 25th Oct 2006. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MarkStreet ( talk • contribs)
About Russia's involvement, yes, the section can be improved. First, we have this sentence:
The Russian authorities contributed both militarily and politically to the creation of a separatist government in Transnistria.
Militarily, this is debatable. You have heard the old saw that "winners write history", right? Well, in this case, there are no clear winners ... and as a result, there are two different versions of history. The Moldovan side overstates Russia's role. The Russian side tries to minimize it. ECHR was divided between a majority opinion and some fairly substantial minority arguments of a good segment of their judges. Jamason has started to work on some indepth research, and it has been covered by some German scholars in the recent past too. As regards our sentence, the word "contributed" is a bit imprecise but it wouldn't necessarily be inaccurate.
Next sentence:
The PMR remained under the effective authority, or at the very least under the decisive influence, of Russia, and in any event it survived by virtue of the military, economic, financial and political support that Russia gave it.
This is crapola. Even the author of the sentence knew the problem. "PMR is under Russian authority" .. erm.... "Well, maybe not, but at the very least under decisive Russian influence" ... wait, hold on, maybe not that either ... "well, at least at any event, then it survives because of Russian help..."
So what is it? If we are not sure, it shouldn't be included. If we are sure, then that should be included and it should be accurate. Russia has certainly given aid to PMR, but so has Ireland, and the United States' State Department, and several other countries within the last year alone. -
Mauco
23:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if this is worth including in the article anywhere or not, but I for one have wondered about all the different spelling variations of Transnistria. I must have seen at least half a dozen. Would it be useful to list them all and their origins, or isn't that possible because they are often made up willy nilly? Does the spelling give any indication of the writer's origins? Is the spelling sometimes used to make a point? —Preceding unsigned comment added by jonathanpops ( talk • contribs)
We've had people indicate "I was there...," that the PMR is just fine, they're people just like us, etc., etc. I post this link to another [ "I was there"] experience. — Pēters J. Vecrumba 17:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Let us archive it, but keep summaries of the topics open where we still need discussion: Intro para, the Ilascu sentence, referendum summary, and so on. - Mauco 17:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)