You live where now?
Mar. 17th, 2006 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikHello and welcome to this episode of Back In Soviet Russia. Today's topics - technically non-existent Eastern European republics and the Soviet Army.
There's a program on telly in a few minutes about the Transdnestran Republic, so my dad took it upon himself to explain the situation to me. Now, during Perestroika in the early 90's, Moldova was one huge argument. There was a faction for independence, a faction for joining with Romania, a faction for allying with Russia, etc etc. What we concern ourselves with today is the Russian faction. You see, they weren't very happy about the public leaning towards independence, so they took over a section of the country and announced that they were creating their own country - called Prednestrovia in Russian, which literally means across the Dniestr (a river). The Moldovans were a trifle pissed about this, since the Prednestrovi had grabbed themselves the bit of land which contains most of Moldova's industry, such as it was.
Did I mention that Moldova is the single poorest country in Europe? They even beat Albania. So, yeah, not much of an army going there. The Transdnestran Republic is still there, tacitly supported by Russia. Nobody's officially recognised it's existence yet.
Another little gem from my father is that everyone attending a Soviet university used to have to spend one day a week at military school, for officers. There was a large amount of jokes about the people who studied there full time. The one-day-a-week students treated it kind of like we treat PD/H/PE lessons. Dad tells of a day when he heard a huge thump during class, and turned around to find somebody had fallen asleep and out of their seat. Nobody noticed. Most of the stuff they were taught was obsolete anyway - when they finally went on Boot Camp at the end of their training they found out they'd been given the theory on wheeled vehicles and were now expected to operate tanks with treads.
Still, it was difficult to fail. The army got most of the Uni rejects. My dad never had anything to do with the army after graduation, but he's still technically a Lieutenant. Well, maybe not after he's emigrated, but certainly he was up till then.
Off to watch the program now. Cheers!
ETA: Well, that was instructive. For those who missed it, it was a British half-hour segment for some program, and it was a fairly casual, camera-follows-cute-reporter-around sort of thing. First he went to visit the Moldovan president, who was fishing. He complained about smugglers and then got the reporter slightly drunk while showing off Transdnestrian cognac.
Then they went to the Transdnistrian Independence Day celebration, where everyone danced, waved leetle flags and ate traditional Moldovan pastries. When asked about the latter, the guide responded "Some people hate the Japanese, but they eat sushi." which was fair enough. We also got a close-up of the Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, which is one of the only countries to acknowledge the existence of Transdnestria - not that it counts since nobody acknowledges their existence in the first place.
Later, Cute British Reporter visited a museum, had a look at the Transdnistrian currency which nobody else recognises and doesn't have pictures of their presidents on it because they haven't had enough presidents, went to a large factory which was sending metal wire to the UK labeled "Made in Moldova", illegally crossed the Ukranian border, which wasn't marked by so much as a signpost (hence the smuggling problems), and got arrested while trying to sneak up to a secret Russian military base.
Why haven't I heard of any of this before? It's so cool! The guide even showed him her Transdnistrian passport! He was all "Oh, wow, and who recognises these?" and she said "... ...we do." LOL!
There's a program on telly in a few minutes about the Transdnestran Republic, so my dad took it upon himself to explain the situation to me. Now, during Perestroika in the early 90's, Moldova was one huge argument. There was a faction for independence, a faction for joining with Romania, a faction for allying with Russia, etc etc. What we concern ourselves with today is the Russian faction. You see, they weren't very happy about the public leaning towards independence, so they took over a section of the country and announced that they were creating their own country - called Prednestrovia in Russian, which literally means across the Dniestr (a river). The Moldovans were a trifle pissed about this, since the Prednestrovi had grabbed themselves the bit of land which contains most of Moldova's industry, such as it was.
Did I mention that Moldova is the single poorest country in Europe? They even beat Albania. So, yeah, not much of an army going there. The Transdnestran Republic is still there, tacitly supported by Russia. Nobody's officially recognised it's existence yet.
Another little gem from my father is that everyone attending a Soviet university used to have to spend one day a week at military school, for officers. There was a large amount of jokes about the people who studied there full time. The one-day-a-week students treated it kind of like we treat PD/H/PE lessons. Dad tells of a day when he heard a huge thump during class, and turned around to find somebody had fallen asleep and out of their seat. Nobody noticed. Most of the stuff they were taught was obsolete anyway - when they finally went on Boot Camp at the end of their training they found out they'd been given the theory on wheeled vehicles and were now expected to operate tanks with treads.
Still, it was difficult to fail. The army got most of the Uni rejects. My dad never had anything to do with the army after graduation, but he's still technically a Lieutenant. Well, maybe not after he's emigrated, but certainly he was up till then.
Off to watch the program now. Cheers!
ETA: Well, that was instructive. For those who missed it, it was a British half-hour segment for some program, and it was a fairly casual, camera-follows-cute-reporter-around sort of thing. First he went to visit the Moldovan president, who was fishing. He complained about smugglers and then got the reporter slightly drunk while showing off Transdnestrian cognac.
Then they went to the Transdnistrian Independence Day celebration, where everyone danced, waved leetle flags and ate traditional Moldovan pastries. When asked about the latter, the guide responded "Some people hate the Japanese, but they eat sushi." which was fair enough. We also got a close-up of the Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, which is one of the only countries to acknowledge the existence of Transdnestria - not that it counts since nobody acknowledges their existence in the first place.
Later, Cute British Reporter visited a museum, had a look at the Transdnistrian currency which nobody else recognises and doesn't have pictures of their presidents on it because they haven't had enough presidents, went to a large factory which was sending metal wire to the UK labeled "Made in Moldova", illegally crossed the Ukranian border, which wasn't marked by so much as a signpost (hence the smuggling problems), and got arrested while trying to sneak up to a secret Russian military base.
Why haven't I heard of any of this before? It's so cool! The guide even showed him her Transdnistrian passport! He was all "Oh, wow, and who recognises these?" and she said "... ...we do." LOL!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 07:26 am (UTC)I seem to remember already mentioning that.
Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-17 03:39 pm (UTC)