Tiraspol

Tiraspol Тираспол · Тирасполь
Municipality
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: "Be glorious, our city!"
46°50′25″N 29°38′36″E / 46.84028°N 29.64333°E / 46.84028; 29.64333
Country (de jure)	Moldova
Country (de facto)	Transnistria[a]
Government
• Head of the State Administration of Tiraspol	Oleg Dovgopol[1]
Area
• Total	55.56 km2 (21.45 sq mi)
Elevation	26 m (85 ft)
Population  (2015)
• Total	133,807
Area code	+ 373 533
Website	tirasadmin.gospmr.org

Tiraspol (Moldovan Cyrillic: Тираспол; Russian: Тирасполь, pronounced [tʲɪˈraspəlʲ])^[b] is the capital and largest city of Transnistria, a breakaway state of Moldova, where it is the third largest city. The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River. Tiraspol is a regional hub of light industry, such as furniture and electrical goods production.

The modern city of Tiraspol was founded by the Russian generalissimo Alexander Suvorov in 1792, although the area had been inhabited for thousands of years by varying ethnic groups.^[4] The city celebrates its anniversary every year on 14 October.^[5]

Etymology

The toponym consists of two ancient Greek words: Τύρας, Tyras, the Ancient name for the Dniester River, and polis, i.e., a city (state).^[6]

History

Classical history

Tyras (Τύρας), also spelled Tiras, was a colony of the Greek city Miletus, probably founded about 600 BCE, situated some 10 kilometres (6 miles) from the mouth of the Tiras River (Dniester). Of no great importance in early times, in the 2nd century BC it fell under the dominion of indigenous kings whose names appear on its coins. It was destroyed by the Thracian Getae about 50 BC.^{[citation needed]}

In 56 AD, the Romans restored the city and made it part of the colonial province of Lower Moesia.^{[citation needed]} A series of its coins exist that feature heads of Roman emperors from Domitian to Severus Alexander. Soon after the time of the latter, the city was destroyed again, this time by the invasion of the Goths. Its government was in the hands of five archons, a senate, a popular assembly and a registrar. The images on its coins from this period suggest a trade in wheat, wine and fish. The few inscriptions extant are mostly concerned with trade.^{[citation needed]}

Such ancient archeological remains are scanty, as the city site was built over by the great medieval fortress of Monocastro or Akkerman.^[7] During the Middle Ages, the area around Tiraspol was a buffer zone between the Tatars and the Moldavians, and inhabited by both ethnic groups.

Russian foundation

The Russian Empire conquered its way to the Dniester River, taking territory from the Ottoman Empire. In 1792 the Russian army built fortifications to guard the western border near a Moldavian village named Sucleia. Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov is considered the founder of modern Tiraspol; his statue is the city's most distinctive landmark.^[8] The city took its name from Tyras, the Greek name of the Dniester River on which it stands.

In 1828, the Russian government established a customs house in Tiraspol to try to suppress smuggling. The customs house was subordinated to the chief of the Odesa customs region. It began operations with 14 employees. They inspected shipments of bread, paper, oil, wine, sugar, fruits and other goods.

Soviet Tiraspol

After the Russian Revolution, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created in Ukraine in 1924, with Balta as its capital. The republic had Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian as its official languages. Its capital was moved in 1929 to Tiraspol, which remained the capital of the Moldavian ASSR until 1940.^[9]

In 1940, following the secret provisions of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR forced Romania to cede Bessarabia. It integrated Tiraspol, until then part of the Moldavian ASSR, into the newly formed Moldavian SSR. On 7 August 1941, following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the city was taken over by Romanian troops. Later that month, on 19 August, the Tiraspol Agreement establishing the Transnistria Governorate was signed. During the occupation, Tiraspol was under Romanian administration. During that period almost all of its Jewish population died: they were slain in situ or deported to German Nazi death camps, and killed there.

