The dispute between Moldova and its breakaway Transdniester region appears to be entering a new, more critical, phase

The dispute between Moldova and its breakaway Transdniester region appears to be entering a new, more critical, phase. As the boat chugs up the Dniester River, water birds dabble in the current. The powerful river cuts between rolling green hills and towering trees, which shelter this picturesque but remote landscape. The riverbank villages of Molovata, in the separatist enclave of Transdniester, a mainly Russian-speaking region in the east of Moldova, appear as isolated from modern urban civilisation as they must have been a century ago. For all its beauty, the land here yields little food. There is just enough to keep the local peasant farmers in their tiny cottages from the door of starvation. Most people in Transdniester - as in Moldova proper - share a similar fate. Average monthly incomes in this, Europe’s poorest state Transdniester, are worth less than 30 US dollars and new jobs are few. Early this month, the pro-Russian authorities in Transdniester cut supplies of electricity and water to Moldovan towns and villages on the left bank of the Dniester. The Molovata recreation camp, though it lies inside Transdniester, lost its power through the same action. The incident followed an earlier decision of the authorities in Tiraspol, capital of the breakaway republic, to close six schools that were teaching in Moldovan, saying they had not registered with the Transdniester education ministry. Moldovan is almost identical to Romanian. The only historic difference was that during several decades of Soviet rule in Moldova, people were forced to use the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, as opposed to the Latin script. Now, Moldova has restored Latin letters, but Cyrillic remains in use as the official script for Moldovan in the largely Russian-speaking Transdniester region, except in a few rebel schools, mainly sited in ethnic Moldovan areas, where parents expect their children to go on to study in Moldova, or Romania. The attacks on the schools sparked outrage in Moldova, infuriating even the communist-led government, which is usually careful not to upset Moscow.