Victims of Stalin´s cartography of yesteryear, the inhabitants of this unrecognised territory face an uncertain future. Transnistria could end up as a bargaining chip in the often difficult relationship between Russia and Moldova.

“It´s not fair to call us ‘separatists’. It wasn´t us who wanted to split from the USSR,” says Sergey Simonenko from his bureau at the government buildings of a country that still nobody recognises as legitimate. Simonenko happens to be the Deputy Foreign Minister of the ‘Moldovan Republic of Pridnestrovie’. It´s a patch of land better known outside its boundaries as “Transnistria”.

In the fractured world of post-Soviet politics, Moldova emerged as a separate country, its boundaries conforming to those of the erstwhile Soviet Republic. The left bank of the Dniester had been annexed to the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic by Stalin back in 1940. Mainly populated by Russians and Ukrainians, the inhabitants of this narrow strip of land decided a few years back that they rather fancied being masters of their own destiny. With Moldova’s independence from the Soviet Union, the two factions on opposite sides of the Dniester, those on the west speaking Moldovan and more attuned to Romania, and their neighbours on the east bank, having greater affection for Russia and Slavic values, quickly turned against each other.

“Moldova even considered joining Romania,” continues Simonenko, “but the majority of us here are Russian. What kind of future was there for us under Bucharest´s rule?”

The Moldovan-Transnistrian conflict was one of the many that reshaped the Eurasian map back in the early nineties. Boundaries were redrawn from Tajikistan to the Dniester. “Half a million Transnistrians finally got their independence,” claimed the Slavs. “And half a million Moldovans are kidnapped by a tyrant regime,” the right bank of the river.

Last September, Transnistria celebrated the 18th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, something that had already happened a year before Moldova declared hers. European Union officials like Javier Solana approved moves against Trans-Dniester on the basis of respecting Moldova’s territorial sovereignty. Quite ironic, seeing how many EU governments have applauded and recognised Kosovo´s independence.

Today, no country in the world recognises an independent political entity on the left bank of the Dniester other than the Ukraine. But some “quasi” states as Abkhazia and South Ossetia have been regular attendants to the annual celebrations in Tiraspol, the Transnistrian capital. Moreover, the two breakaway regions recently recognised by Russia have had representatives here for years, a sort of “would be” ambassadors.

Very much the same as the Caucasian republics, Transnistria also boasts its own passport, its flag, car plates…and they go further by printing their own stamps, and even coining their own currency: the Transnistrian rouble. Needless to say that none of these are valid outside this country which barely doubles the size of Luxembourg.

As for the national anthem, there are three versions, one for each official language: Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian. The melody, a candidate for the USSR anthem composed in 1943, is common to the three but the lyrics change depending on the language we use.

“Let´s praise our factories,” says the Russian version. Small wonder here as most of Moldova´s industry was located on this side of the river when the war started. The 90% of the electricity of the Latin country was produced here so the loss of Transnistria left the Moldova in literal darkness.

Lenin versus Sheriff

“No, we are not communists; the Moldovans are!” continues Deputy Minister Simonenko, despite the hammer and the sickle on the Transnistrian flag on his desk, and also on his business card.

“We still keep the Soviet symbols because we are proud of our past, that´s all”

In fact, Simonenko is right when he states that the communists are those on the west bank of the river. Vladimir Voronin is Moldova´s Communist Party´s First Secretary as well as the president in functions of the country since 2001. But his son, Oleg, owns the dubious honour of being the richest man of Europe´s poorest country. It seems that equal share of wealth is still a distant concept in Moldova.

Back in Transnistria, just a light stroll from 25 October street towards Gagarin boulevard is more than enough to realise that this is far from being a communist stronghold. Despite the severe look of Lenin´s red granite statue opposite the government building, Gazprom branches, jewelleries change offices and other outsiders to former Soviet taste work hard in the name of the privatization policies that rule here. The biggest example is probably Sheriff, the company allegedly linked to Igor Smirnov; that Kamchatka born bushy eye browed man who happens to be Transnistria´s first and only president up to date.

Sheriff owns the local petrol stations, a supermarket chain and the telephone company, but also the casino at the city centre, the brandy distillery, and even the local football team: Sheriff Tiraspol FC! Paradoxically enough, football is the only thing that links both banks of the river Dniester. The local team has been the indisputable winner of the Moldovan league since 2000. Moreover, Sheriff stadium is still the only one that fits UEFA criteria, so Tiraspol hosts Moldova´s squad´s international fixtures.