In 1941, before the occupation, the newspaper Dnestrovskaya Pravda was founded by the Tiraspol City Council of popular deputies. This is the oldest periodical publication in the region. On 12 April 1944, the city was retaken by the Red Army and became again part of the Moldavian SSR.

Post-independence

On 27 January 1990, the citizens in Tiraspol passed a referendum declaring the city as an independent territory.^{[citation needed]} The nearby city of Bendery also declared its independence from Moldova. As the Russian-speaking independence movement gained momentum, some local governments banded together to resist pressure from the Moldovan government for nationalization.^{[citation needed]}

On 2 September 1990, Tiraspol was proclaimed the capital of the new Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. The new republic was not officially recognized by Soviet authorities; however, it received support from some important Soviet leaders, such as Anatoly Lukyanov.^{[citation needed]} After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the territory east of the Dniester River declared independence as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), with Tiraspol as its capital. It was not recognized by the international community.^{[citation needed]}

On 1 July 2005, the Lucian Blaga Lyceum, a high school with Romanian as its language of instruction, was registered as a Transnistrian non-governmental establishment. The registration of six Romanian language schools has been the subject of negotiations with the government since 2000.^{[citation needed]} The tension increased in the summer of 2004, when the Transnistrian authorities forcibly closed the schools that taught using the Latin script. According to the official PMR view, this is considered as Romanian. "Moldovan", written in the Cyrillic script, is one of the three official languages in the PMR; Romanian is not. Some economic measures and counter-measures were taken on both banks of the Dniester.^{[citation needed]}

Tensions have been seen in terrorist incidents. On 6 July 2006, an explosion, believed to be caused by a bomb, killed at least eight people in a minibus.^[10] Later on 13 August, a grenade exploded in a trolleybus, killing two and injuring ten.^[11][12][13]

On 25 April 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, several explosions were reported near the Ministry of State Security (Transnistria) in Tiraspol. Firefighters were on the scene but there were no casualties.^[14]

On 17 March 2024, Transnistrian official press released a video allegedly^[15] showing a Mil Mi-8 helicopter in poor condition and likely not in use,^[16] not having been moved in over 13 years at the moment of the explosion,^[15] in a military unit in Tiraspol being attacked and destroyed by a kamikaze drone. No victims were reported.^[16] Transnistria claimed the drone had been launched from Ukraine from the direction of Odesa, more precisely from a bridge located 5–6 kilometres (3.1–3.7 miles) from the nearest border crossing between Transnistria and Ukraine. Ukraine immediately denied having anything to do with the incident.^[15] On the day of the incident, the Bureau for Reintegration of the Republic of Moldova called it an "attempt to provoke panic and fear in the region".^[16] Later, on 25 March, the bureau confirmed the explosion of the helicopter was not caused by a drone attack but by "other factors" and that the video contained "obvious elements of video montage". In the video, the drone disappears shortly before the explosion below the helicopter occurs. Reportedly, explosives placed under the helicopter were detonated remotely instead.^[15]

Geography and climate

Tiraspol features a humid continental climate that closely borders an oceanic climate and has transitional features of the humid subtropical climate due to its warm summers. Summers are mild, with average monthly temperatures at around 21 °C (70 °F) in July and August. Winters are cold, with average temperatures in the coldest month (January) at −2.7 °C (27 °F). Precipitation is relatively evenly spread throughout the year, though there is a noticeable increase in monthly precipitation in June and July. Tiraspol on average sees nearly 500 mm (20 in) of precipitation per year.

