A land with sad story.

First created by Romanian knights which came from Maramures and settled around the Moldova river. It grew in a few centuries by uniting all territories inhabitted by Romanian speakers between Pocutia & the Black Sea, between the Carpathians and the Nistru river (and further). It survived the Hungarian attachs from the West, Polish from the North, Tartars from the East and Turks from the South - quite bravely for hundreds of years.

Their greatest King was Stephen III of Moldavia (or Stephen the Great), good friend of Vlad III Dracula, the ruler of the sister land Wallachia.

The downfall of Moldavia started with the Austrian occupation of the northern part (Bukovina) in 1774. The '75 Austrian census showed 90% Romanians, 5% Polish and 5% Ruthenians & Hutsuls. As part of their "divide et impera" strategy, the Austirans encouraged a high influx of immigrants from Galicia: Germans, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, but mainly Ukrainians - which in 100 years managed to outnumber the Romanians. And later on they became Stalin's argument of occupying most of Bukovina. With most of the Romanians deported by him to Siberia or forcely assimilated, today they are barely a minority in a part of Ukraine where only 200 years ago lived only Romanians.

The second dark chapter of the downfall of Moldova was the Russian occupation in 1812 of the Eastern Moldova, named Bassarabia. Upon the occupation, Romanians were the vast majority in this area also. The Russian C...