Just clichés?

“Western journalists come here on a daytrip: they take pictures of Lenin, the billboards, the war memorials, and they always write the same cliché afterwards “Transnistria: the last Soviet Paradise”, “the Soviet theme park”…But we are a modern country!” explains Svetlana, a chemical engineer in his late 30´s. “If it were for me, I would pull down all those symbols straight away”.

Svetlana’s anger towards these stereotypes is evident. Yet, the Soviet cliché is far from being not the most harmful of all those Transnistria has to bear.

“Chisinau constantly spreads rumours about arms and drug trafficking here”, continues Svetlana. “European observers have been checking these borders for years and they’ve found none of that”. She refers to the European Mission for Border Assistance that monitors both the Ukrainian and the Moldovan sides of the border. According to them, smuggling to and from Transnistria consists mainly on chicken and alcohol.

Abkhazia and Chechnya are also alleged “black holes” for drugs and weapons, but such rumours are not exclusive for quasi states or “Muslim threatened” areas. “Unfriendly” legal states are also targeted by this kind or accusations:

“During Kuchma´s rule, the Ukraine was also suspected of all sorts of arm trafficking. Surprisingly enough, all those accusations vanished when Yushenko and his ‘Orange Revolution’ came to power,” remembers Svetlana. “Nobody has mentioned the smuggling issue ever since”.

Nonetheless, we could have more easily stuck to an example everybody knows: the also alleged ‘weapons of mass destruction weapons’ in Iraq.

Whether there´s any truth in the rumours surrounding Transnistria, they´re very likely to tone down in the near future. Everything points now that Moldova´s long claimed territoriality will be solved by an agreement brokered by Moscow rather than by any kind of military intervention.

After being backed by Russia in and after the war, it seems that the Kremlin is now putting its weight behind Russia’s Slavic brothers on the Dniester. Moldova has been pressurising Russia for years by boasting her intentions of joining NATO. But now that the US global ballistic missile defence has reached Russia´s very borders, and with the Ukraine and Georgia willing to join NATO, Moscow is likely to buy Moldova´s ‘neutrality’ by forcing the Tiraspol authorities to bend down their knees and fully integrate within the Moldovan state.

For Moldova happens to be now a very strategic spot between the borders of Romania (already a NATO member) and the Ukraine. What can Transnistrians offer today to their former allies?

Not too far from here, the Russians from Crimea gather at the port of Sevastopol in support of Russia´s Black Sea Fleet. Will Russia take military action on the Ukraine in case Kiev finally joins NATO and kicks out the Russian fleet? Can Sevastopol be the future capital city of an unrecognised state like Transnistria is today?

“We feel bretayed,” confesses Yuri, 41, looking at his Russian passport once handed out by Moscow; the same one he used to vote for United Russia, Putin´s ruling party, last March. Yuri also keeps his Moldovan passport for practical reasons, and the Soviet one too.

“I keep it for my children,” says this mechanic from Tiraspol, looking at the CCCP abbreviation in gold on the red cover. “One day I want to tell my children that I was born in the biggest country in the world.”

In the spring of 1999 NATO waged an 11-week bombing campaign against the rump state of Yugoslavia, in an attempt to force Slobodan Milosevic’s Government to submit to demands to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, following an alleged campaign of ethnic cleansing that appeared too similar to events in nearby Balkan states, such as Bosnia, for the world to ignore.

I watched with everyone else the plight of fleeing refugees regularly filling our TV screens, as the province appeared to be all but cleaned out by a mass exodus; and I planned to visit the region in the coming summer.

The timing couldn’t have worked out better. England were playing an international football match in Sofia against Bulgaria in June 1999, and as I flew out to the Balkans the Serbs were on the brink of capitulating, and a NATO land force was expected to “liberate” the province within days.

In May 1998, I had shaken hands with Bill Clinton outside of a Birmingham, England pub, during the G8 summit of world leaders. Now he was sending ground troops to Kosovo to supplement those of seven European nations. “Thank you for coming”, I had said on the spur of the moment to the man who had not long since been embroiled in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I don’t know whether he thought I was being cheeky about his affair, or that I OWNED Birmingham, but the police security appeared alarmed that one of the local “football hooligans” had walked right up to the president of the world’s most powerful state, and they quickly whisked him away from our small gathering in a convoy of limousines. If I’d had more time to speak to him I would have asked him to intervene in the Kosovo crisis.