Demographics

Population

Historical population

Year	Pop.
1870	16,692
1926 (est.)	29,700
1939	43,676
2004	158,069
Source: [18][19][20]

The population of the city was about 190,000 in 1989 and about 203,000 in 1992. 41% were Russians, 32% Ukrainians (both Eastern Slavic) and 18% were Moldovans (Romanians).^{[citation needed]}

As result of the political and economic situation that followed the proclamation of the independent (unrecognized) Transnistria, as well as large Jewish emigration in the early 1990s, the population of the city fell below its 1989 number and the 2004 Transnistrian census put its population at 158,069.^[20]

Native language	Population	share of population
Russian	14,013	44.32%
Ukrainian	3,708	11.73%
Belarusian	119	0.38%
Polish	1,003	3.17%
Czech	1	0.003%
Bulgarian	56	0.18%
Lithuanian	7	0.02%
Latvian	7	0.02%
Romanian	3,611	11.42%
Yiddish	8,568	27.1%

In 1926, 29,700 people lived in the city of Tiraspol who were classified, by ethnicity, as follows:

Ethnic group	Population	% total share
Russian	16,276	54.8%
Hebrew	8,732	29.4%
Ukrainian	4,277	14.4%
Moldovan (români)	416	1.4%

According to the Soviet census of 1939, the city's population was 43,676 inhabitants, distributed as follows:^[19]

Ethnic group	Population	% Total share
Russian	14,785	33.85%
Ukrainian	12,504	28.63%
Hebrew	11,764	26.93%
Moldovan (Romanian)	3,480	7.97%

2004

Ethnic group	Population	% Total share
Russian	65,298	41.71%
Ukrainian	52,278	33.07%
Moldovan (Romanian)	23,790	15.05%
Bulgarian	2,450	1.55%
Gagauz	1,988	1.26%
Belarusian	1,712	1.08%
German	701	0.44%
Hebrew	573	0.36%
Armenian	360	0.23%
Polish	324	0.2%
Gypsy/Rromi/Romani	116	0.07%
Others	7,849	4.98%

Religion

The Latin Catholic minority was served by its own Roman Catholic Diocese of Tiraspol (originally called Cherson), which at times also covered part of neighbouring Romania and Russia, until its 2002 suppression and merger into the Russian Diocese of Saint Clement at Saratov.

Culture

The statue of Alexander Suvorov was erected in the central square in 1979 in commemoration of his 250th anniversary. In front of the Transnistrian Government building there is a statue of Vladimir Lenin. On the opposite side of the central square, a monument plaza features a Soviet T-34 tank, commemorating the Soviet victory in World War II, an eternal flame to those who fell defending the city in 1941 and liberating it in 1944, as well as several monuments dedicated to more recent conflicts, including the Soviet–Afghan War and the War of Transnistria.

Sport

The two main football clubs are Sheriff Tiraspol and FC Tiraspol. Sheriff is the most successful Moldovan football club of recent history, winning 14 league titles since the 2000–2001 season, and 6 Moldovan Cups. The team gained world notoriety for their last-minute 2–1 victory during the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League edition against later tournament winners Real Madrid on 28 September 2021. A third club, CS Tiligul-Tiras Tiraspol, withdrew from competition prior to the 2009–2010 season. Tiraspol is home to the Sheriff Stadium, the largest capacity stadium in the region, with a capacity of 14,300 seats.

International relations

Twin towns – sister cities

Notable people

• Nikolay Zelinsky (1861 in Tiraspol – 1953 in Moscow) Russian and Soviet chemist, academician of the Academy of Sciences, invented the first filtering activated charcoal gas mask
• Georgi Stamatov (1869 in Tiraspol – 1942 in Sofia) a Bulgarian writer.
• Mikhail Larionov (1881 in Tiraspol – 1964) an avant-garde Russian painter.
• Abraham Rabinovitch (1889 in Tiraspol – 1964 in New South Wales) an Australian-Russian property developer and pioneer of the Sydney Modern Orthodox Jewish community; emigrated to Australia in 1915
• Gheorghe Pintilie (born 1902 in Tiraspol – 1985) Soviet intelligence agent, Russian citizen and naturalised Romanian communist activist of Ukrainian origin, the first Director of the Securitate
• Izrail Shmurun (1912 in Tiraspol – 1985 in Chișinău) a Moldavian Soviet architect
• Larisa Eryomina (born 1950 in Tiraspol) stage and screen actress in Soviet films of the 1970s.
• Oxana Ionova (born 1966 in Tiraspol) head of the state tax service of Transnistria, director of Transnistria's central bank from 2008 to 2011; subsequently charged with embezzlement of Russian humanitarian aid, illegal business practices, abuse of power and forgery.
• Vlad Stashevsky (born 1974 in Tiraspol) a Russian pop singer.
• Berenika Glixman (born 1984 in Tiraspol) Israeli classical pianist
• Sergey Stepanov (born 1984 in Tiraspol) musician and composer from Transnistria, member of the SunStroke Project
• Valeria Lukyanova (born 1985 in Tiraspol) a Ukrainian model and entertainer, famous for her resemblance to a Barbie doll, lives in Moscow.

