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161-550: The word " bălți " (pl. of Romanian sing. " baltă ") in direct translation means "puddle". It is believed that the city had been named thus because it was founded on a hill dominating the wetland formed where the creek Răuțel ("Little Răut") falls into the river Răut. In addition to the official name Bălți and the Russian name Бельцы ( Beltsy ), between 1940 and 1989 in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet , and after 1989 in Russian,

322-651: A renewed federation , an attempted coup against Gorbachev by hardline communists prompted the largest republics—Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus—to secede. On December 26, Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union . Boris Yeltsin , the leader of the RSFSR, oversaw its reconstitution into the Russian Federation , which became the Soviet Union's successor state; all other republics emerged as fully independent post-Soviet states . During its existence,

483-609: A "regional language" alongside Ukrainian as per the 2012 legislation on languages in Ukraine . Romanian is an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations, such as the Latin Union and the European Union . Romanian is also one of the five languages in which religious services are performed in the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos , spoken in the monastic communities of Prodromos and Lakkoskiti . In

644-580: A closer relationship with France and Britain. In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement , the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain. Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in

805-719: A foreign language, for example the Nicolae Bălcescu High-school in Gyula , Hungary. Romanian is taught as a foreign language in tertiary institutions, mostly in European countries such as Germany, France and Italy, and the Netherlands, as well as in the United States. Overall, it is taught as a foreign language in 43 countries around the world. Romanian has become popular in other countries through movies and songs performed in

966-511: A language that had a similar role to Medieval Latin in Western Europe. The oldest dated text in Romanian is a letter written in 1521 with Cyrillic letters , and until late 18th century, including during the development of printing, the same alphabet was used. The period after 1780, starting with the writing of its first grammar books, represents the modern age of the language, during which time

1127-517: A name that was extended to the literature and writers around this time such as Vasile Alecsandri , Grigore Alexandrescu , Nicolae Bălcescu , Timotei Cipariu . Between 1830 and 1860 "transitional alphabets" were used, adding Latin letters to the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet . The Latin alphabet became official at different dates in Wallachia and Transylvania - 1860, and Moldova -1862. Following

1288-592: A new profitable market. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Marxist-Leninist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-Marxist political parties, labour unions or other organizations on the left, which they labelled social fascists . In the usage of the Soviet Union, and of the Comintern and its affiliated parties in this period, the epithet fascist was used to describe capitalist society in general and virtually any anti-Soviet or anti-Stalinist activity or opinion. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with

1449-647: A result of the last regional elections of local public administration held in June 2007, the Communist Party (PCRM) holds 21 mandates, 11 mandates are held by representatives of other parties, and 3 mandates by independents. There are two factions in the Municipal Council: the PCRM faction (21 members) and "Meleag" (Romanian for "Native land") faction (3 independents and 4 representatives of different parties). The Mayor of

1610-572: A significant share of the local population (districts in Chernivtsi , Odesa and Zakarpattia oblasts ) Romanian is taught in schools as a primary language and there are Romanian-language newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting. The University of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine trains teachers for Romanian schools in the fields of Romanian philology, mathematics and physics. In Hertsa Raion of Ukraine as well as in other villages of Chernivtsi Oblast and Zakarpattia Oblast , Romanian has been declared

1771-469: A union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians . The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as 'Russia'. While the Russian SFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, and most highly developed. The Russian SFSR

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1932-496: Is Neacșu's letter (1521) and was written using the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet , which was used until the late 19th century. The letter is the oldest testimony of Romanian epistolary style and uses a prevalent lexis of Latin origin. However, dating by watermarks has shown the Hurmuzaki Psalter is a copy from around the turn of the 16th century. The slow process of Romanian establishing itself as an official language, used in

2093-491: Is a source of civil society development both locally and nationwide. Bălți is home to numerous independent and apolitical organisations such as Second Breath , one of the Moldovan NGOs for care of socially vulnerable persons, Tinerii pentru Dreptul la Viață ("Youth for the right to live"), a youth organisation . Historically Bălți was known for producing tobacco . They also had many vineyards and orchards . Most of