I had visited that region in 1995 and seen for myself the heavy handed patrolling of Serb forces with their SUS (Stop and Search) harassment of the Albanian population, and indeed their harassment of myself. Even getting into Kosovo across the Albanian border had been troublesome, with the contents of my luggage being spread out over the tables of the control post’s office. As he finished his inspection, the officer in charge said, in his limited English, one word… “NO!” And as I was putting my things back together again, I thought I had been refused entry and would have to retrace my taxi ride back through glorious mountains to the town of Kukes. I didn’t want to go back that way, but as I left the door of the border office, the officer pointed in the direction of Kosovo and said “GO!” Boy, was I pleased, but my relief was dampened somewhat because by that time the small convoy of vehicles that had been crossing had been waved off already, and there was nothing for it but to walk the entire sixteen miles to Prizren.

I arrived about four hours later, after dark, annoyed enough to ethnically cleanse the entire village myself at the fact that no-one had stopped to offer me a lift. Except, that is, for a farm cart that obligingly allowed me to jump on the back two miles into the walk, only to turn off the main road just a few hundred yards further on! I recovered my composure enough to enjoy a free night’s sleep under the stars on the roof of a restaurant, and accepted that the strong suspicion between ethnic groups in this region means that few people stop for hitch hikers.

Now, I found myself heading for Skopje, by bus, determined to be a part of the history that was unfolding, and feeling a personal connection to the destiny of this land. The journey took about six hours and I arrived mid-afternoon on a Friday, to a Macedonia that was clearly gearing itself up for conflict. As I backpacked between the bus station and the Ferali Youth Hostel, the only affordable accommodation in this mediocre city with it’s newly acquired capital status, I passed the Macedonian Red Cross Headquarters, just as a fleet of black limousines swept up to the entrance for an important meeting about the difficulties ahead. NATO helicopters could also be seen regularly flying over the city – British Pumas and Chinooks, busily preparing for the big push, expected any day soon. The hostel had thoughtfully roomed me with two Americans, who had similar intentions as me:

Mark was an academic from the University of California and had arrived to make an amateur video on human rights abuses. He had been to other conflicts and his experience in such affairs as acquiring press passes was to prove invaluable. Richard was younger and apparently attractive to the ladies as he spent much of his brief time in Skopje dating a local girl. He ran a photography shop in New York.

We had all travelled separately. A West Coast American, an East Coast American and an Englishman, flying in via Athens, Istanbul and Sofia respectively; drawn to this conflict from the diverse corners of the two nations that had orchestrated the bombing campaign and were to be most prominent in the invasion to come. Although the hostel was almost full with journalists, who had failed to acquire rooms at the expensive Holiday Inn or Hotel Bristol, we seemed to be the only amateurs, fortuitously arriving on the same day and ending up in the same room. New friendships were formed quickly and naturally in such circumstances, and we instantly became a team.

We spent the next few days acquiring press passes from both the Macedonian Ministry of Information, giving us permission to visit refugee camps, and from NATO HQ who provided us with KFOR passes, which would enable us to enter the province of Kosovo itself. On the Saturday morning we visited Stenkovec I, along the road to the border, after which we split up for the afternoon.

As I was wandering around Skopje, wondering whether the invasion would take place today, I noticed that a NATO tent and information point on the Northern outskirts of the city had been removed, and further up a NATO soldier was redirecting traffic away from the border road. I decided that it looked like something was about to happen, so I began to walk in the direction of the frontier. As I reached a fly-over that crossed this road, behind me a column of British Army Land Rover’s began to overtake me. I had guessed right; the invasion was on. Several children and two elderly women, dressed in overcoats and headscarves, were standing under the bridge and began to wave with excitement at the passing convoy, which responded with smiles and clenched fist salutes through the windows of their passing vehicles.

Ahead, the skies had turned black and a storm was about to break. A clap of thunder rolled across the fields and lightning forked on the horizon, a fitting meteorological tribute to impending battles to come, perhaps? This heightened my own feeling of anticipation, as I headed resolutely towards the front line, while every sensible person headed in the opposite direction, away from possible Serb resistance, and, perhaps more importantly, a bloody good soaking!

