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SITUATED BETWEEN UKRAINE and Moldova, Transnistria is not officially recognised as a country.
They have armed men, uniformed police who demand bribes, and a Parliament, but all their exports go through Moldovan authority.
While the Soviet Union forgot about Transnistria, Transnistria certainly hasn’t forgotten about the Soviet Union judging by the strange monuments.
The images below are by photographer Darmon Richter, who writes that the country “could be described as the breakaway state of a breakaway state”.
This small strip of land east of the River Dniester, sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine, remained pro-Russia even after the 1991 fall of the USSR. Tensions between Moldova and its breakaway state erupted into conflict, but the problem was, Transnistria had served as a major labour pool for Soviet industry – and Leninesque President Igor Smirnov was sitting on one of the largest stockpiles of weaponry in Eastern Europe. The conflict reached an uneasy ceasefire in 1992, which has remained in place since.
You can read the full story on Richter’s blog.
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Great to see our Public Servants are on top of their brief. Announced months in advance . There’s efficiency for ya.
@Mr Grumble: was today their first day back and this is their agenda.
Probably cheaper on us if most Public Servants were paid to stay at home.
@David Dickson: ME, MYSELF, I priorities on their 1st day back, where do we go from here?
@C_O’S:
Our access to so many international markets on our national festival day is totally unique to this country and absolutely invaluable. Ignorant scribes who fail to understand that should be ignored. These trips are hard work not junkets.
@Donal Hanley: Yea must be a nightmare for them!
@Donal Hanley:Hanley: since you seem so knowledgeable. Why not give us the exact numbers and sources of the revenue directly attributable to these junkets. I’m dying to know please ensure sources of these exact figures are verifiable.
How about stop promoting Ireland. Please start making it a place that’s worth being promoted. Until then we remain the rip off republic.
@The Dublinist: Very highly educated workforce, high standard of living (well for those who work for it), good tax benefits. In think the route to making this country better is to attract jobs to provide employment .
@phil: Well said!
@phil: You forgot to mention : Lack of choice when it comes to political parties, 86% rise in homelessness only in the past few years, depressing weather, approx €200million worth of debt, overpriced alcohol, trolley crisis, unthrustworthy police force, VRT (Against what the Europeans say, another example of how we only take the bad stuff from the EU), extreme rent prices in the Dublin area, TV liscense, property tax, we use the euro which means our value can’t be lowered against the sterling to limit the effects of brexit, Butlin’s mosney which was possibly one of the only decent places to have fun years ago is now a refugee camp, the president making a speech about facing homelessness with a big roaring fireplace in the background, Gardaí doing false breath tests. List goes on and on.
@The Dublinist: We wish it was 200 million of debt change the m in million to b .
@Declan Byrne: Whoops, indeed we do.
@The Dublinist: Phil must have won thirty euro down the bingo last night. Big money like that wont last long, but sure we will all welcome him back down to our level when it’s all gone.
@The Dublinist: In fairness the weather is hardly the government’s fault
@Patabake Kennedy: I bet when he checked it in the shop all of the bells went off and the staff panicked, while confetti slowly falls to the ground.
@The Dublinist: Yeah D, its a case of, put the tent away Mary, we are upgrading to a B@B tonight. Let the good times roll.
@The Dublinist: We have 8 political parties that i can think of. Plenty of things wrong but lots going right. Unemployment has fallen to 5.5%…it was 14% in 2009. The homeless numbers are worrying but its the rough sleepers that are the real worry. It has trebled in that time. Its approx now at 180.
Here comes the yearly onslaught of whinging about ministers promoting Ireland. I think it’s very beneficial personally. Happy St Patrick’s day.
@Darren McCormack: it would just be nice if it wasn’t the only thing they accomplished during the ‘year’
@Darren McCormack: probably, only because you mentioned it, anyhow, I personally think any or all resources while we have continual crises in this country should be utilized for the benefit of our citizens! I’m not a whinger, I’m a realist!
@Darren McCormack: You can never get enough whinging about ministers , especially when it falls on deaf ears here in Ireland , a bit of embarrasment on the world stage might not fix the health or housing problems , but it gives a bit of relief for a day .
@Darren McCormack: How do you see ministers promoting Ireland personally benefiting you?
@Paul Mcnevin: Give it up, Paul. You know what I meant. Lol
@Darren McCormack: I am amazed that Charley Flanagan was not sent to Germany.
Just back from their Xmas holidays in the middle of January and they’re deciding where they’re going in their generously funded taxpayers junkets for paddy’s day!