2254-424: Is also spoken within communities of Romanian and Moldovan immigrants in the United States, Canada and Australia, although they do not make up a large homogeneous community statewide. Many are Moldavians who were deported Data only for the districts on the right bank of Dniester (without Transnistria and the city of Tighina). In Moldova, it is sometimes referred to as the " Moldovan language " In Transnistria, it

2415-477: Is distinguished by the activity of Romanian literature classics in its early decades: Mihai Eminescu , Ion Luca Caragiale , Ion Creangă , Ioan Slavici . The current orthography, with minor reforms to this day and using Latin letters, was fully implemented in 1881, regulated by the Romanian Academy on a fundamentally phonological principle, with few morpho-syntactic exceptions. The first Romanian grammar

2576-570: Is his background, his education , his profession . These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror ." During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , or by

2737-486: Is mined, all forests have been destroyed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During the 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned nuclear submarines , and the processing of nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel . It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to

2898-786: Is occupied by the medical facilities district. Bălții Noi neighborhood is situated in the valley of the Răuțel creek. A Soroca neighborhood, 10th district, 9th district, the area of the former Bălți concentration camp, and the Bălți City Airport are situated in the valley of the Răut river. The names of city neighborhoods reflect different historic influences, such as names of 19th century suburbs that are nowadays within city limits: Pământeni , Slobozia , Molodova , Podul Chișinăului , Bălții Noi ; others are known by their Soviet -era names: 6th district , 8th district , 9th district . A neighbourhood in

3059-593: Is official only in the villages of Vojvodinci ( Voivodinț ), Markovac ( Marcovăț ), Straža ( Straja ), Mali Žam ( Jamu Mic ), Malo Središte ( Srediștea Mică ), Mesić ( Mesici ), Jablanka ( Iablanca ), Sočica ( Sălcița ), Ritiševo ( Râtișor ), Orešac ( Oreșaț ) and Kuštilj ( Coștei ). In the 2002 Census, the last carried out in Serbia, 1.5% of Vojvodinians stated Romanian as their native language. The Vlachs of Serbia are considered to speak Romanian as well. In parts of Ukraine where Romanians constitute

3220-580: Is officially called " Moldovan language " and is written in Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet . Officially divided into Vlachs and Romanians Most in Northern Bukovina and Southern Bessarabia; according to a Moldova Noastră study (based on the latest Ukrainian census). According to the Constitution of Romania of 1991, as revised in 2003, Romanian is the official language of the Republic. Romania mandates

3381-465: Is the centre for manufacturing of agricultural machinery , of various construction materials, fur, textile, chemical and furniture industries. A mammoth Soviet-type conglomerate 8,000-worker factory (called "Lenin" before 1989 and "Răut" afterwards) produced a large variety of machine building products for consumer or industry use, from irons and telephone sets to sonar equipment for Soviet military submarines . However, due to swift changes in

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3542-499: The Age of Enlightenment , in particular French . This lexical permeability is continuing today with the introduction of English words. Yet while the overall lexis was enriched with foreign words and internal constructs, in accordance with the history and development of the society and the diversification in semantic fields, the fundamental lexicon—the core vocabulary used in everyday conversation—remains governed by inherited elements from

3703-628: The Barents Sea and Kara Sea , which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in the west further raised concerns. In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19 , K-8 , a K-129 , K-27 , K-219 and K-278 Komsomolets . There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of

3864-544: The Cannes Film Festival ). Also some artists wrote songs dedicated to the Romanian language. The multi-platinum pop trio O-Zone (originally from Moldova) released a song called "Nu mă las de limba noastră" ("I won't forsake our language"). The final verse of this song, "Eu nu mă las de limba noastră, de limba noastră cea română" , is translated in English as "I won't forsake our language, our Romanian language". Also,

4025-573: The Communists has seen a steady decline in the last three elections. The 1st Motorized Infantry Brigade "Moldova" of the Moldovan Land Forces Command (out of a total of 6 brigades – three infantry, one artillery, one airborne and one anti-aircraft) is located in Bălți. A unit of Soviet Tochka-M short-range rockets, each carrying 500 kg (1,102 lb) of conventional explosive ,

