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Classical and medieval history Tyras (), also spelled
Tiras, was a
colony of the Greek city
Miletus, probably founded about 600 BC, situated some from the mouth of the Tiras River (Dniester). Of no great importance in early times, in the second 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. In 56 AD, the
Romans restored the city and made it part of the
colonial province of
Lower Moesia. 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. Such ancient
archeological remains are scanty, as the city site was built over by
the great medieval fortress of Monocastro or
Akkerman. In the
Late Middle Ages, the area around of modern Tiraspol became part of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Lithuanians, unable to settle their vast state on their own, allowed
Moldavian settlement in the area.
Tsarist Russian rule 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. The city took its name from
Tyras, the
Greek name of the Dniester River on which it stands. It was granted city rights in 1795. 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. In December 1917, Tiraspol hosted a congress of Transnistrian Moldovans, at which they wished to unite the city with
Bessarabia.
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. 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. monument 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. According to a 1991 figure by Moldova's
Ministry of National Security (now the Security and Intelligence Service, SIS), of the 5,485 people who were sentenced to death in the territory of modern Moldova during totalitarian communist rule, over 4,000 of them were executed in Tiraspol, in the , in 1937 and 1938 alone, during the
Great Purge.
Post-secession On 27 January 1990, the citizens in Tiraspol passed a
referendum declaring the city as an
independent territory. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Later on
13 August, a grenade exploded in a
trolleybus, killing two and injuring ten. 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. On 17 March 2024, Transnistrian official press released a video allegedly showing a
Mil Mi-8 helicopter in poor condition and likely not in use, not having been moved in over 13 years at the moment of the explosion, ==Geography and climate==