The Prose of Time

This short documentary was made by a local NGO in Moldova. It's very interesting (but sad) and highlights one of the major problems of life here in Moldova. If you have the 10 minutes to watch it, I highly reccomend it

Round Two (ding ding)

School has started, and I'm doing great.

The second year seems like it's shaping up to be so much more productive than the first. Looking back, last year was all about getting my feet wet, acclimatizing and getting to know people.

One of my partner teachers quit this summer (not my fault, I swear), to hopefully move to the U.S. as a Russian teacher and now I am partner teaching with a new woman. She had been on maternity leave for the last few years, and now she is back.

The first few weeks were a little rough, as the whole peace corps thing happened while she was away and she wasn't to keen on the whole idea of having to share a class with another teacher.

Once she got used to the idea that I wasn't taking money from her and saw how differently the kids respond to me than to her, I think she started warming up to the idea.

I am still working with my other partner, who is great. She is really liking working with me and very supportive of trying new and unconventional ways of getting kids to speak in the class room.

Now that it's officially my last year, I am starting to feel bad that I will soon have to pick up and go. For example one of my tenth-form students (the grade who started at the school the same time as me) brought it home to me today when she ask why I was leaving a year before graduating. She said it wasn't fair for them to start with one teacher and end with another one (especially the year that they prepare for the Baccalaureate).

I didn't know what to say. I mean, I have definitely considered staying around another year, but never seriously. But the more I think of it the more I find good reasons. For example, just seeing the difference in how effective I am as a volunteer this year as opposed to this time last year (or even last spring) gives me a whole new set of ambitions. I can't imagine how much I could accomplish if I had another year. I don't know though. I miss home a lot, and I am still itching to get back to a news desk.

Any advice would be appreciated.

(stay tuned for photos)

Moldova deadlocked over new president

Moldova faces a new general election after the parliament failed to elect a president for the second time.

Opposition parties again boycotted the vote, leaving the ruling Communists one vote short of electing their candidate, Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii.

Ms Greceanii received 60 votes, one below the three-fifths majority needed.

The opposition has been demanding a re-run of April's election, claiming they were rigged. At least two people died in violent protests following the poll.

Under Moldova's constitution, the second election failure means parliament must be dissolved and new elections called, although there is flexibility in the timing.

Continue reading from the BBC

Voronin elected Moldova's speaker

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has been elected as speaker of parliament.

Mr Voronin, of the ruling Communist Party, is due to step down as president as he has served the maximum two terms.

He called for reconciliation with opposition parties, after bitter divisions over the recent parliamentary election erupted into street violence.

But his election was opposed by all 41 opposition deputies. They have vowed to block the selection of a new president, and so force a new general election.

(Continue reading at the BBC)

Moldova's violet in a sea of blue

A map showing world drinking habits. See that dark blue dot in Eastern Europe? That's Moldova. I knew that the country likes it's wine, but I had no idea it rated this high on the WHO's list

Mayor of Chisinau speaks at Harvard

The mayor of Chisinau, Dorin Chirtoaca gives a lecture at Harvard about the current situation in Moldova. Very interesting lecture in eight parts. I want to hear what anyone watching this thinks.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


Part 7


Part 8

The news media

In response to requests for a breakdown of the Moldovan media scene, I've put together a small primer on the country's journalistic landscape. Keep in mind that that I do not speak both languages and thus cannot equally rate about half of Moldova's media.

To start with, newspapers and media outlets in Moldova aren't like they are in the U.S. The whole system is much different. Instead of corporations or individuals owning newspapers or newspaper chains, most newspapers are put out by political parties. (For this reason, the Moldovan newspaper industry is not facing the same crisis as that in the U.S.) The revenue model here is much different, and since Moldovan newspapers are not ad/classified-based, the only people who can afford to run print copies are political parties.

There are independent newspapers in towns, but overall, the system is set up to report from particular view points and people buy the papers that identify with their political/cultural leanings.

