Hey everyone! I’m excited to introduce a new Moldova Matters product that I’ve been working on for a while now. If you follow Moldova Matters each week you should have a pretty good idea of what’s going on and who the main players are. But, if you’re new to town or just want to refresh on “why such and such is the way it is again?” then this is for you.
I’m calling it “Moldova 101” and the premise is pretty simple. On this new page (which you can find from the moldovamatters.md website menu bar or in the footer of this email) you’ll find a set of background explainers, reference pieces and other helpful bits of context about Moldova.
This isn’t my very own wikipedia or some such. It’s a curated set of articles I’ve written, some brand-new for Moldova 101 and some ranging back 4+ years. The best way to understand it is to check it out - but come back to this email after you do because there’s a bit more to discuss.
Moldova 101
This page is a curated set of background explainers, reference pieces, and contextual articles designed to help readers quickly get oriented on Moldovan politics, institutions, history, and society.
Ok - so if you just took at look you saw that I structured the page into some big picture sections - “Understanding the Moldovan System,” “Who’s Who in Government and Politics?” “Transnistria” etc. Doing this helped me see where there are some gaps and where a few other explainers should live. I put them into the Moldova 101 page as “Future Additions” but I’d like you to help me prioritize them.
My hope is to get to all of these articles eventually, but for now I’d like to do a poll and see what’s most in demand. Here are the offerings:
The Substack polls function truncates the options - so to be clear - “5 Biggest Political Moments in MD” refers to the biggest political moments shaping the country today (theft of the billion, April 2009, fall of Plahotniuc, etc). Language in Moldova refers to an overview of the country’s language and ethnography. The others should be self explanatory.
My plan is to add articles like this - ones that live outside of the news cycle and provide a certain evergreen value - to Moldova 101 over time.
As always, let me know what you think! If you have other suggestions leave them in the comments or just reply to this email.
I’ve just voted but I hope in time you will manage to do all 5!
All five would be very useful. I was very grateful especially for your podcast episodes on recent Moldovan history which I listened to thoroughly right before a trip to Moldova in 2024. There's no other English language product like what you're doing, and I and many others are grateful!