Then I had a lucky break. A car pulled out of a side road ahead of me and, with rain imminent, I flagged it down. The driver didn’t need too much encouragement to take me up to the border, as he had defied NATO’s cordon and used his local knowledge of the back roads to make his own trip to see this historical moment for himself. A couple of miles before the border, we arrived at Stenkovec refugee camp and climbed out of the car to greet the Kosovan Albanians, who had lived in relative squalor for three months, but could now see the distinct possibility of returning to their homes very soon. Hundreds of them lined both embankments of the main road, holding aloft homemade signs declaring “UCK LOVES NATO” and cheering wildly as columns of tanks passed their temporary tented homes.

Presently, we left these excited folk, and journeyed on towards the Blace border, just us and a British tank company, in the rain. At the border we stood under cover, watching the tanks roll over the demarcation line and officially entering Kosovo, evidently the only witnesses of this D-Day moment. The Macedonian border guards had all but abandoned their post and we were able to freely wander into the liberated country.

As we turned the car outside the former Blace restaurant, used for recent negotiations with the Serb delegation, we were hailed loudly by a Turkish presenter that we were driving across the line of his stand-up piece to camera. Theirs was the only media witness to this particular advancing force, and we may have unwittingly appeared on his clips for CNN. The car park was filled with British and Belgian Signals Regiment
vehicles, and dozens of radio masts reached up to the rainy skies. It was time for us to return to Skopje, soaked to the skin but flushed with success that we had witnessed something momentous.

Author – Martin Felton

The snow carpeted the floor of the mature pine forest, sparkling in the crisp, still,freezing morning air. A solitary raven croaked in the distance, it’s familiar sound carrying across an otherwise silent, arctic wilderness as I strained my ears, searching for the first faint noise of the approaching herd.

The dogs’ barking, barely audible, reached me through the trees, followed very shortly by the distant, melodic clanging of the reindeer’s bell. They were coming.

In a bid to be in the best position for filming 5000 reindeer spilling onto the surface of the frozen River Skellefte in North Sweden, Tomme Svensson had taken us the previous evening along the route from the reindeer corral, down to the river and now, this morning, we had set out shortly after 6am to re trace the route and get into position.

Reindeer herding is a unique and traditional way of life for a small, privileged number of Sami folk in the northern part of Scandinavia. Prehistoric artefacts indicate that the Sami have occupied the region and have been engaged in reindeer herding since as early as 800AD; long before the Scandinavian states emerged and the lands were subsequently colonised; and this traditional past still has a strong bearing in how the Sami live today. Even though, out of a current population of 17,000, only 3000 Sami are directly involved in reindeer herding, it’s a rare Sami person indeed who isn’t related to, or at the very least doesn’t know, somebody from one of the herding communities. Modernisation has influenced every aspect of the Sami’s life, and assimilation into their host nation’s culture is near total, but reindeer herding is still founded on a traditional way of life, requiring a closeness to the herd and nature in general because of the animals’ instinctive migratory behaviour. Even with the farming in its modernised form, with skidoos, cars and mobile communications, the reindeer are at the very heart of the Sami culture, and are the basis for existence of the Sámeby communities.

In April 2004, I travelled to the small village of Jörn in Sweden, where I spent several days with the Mausjaur Forest Sami group, as they worked tirelessly, preparing the herd of 5000 animals for the 120km Spring migration, across frozen lakes, rivers and marshes and through snow-clad forests between Jörn in the east and Arvidsjaur in the west.

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The unofficial country of Sápmi that spans the northern borders of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia is where the Sami call their home, and within this region, territories, called Sámeby (lit: Sami Village), are mapped out to assist in the controlled herding of reindeer groups. The Mausjaur territory extends from SkellefteÃ¥ on the Bothnian coast, inland along the Skellefte River as far west as Arvidsjaur, and encompasses 3600 square kilometres north of the river. It’s a region of mature pine wilderness, wide rivers, narrow streams, vast lakes, hills and marshes. Commonly encountered wildlife includes, brown bears, wolves, wolverines, martens, elk, ravens, crossbills, whooper swans, woodpeckers and, of course, the all important reindeer.