Politics

• Serhiy Kivalov (born 1954 in Tiraspol) Ukrainian politician, jurist, parliamentarian, head of Central Election Commission
• Vladimir Mikhailovich Belyaev (born 18 March 1965 in Tiraspol) the minister of information and telecommunications
• Maya Parnas (born 1974 in Tiraspol) politician and was the former acting Prime Minister of Transnistria
• Nina Shtanski (born 1977 in Tiraspol) former Transnistrian state politician, the Minister of Foreign Affairs 2012 to 2015
• Roman Khudyakov (born 1977 in Tiraspol) a Transnistrian-born Russian politician, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Transnistria
• Vladimir Yastrebchak (born 1979 in Tiraspol) the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Transnistria from 2008 to 2012.
• Olga Paterova (born in 1984 in Tiraspol) a politician, the press secretary for the political youth organization Breakthrough
• Yury Cheban, Transnistrian Minister of Natural Resources and Ecological Control

Sport

• Constantin Nour (1906 or 1907 in Tiraspol – 1986) a Romanian champion middleweight boxer and national team trainer
• Larisa Popova (born 1957 in Tiraspol) Moldovan rower who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1976 Summer Olympics
• Igor Samoilenco (born 1977 in Tiraspol) retired male boxer from Moldova
• Andrei Mihailov (born 1980 in Tiraspol) former backstroke swimmer, competed in the 2000 and the 2004 Summer Olympics
• Andrei Corneencov (born 1982 in Tiraspol) former Moldovan international footballer.
• Stanislau Tsivonchyk (born 1985 in Tiraspol) a Belarusian pole vaulter, competed in the pole vault at the 2012 Summer Olympics
• Vitalie Bulat (born 1987 in Tiraspol) Moldovan footballer
• Oleksandr Kolchenko (born 1988 in Tiraspol) a Ukrainian basketball player for Cherkaski Mavpy and the Ukraine national team
• Dănilă Artiomov (born 1994 in Tiraspol) a Moldovan breaststroke swimmer
• Artur Dalaloyan (born 1996 in Tiraspol) a Russian artistic gymnast of Armenian origin

Gallery

• 
  Sign at the entrance to Tiraspol
• 
  The statue of Alexander Suvorov at Suvorov Square
• 
  A street in central Tiraspol
• 
  The Victory Park
• 
  The Dnestr river passing through Tiraspol
• 
  The statue of Lenin in front of the parliament building
• 
  Street scene in Tiraspol
• 
  The House of Soviets
• 
  Young man on a Soviet-era tank in Tiraspol
• 
  Tiraspol
• 
  War memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
• 
  Part of the Tiraspol city centre
• 
  View along the Dniester river in Tiraspol

Notes

References

Further reading

• Tiraspol (p. 422) at Miriam Weiner's Routes to Roots Foundation

External links

Non-Transnistrian links

• Tiraspol, Moldova at JewishGen
• Tyraspol (Tiraspol) in the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland (1892)(in Polish)

Transnistrian links

• Tiraspol.info (in Russian)