The Soviet Union lives on . . . here at least

Back in the summer of 1991, while the Soviet Union was in the process of dissolution, some family members and I attended an exhibition baseball game played between a visiting Soviet team from Tiraspol and a local team from Geneva, Illinois. Outside the small stadium there were tables set up where team members and tag-alongs were selling ageing Soviet paraphernalia, including old military uniforms, samovars, pins and a variety of items of dubious monetary value. Only months later, I would come to see this as the Soviet Union's going-out-of-business sale.

Indeed with the breakup of the Union, the city of Tiraspol became nominally part of the independent Romanian-speaking state of Moldova. However, it is effectively the capital city of something called the Transdniestr Republic, a tiny sliver of territory wedged between Moldova proper and Ukraine. This break-away republic is not only internationally unrecognized; it is also a place where Soviet communism, in all its oppressiveness, lives on. This is from an article by Mark McKinnon, writing for The Globe and Mail in "No sign of Iron Curtain falling here":

Founded by Communist Party loyalists who feared the area's Russian-speaking majority would suffer in an independent and ethnic Romanian-dominated Moldova, Transdniestr is run with an iron fist by Igor Smirnov, the only "president" it has ever had, and a man increasingly detested by his own populace.

There are pronounced similarities between the current situation in Transdniestr and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

Even those who were once among Smirnov's staunchest allies are now looking for a way to end the independence experiment.

Life in Transdniestr is getting worse and worse all the time. It's like living on a reservation, said Alexander Radichenko, leader of the Communist faction in the Supreme Soviet. He pointed to retirees' pensions that have fallen from a value of $50 to less than $12 in real terms.

The only possible way the economic situation could improve, he said, is if Transdniestr reunited with Moldova, ending the enclave's self-imposed isolation. Few expect that to happen as long as Smirnov and his cadre remain in power.

Perhaps Smirnov and Rauf Danktash could go into exile together. Surely someone could be persuaded to rent them an apartment in, say, Iqaluit, where they would no longer bother anyone. . . except possibly each other.