Territories are further divided into summer and winter areas that support the reindeers’ specific feeding behaviour; the winter ground being nearer to the coast where the climate is marginally warmer and the ground more heavily forested, resulting in less snow cover, making it easier for the reindeer to reach the forest floor for feeding. Also, some of the more mature forests provide tree-hanging lichens, which offer the reindeer a valuable feeding alternative in the harsh winters, when the ground’s snow cover might be compacted and impenetrable.

The summer area is found inland to the west and extends to include higher, mountainous ground above the pine forests. Two distinct types of Sami group have emerged over the centuries: Those that migrate out of the forests in the summer and onto the open mountains; and those that remain in the forest all year round. Lotta Svensson explains, “Because the Mountain Sami spend so much of their time in remote parts of the country, their culture is more traditional than the Forest Sami who are merging more and more with outsiders and their influences.” “It’s easy for them to look at us [Forest Sami] with contempt and distrust,” she continues, “but we want to preserve our traditional ways and heritage just the same as they do.”

The story of the Mausjaur group can be traced back to 1886 when it was originally formed. Members have continually changed through the years, sometimes increasing in numbers, sometimes falling. Today the group is a tight knit community, comprising six Reindeer Keepers and their respective families: The six men are Mikael, Göran and Johan Jonsson; Tomme Svensson, and Lennart and Martin Pärson. The ages range from Johan at 19 to Göran at 56. There’s no hierarchy within the group and no one person holds any higher authority than any other, although Mikael is the nominated spokesman for the Mausjaur at meetings with other Sámeby.

The precise timing of the spring migration is derived from a fine balancing act between the prevailing weather conditions, the state of the ground under foot (or hoof), which determines if the reindeer can feed unassisted or not, and the legislative requirement that all reindeer are herded across the winter/summer boundary by the 1st May. Normally, the weather would be improving towards the end of March allowing the preparations for the move to commence with plenty of time to spare before the deadline. However, this year (2004) 40cm of snow fell on the Mausjaur territory over the weekend of 20/21 March, causing much concern among the Sámeby, as this was exactly the kind of weather that would scupper their best laid plans. As a further burden, the added snow cover means that ground mosses and lichens are inaccessible and supplementary feeding is necessary to allow the reindeer to build up their strength for the imminent migration; feeding that comes in the form of pellets and hay bales, both quite costly. Fortunately, the snowfall that weekend was not indicative of more bad weather on the way and only represented a very short setback in the Mausjaur’s plans.

By the last week of March the big thaw is very much underway. Huge wet snowdrifts can be seen hanging off the house roofs about town, slowly sagging under their own weight until, with a heavy “crummphh” they fall to the ground below. All about is the sound of dripping water and as the grey skies give way to blue, the daylight hours increase by 8 or 9 minutes every day. Rivers and lakes are still frozen but patches of open water are beginning to appear.

Endnote:The Swedish state has delineated a specific border that separates all-year-round grazing land to the mountainous west of the region, from the lower, forested east part of the region. Within the highland summer area, the Sami enjoy full customary rights to the grazing with the freedom to come and go as they please. However, the stipulation is that all herding communities cannot cross the boundary and enter the winter area with the herd before the 1st September, and they must complete the return migration and fully exit the winter area by the 1st May. Grazing rights within the winter area are not covered in detail by Swedish law and so disputes are inevitable.

Although Sami Reindeer Herders are entitled to customary grazing rights on the land they occupy, most of that land is owned, either by the state, by large forestry companies or by small private land owners (SPLOs). Because of conflicts of interests between the relevant parties, legislations have been created that are intended to serve the Forestry companies and the Reindeer Herders and allow them to work alongside each other without disharmony. In practice the large forestry companies are utilising the system fairly and flexibly, as per Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) guidelines, that take into consideration the Sami’s reindeer husbandry needs, whereas many of the SPLOs, not bound by the FSC, are finding the regulations not to their suiting and are slowly but steadily pushing the Sami out of their land holdings by expensive court actions that the Sami are ill-financed to defend against. Unfortunately for the Sami, to call on their customary grazing rights, they have to prove a long tradition of herding on the land in question, proof that is required in documented form. The Sami language has only taken written form in the last century; so admissible evidence by those criteria is simply unavailable, leaving the future of those particular herding communities in considerable doubt.

Author: Lee Ridley