Have they worked out their summer holidays yet? And their next pay rise?
@Adrian:I have no problem with them going away for st Patricks. It’s the coming back where the problem lies
So, will Simon Coveney be bringing up the issue of appalling human rights in China, including execution by firing squad often without trial, the detention of human rights lawyers and activists, Beijing’s continued highly repressive rule in Tibet and the Cybersecurity Law which will strangle online freedom and anonymity?
Or will he put Irish business interests before human rights?
Answers on a postcard to Tiananmen Square.
@FrankDapavia: Coventry is just a Clown, A big headed a@€€&zero without a brain, I hope he stays in China, Waste of tax payers money.
Hope Leo can get a date for President Trumps state visit….Give all the protesters something to look forward to…..
@John003: Luckily for the Trump protesters, they will get an extra plonker to protest against, courtesy of the Irish government.
@The Dublinist: Shane Ross the splitter.
Just as well Mary Mitchell O’Connor isn’t going to Saudi Arabia. They’d take one look at her driving skills and reimpose their driving ban on women.
I thought they would send John Halligan to see his buddy in North Korea
In fairness they don’t do much here , so they may as well p!ss off for a few days at the taxpayers expense .
@Ken Hayden: Sham rogues the lot of em
They might tell these heads of foreign governments that the country is 210 billion in dept and that they are all proud irishmen and women and that on this occasion they have decided to pay their own way,especially since these received that sneaky pay rise .
Selfie opp with the Donald. :-)
Is John Halligan not going to North Korea?
Please travel just don’t come back……
I wonder where’s the money coming from
@Henry Clapham: You, they need those holidays… lol.
Send Ryan tubridy to the white house. The sleveen would probably fawn over trump even after all his Clinton lick arsing.
It will be just a big tax payers paid all holiday for them and we say nothing because we are too thick as a nation to say anything…
Most countries see it as a Northern hemisphere Spring festival which slots neatly into the green of St Patrick and this island as the Equinox is on the 21st March and 4 days after our National holiday. The Continental USA relies less on the length of darkness than it does on the extreme cold weather around this time of the year so with Easter dates bouncing around they have adopted St Patrick’s day as the day which splits winter from the coming summer .
We get to let the world know we are around and what is generally the upbeat nature of our society that most other countries would die for. There are always the same whiner comments about misspent money but thankfully many seem to get it.
Gutted for John Halligan…thought he’d get N Korea!
I’d say we’ll be getting added to the US’ axis of shit holes after Trump spends about two minutes trying to understand Michael Ring.
God I’d love to be on that gravy train.
Have they no shame at all. Thousands homeless and hundreds on hospital trolleys … let’s go on a spree.
So Shane Ross will be in charge??? Lord help us
@Patrick McGarry: sure doesn’t he think he’s the boss as it is? What difference is this going to make….
Good when there all out of the country someone revok there passports
@Peter Cooper: their
It will be an outrage if any Minister visited the states on St. Patrick’s day after Trump’s latest childish and racist comments, Irish Americans should be equally outraged at Trump’s behaviour, it’s Appalling.
@Joseph Dempsey: Is it also an outrage that we have a Minister going to China with it’s long history of civil rights abuses? It’s all very easy to huff and puff about Trump and his idiotic outbursts but in the real world we are very dependent on US trade and business’s in Ireland. I’d rather have a Minister having a word in Trumps ear rather than have them stamping their feet and throwing a useless tantrum at home that Trump wouldn’t even notice in the grand scheme of things.
@Brian Ward: as long as we are doing business with China then we should visit them.
When they go Do not let them back in unless they spend time in a detention centre until they prove their intentions are honorable They will be kept longer than the refugees.
Minister of State for the OPW Kevin Boxer Moran will travel to Kenya. Short man draws short straw.
@Gary Foster: No a Safari in Masi Mara would be great in March not too hot…Love a trip to Kenya…
Fantastic opportunity to promote the country and business with Ireland. Not many countries have that yearly invite with major players to influence!
Is there anybody left to run the country?
@Ian Heaton: Ross apparently……..
@Ian Heaton: Run the country? Stop for God’s sake man.
Surely there’s a mistake here – no one going to North Korea?
So none to Hell then???
Let them all go apart from taosaich . Our ( i was going to say elected) leader should be home for paddys day . Fly out paddys night in u.s for 18th
Trump should come to ireland and be in the show
Michael Healy Rae is heading for Mallow. He’s looking for a marsh
Who is going to kingsmill?
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