I was stupid and I booked the wrong day at the YouTube space

so this episode was filmed in my house.

The audio quality is not gonna be as good, a black backdrop is totally visible.

But hey, we got some good information in this episode.

Oh and you can get one of these shirts: The blood of those who fight for the freedom

Geographynow.com

Anyway. Enjoy the episode.

Imagine a person who speaks Russian, is Orthodox, eats borscht

and lives in a state that is slowly trying to introduce market enterprise in a partial state-run system.

Chances are, you're a Russian right?

Nope, Latin.

At least in Moldova.

*Intro*

It's time to learn Geography... NOW!!!

Everyone, I'm your host Barb's.

If you don't include microstates,

Moldova is the European country with the least amount of visitors.

And even then, Monaco, a microstate gets like three times more visitors.

This episode is gonna be very fun.

Because if you know me, I love diving into the obscure under-represented regions of the planet that need publicity boosts!

So be honored, because today,

you're about to enter the "Bob Saget of Europe".

(Political Geography)

Most people in the world probably won't be able to tell you where Moldova is on the map.

If you can, congratulations, you're probably Moldovan.

First of all

The country is landlocked, located in Eastern Europe, bordered by Romania to the west

and Ukraine to the north, east and south.

Yes, Ukraine, even took this one mile wide quarter on the Lower Dniester national park

cutting off the closest access they COULD HAVE HAD to the Black Sea.

The country is divided into 32 districts, with the capital and largest city, Chișinău,

located in the south center of the country.

In addition, they have three municipality cities:

Chișinău itself being one, along with Bălți and Bender

as well as two strange autonomous territorial units:

Gagauzia and Transnistria, we'll talk more about these later.

The country has only one main International airport: Chișinău International

Otherwise

Smaller uncertified or partially certified airports can be found in places like Bălți and Mărculești.

Now after Chișinău,

if you consider Transnistria part of Moldova,

then the city of Tiraspol, their capital, would be the second largest one.

Otherwise, Bălți would be next.

And speaking of which - let's just get it over with:

What exactly are those two strange autonomous guys: Transnistria and Gagauzia?

Well in the simplest way I can put it:

Both of these places are a little more Russian influence from the rest of Moldova

as if Moldova wasn't already Russian influence enough but to begin with but we'll talk about that later.

Gagauzia is kind of like a more truly autonomous state

in the fact that the people are culturally distinct with a Turkic Orthodox Christian background.

They speak their own language, Gagauz.

Its split into four separate enclaves made up of these localities that have over 50% Gagauz populations

including this small two-mile wide plot of farmland next to Carbalia.

Even though they politically disagree with Moldova

as in they've threatened that if Moldova tries to join the EU, they would opt out for independence and side with Russia.

Regardless they are actually pretty chilled. You can visit and easily take pictures.

See if you can get to one of those "Welcome to Gagauzia" signs on the road.

Transnistria on the other hand is a little more tricky.

They actually have declared independence in 1992, which has led to military conflict in the 90s.

After a ceasefire was established, they set up rules.

But today it lies in a frozen conflict zone status.

Today, they have their own government, military, police, postal system, currency, vehicle registration.

You even have to show your passport before crossing the border.

And with about a third of the population being Russian.

It's no surprise that they side with Russia and have Russian peacekeepers to maintain the border security.

Yeah, I know insert your opinion in the comments below.

You can find lots of Soviet style symbols in their streets.

In fact, they're the only state in the world that still uses the former USSR hammer and sickle in their flag.

Russia: Whoa, we started that and even we don't have that anymore.

Transnistria: Yeah, I'm just such a fan of your early work, you know!

Some notable spots of interest might include places like:

He's like the hero of the nation

The sites of Old Orhei

So many monasteries like these

The State Circus in Chișinău

And probably the most iconic landmark: the underground wine city of

The Guinness world record largest wine collection in the world with over 120 kilometers of tunnels and corridors.

Yeah, they love wine.

Let's talk more about resources and such in:

(Physical Geography)

Now if you don't know anything about Moldova's land.

One thing you definitely should know is:

WINE.

Most houses in the countryside and even some of the cities have wine cellars.

It's kind of like what saunas are to Finland.

Finland: Huh. great analogy. Yeah, I get it.

First of all

Moldova's land is mostly situated between the two longest rivers of the country:

The Prut which makes up the entire western border with Romania

and the Dniester with Ukraine

but then was Transnistria a series of arbitrary lines through flat farm fields goals passed the river.

Hence, where the name Transnistria comes from, "Across the Dniester".

The country is made up of small short forested hills cut by numerous creeks and rivers.

The tallest point being only 430 meters high, Bălănești hill

and all of which are part of the Moldovan plateau

which extends into the larger Carpathian mountain chain.

The largest natural lakes would be either the Manta and the Beleu,

located right on the border with Romania.

And right at the very southernmost tip of Moldova,

they have a small 200 metre coast with the Danube and their only shipping port with access at Giurgiulești

which is essentially the only indirect point of access they have to the Black Sea

which is kind of important.

All right, animation is done. So you know what that means?

This is the time for my triple shot of espresso break.

Noah takes over as co-host in this segment

so I don't end up losing my voice before this episode is over.