Unfortunately newspapers don't play the same cultural significance as they do in the U.S. There's no Woodward or Bernstein here, nor is there the same emphasis on investigative journalism. Part of that is cultural, but it's also a lack of funds to support that kind of product.

I would guess that the vast majority of the population gets their news from TV and radio. As such, there's not really much in the way of a single national paper in the way that we have USA TODAY or the NYT. Although people all over will occasionally read one of the many Chisinau papers. The country is about the size of Maryland, so a paper from Chisinau is still fairly relevant even in a far away village.

Here are some of the main newspapers:
Flux
Komsomolskaya Pravda
Nezavisimaya Moldova
Timpul - my personal favorite, although I

As for Chisinau, some of the main ones are:
Jurnal

There are a few independent newspapers such as the Ziarul de Garda which do a great job under their circumstance, but most of the good independent reporting is being done online by places like:
Moldova Azi
Info-prim
Basa Press
Infotag

The best news independent news source, and one that did a great job with the election and the aftermath was JurnalTV . Think they got a huge bump in popular support with a lot of their investigative pieces about the protests and the government's reaction. If there were one media outlet who best embodies the ideals of investigative journalism, this would be a top candidate.

As for TV, I wouldn't really know. I don't ever watch it. I know that there are some Western-centric stations as well as several Russian ones. About one quarter of the TV stations are basically rebroadcast from Romania or a similar Moldovan version (PROTV, TVR1) and another 30 percent are rebroadcasts or from Russia or a similar Moldovan version (Prime, TV7). There are fewer independent stations, but there are some (Moldova1). As to slants and biases, I can only guess, but I would venture to say that the channels broadcast in Romanian are the more western-looking.

The political influences on Moldovan media is complicated, but I would say it's fair to generalize that Russian-language outlets tend to align with Moscow while Romanian outlets tend to look toward Bucharest or Brussels. The covering of the election and the following protests varied widely from outlet to outlet. Russian papers tended to paint it as gangs of thugs and vandals in the beginning and foreign provocation in days following. Romanain papers tended to focus more on claims of election problems and missing protesters who were taken by police.

The idea of a color revolution was pretty much a foreign concept for everyone here (as was the whole Twitter thing). Possibly this is because the protests never got far enough along, or that no one was really expecting any big change from the election.

Any thing I missed, please write a question or comment

Let's make it in Moldova

BBC is currently running this ad to promote business in Moldvoa. This is exactly what the country needs.


Although, I don't know why they were showing a night club when they were talking about financial incentives.

Correction: I meant to say this ad is running on BBC, I don't think they made it.

More Moldova articles

It seems like all I've been posting lately are articles about Moldova. Sorry about that.

today's article comes by way of a friend and devoted reader of the diarist's blog. It's a really good description of the different tensions pulling on Moldova. I'd love to hear what you think of it and if you have any questions that you'd want to know about what's going on here.

As East and West Pull on Moldova, Loyalties and Divisions Run Deep

By ELLEN BARRY

Published: April 14, 2009

CHISINAU, Moldova — If the residents of Chisinau ever forget that they live on a fault line, they can count on Christmas to remind them.

For two years running, the city’s 30-year-old, Romanian-educated mayor, Dorin Chirtoaca, has erected a Christmas tree in time for Dec. 25, when the holiday is celebrated in Romania and Western Europe.

And both times, the 67-year-old, Soviet-educated president, Vladimir Voronin, has ordered it removed, because Moldova officially celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7, in keeping with the Russian Orthodox calendar. The dispute has taken on a loopy, Keystone Kops character, with reports of fir trees detained by the police in the forest or “abducted during the night by unknown persons.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/world/europe/15moldova.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

A Moldova Documentary

Because of the recent events, the film makers of an interesting documentary on Moldova have decided to release it on the internet for free. I highly reccomend taking an hour to watch it. It was made by a couple of returned Peace Corps volunteers from Moldova.

You can find it at the following site:

http://calamoldova.com/