Here's a little geography lesson you probably didn't get in high school...

In eastern Europe, there's a little nation called Transnistria. It occupies just over 1,600 square miles stretched in a slender ribbon between Moldova to the west and Ukraine to the eart, both of which used to be part of the Soviet Union. The capitol of Transnistria is Tiraspol, which is home to roughly 160,000 of Transnistria's 537,000 citizens (as of 2007). Igor Smirnov has served as Transnistria's head of state since September 2, 1990, when the region declared its independence from Moldova, which still claims Transnistria as part of its territory.

Here's a very brief synopsis. When the Soviet Union began to disintegrate following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was subjected to various ethnic tensions and hostilities, especially when the Supreme Soviet (Council) of the Moldavian SSR adopted Moldovan as its sole official language instead of Russian and began using the Latin alphabet instead of Cyrillic. An ad hoc committee, composed mainly of ethnic minorities who felt threatened by the linguistic and cultural changes sweeping through their land, declared the formation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic on September 2, 1990 and tried to remain part of the Soviet Union while the rest of the Moldavian SSR, now known as Moldova, pushed for full independence from Moscow. War broke out between the Moldovans and the separatists, whose region is now known in English as Transnistria, and the war raged from November 1990 until a ceasefire in July 1992.

Today, Transnistria is recognized as an independent nation only by itself and by two other disputed regions in the former Soviet Union - Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moldova claims Transnistria for its own, naturally, and while Russia provided military support for the Transnistrian separatists even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has yet to recognize Transnistria as an independent nation, either, although it does maintain a consulate in Tiraspol. Not a single member of the United Nations has granted official recognition to Transnistria. Even so, Transnistria still issues its own passports, mints its own currency, and maintains its own postal service.

Human rights in Transnistria, from what I've gathered, are not looking so good. Transnistria is officially a multi-party nation despite its pro-Russia stance and its frequent use of Soviet symbols and artwork (including the hammer and sickle), but a US State Department report for 2006 indicates that freedom of the press and of speech are restricted, arbitrary arrest and even torture are allegedly employed against political dissidents, and homosexuality is illegal in Transnistria, which means that any uncloseted GLBT Transnistrians are subject to social and legal discrimination.

You can learn more here, for starters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

What do you think so far about Transnistria's 20-year struggle for its own identity?