But the man, I think you have a problem.

Don't care, take it away!

About half the country is arable and chances are no matter where you travel, you will find a vineyard.

As mentioned before, Moldova takes wine very seriously.

And for a nation as far as they are on the world stage, it's amazing they've ranked 12th in wine production.

They even have a holiday to celebrate it.

Their lush landscape is home and various animal species like

Brown bears

European hares

Minxes

Great egrets

White storks

And the national animal: the Oryx

You can even find it on their coat of arms.

Just north of the capital, you can find one of the largest gypsum caves in the world

containing over 20 underground lakes.

Food-wise, they pretty much follow the same format as Romania.

You have things like:

You'll notice everything kind of has a Slavic twist to it.

Lots of sour cream added to soups. Borscht, a sour tasting soup is popular

as well as pickled vegetables.

Economy-wise, things really changed up after independence from the Soviet Union.

Paid policy changed and for a while, they had a huge inflation rate after switching currencies.

Today, they are classified as the poorest country in Europe in terms of GDP per capita.

And to address if they had to switch up a few things.

One thing they did was they greatly lose the foreign investment barriers to pretty much anything

as long as it didn't go against the interest of national security in order.

Also purchasing agriculture in forested lands are forbidden.

Even so, not much changed and it's partially because

Well, it kind of went like this:

Moldova: All right, independence!

Ready to take on the world!

Sweet. So what are you gonna do now?

You're gonna open up a market economy?

Moldova: Yes...

Technically...

I mean, you know, I'm still gonna lie

kind of haven't really regulate wages and prices and add a few legal restrictions.

But yes! Privatization and whatnot.

Okay. In that case, when are you going to announce this globally?

Moldova: Ehh, we'll get to that later. First I need some wine.

Yep, Moldova kind of lacks in the PR department for now.

Otherwise there is a slow but steady overall growth, but it's always kind of hindered by domestic problems

Looks like a great time to discuss more of that, in:

(Demographics)

Thank You, Noah! Follow him on Instagram.

Now it really does kind of seem like in order to understand Moldova,

you kind of have to understand Romania first because it's so important.

But alas, these videos are done alphabetically. So sorry

Romania: I shouldn't name myself

"Lomania"

Chinese: Someone said Lo mein?

Getting off topic. Anyway,

including the disputed autonomous regions of Gagauzia and Transnistria,

Moldova has about 3.3 million people and has seen a decline since the peak at 3.7 in 1992.

The country is made up of about three-quarters that identify as Moldovan and 7% Romanian,

but in all honestly, they're pretty much the same people.

After that, there is a noticeable Ukrainian minority at about 6.6%,

Gagauz at about 4.6%,

and the rest are mostly Russian, Bulgarians, Romani and other groups.

They use the Moldova leu as their currency.

They use the type C plug outlet

and they drive on the right side of the road.

Now what exactly is a Moldovian?

Well in the shortest simplest way I can put it:

Unless you talk to want to one of the incredibly nationalistic ones that will start a debate:

They're basically Romanians.

They speak pretty much the exact same language

except the Moldovan might use a few Russian slang words here and there

but essentially they're pretty much just speaking the same thing.

For those who don't know, the Romanian language is actually a Latin based Romance language related to French, Italian and Spanish.

It is the easternmost Romance language in Europe.

I've heard stories from Latin Americans and Romanians meeting each other.

They're kind of like "Hmm, I kind of understand a bit of what you're saying."

Where they differ though would be politics and history.

This is kind of what separated them.

Very similar to what happens at the Koreas, remember those episode.

My mom was in one of them.

Essentially even though they were part of the Warsaw Pact,

Romania never became a Soviet republic whereas Moldova did

and then they kind of became somewhat Russia-fied.

Eventually, Romania leaned more towards capitalistic interests and eventually joined the EU.

Moldova never did.

So basically, what you have are two siblings that were brought up in different schools and taught very different lessons from the two drastically different faculties.

Today, most Moldovans are bilingual with Russian

and you can still see hints of the Soviet past and influence.

But like it's 50 times stronger in Transnistria.

They are like turbo-Russia fans!

One way you can see the influence for example would be the fact that

over 90% of the nation, to varying degrees of devotion, identify as being part of the Orthodox Church.

Nonetheless, they still held on pretty well to their roots.

They have a plethora of traditional Moldovan folk arts and music.

Ancient ballads like these.

They have a holiday in July where everyone just kind of puts on a culture show.

Moldovan ceramics and weaving culture has always been a trademark of the country's identity.

Keep in mind

They also have a noticeable Gypsy or Roma community especially in the town of Soroca.

They even have a "King of gypsies"

This guy, he acts more of like a communal facilitator rather than an actual ruler.

It's interesting though, because no matter how hard the Slavic culture has tried to permeate through their populace,

they just could not let go with their passionate Latin roots.

Moldovans have always kind of had like a little bit of a humor aside.

They don't mope around and let life or struggle get to them.

They love it when anybody notices them and when they do they don't hesitate to put on the show

especially when it comes to Eurovision

Wow

They celebrate harvest festivals, a car-free day, a huge music festival in March.

Anyway, we go on and on but we got to discuss the history.