4186-661: The Era of Stagnation , was marked by economic decline, political corruption, and a rigid gerontocracy . Despite efforts to maintain the Soviet Union's superpower status, the economy struggled due to its centralized nature, technological backwardness, and inefficiencies. The vast military expenditures and burdens of maintaining the Eastern Bloc, further strained the Soviet economy. In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev 's policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) aimed to revitalize

4347-548: The Georgian Affair of 1922, Lenin called for the Russian SFSR and other national Soviet republics to form a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии , romanized : Soyuz Sovyetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii ). Joseph Stalin initially resisted Lenin's proposal but ultimately accepted it, and with Lenin's agreement he changed

4508-729: The Land Forces , the Air Force , the Navy , Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and the Internal Troops . The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD secret police, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in

4669-604: The Latin spoken in the Roman provinces bordering Danube , without which no coherent sentence can be made. Romanian descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in the Roman provinces of Southeastern Europe north of the Jireček Line (a hypothetical boundary between the dominance of Latin and Greek influences). Most scholars agree that two major dialects developed from Common Romanian by

4830-636: The Latin alphabet became official, the literary language was standardized, and a large number of words from Modern Latin and other Romance languages entered the lexis. In the process of language evolution from fewer than 2500 attested words from Late Antiquity to a lexicon of over 150,000 words in its contemporary form, Romanian showed a high degree of lexical permeability, reflecting contact with Thraco-Dacian , Slavic languages (including Old Slavic , Serbian , Bulgarian , Ukrainian , and Russian ), Greek , Hungarian , German , Turkish , and to languages that served as cultural models during and after

4991-518: The Moscow State Institute of International Relations . The Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and changed directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions. During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it

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5152-761: The Popular Front program that called on all Marxist parties to join with all anti-Fascist political, labour, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism , especially of the Nazi variety. The rapid growth of power in Nazi Germany encouraged both Paris and Moscow to form a military alliance, and the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in May 1935. A firm believer in collective security, Stalin's foreign minister Maxim Litvinov worked very hard to form

5313-564: The Procurator General and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars ), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society. State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike

5474-459: The Romanian Academy . The third phase of the modern age of Romanian language, starting from 1880 and continuing to this day, is characterized by the prevalence of the supradialectal form of the language, standardized with the express contribution of the school system and Romanian Academy, bringing a close to the process of literary language modernization and development of literary styles. It

5635-537: The Russian Civil War , the Soviet Union quickly became a one-party state under the Communist Party . Its early years under Lenin were marked by the implementation of socialist policies and the New Economic Policy (NEP), which allowed for market-oriented reforms. The rise of Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s ushered in an era of intense centralization and totalitarianism. Stalin's rule was characterized by

5796-622: The Russian Empire , the State Council , which functioned from 1810 to 1917, was referred to as a Council of Ministers. The Soviets as workers' councils first appeared during the 1905 Russian Revolution . Although they were quickly suppressed by the Imperial army, after the February Revolution of 1917 , workers' and soldiers' Soviets emerged throughout the country and shared power with

5957-802: The Russian Provisional Government . The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin , demanded that all power be transferred to the Soviets, and gained support from the workers and soldiers. After the October Revolution , in which the Bolsheviks seized power from the Provisional Government in the name of the Soviets, Lenin proclaimed the formation of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic (RSFSR). During

6118-532: The Slavic languages and subsequently divided into Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , Istro-Romanian , and Daco-Romanian. Due to limited attestation between the 6th and 16th century, entire stages from its history are re-constructed by researchers, often with proposed relative chronologies and loose limits. From the 12th or 13th century, official documents and religious texts were written in Old Church Slavonic ,

6279-616: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), saying that it was "overly juridical" and potentially infringed on national sovereignty. The Soviet Union later signed legally-binding human rights documents, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973 (and the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ), but they were neither widely known or accessible to people living under Communist rule, nor were they taken seriously by

6440-624: The Western Bloc during the Cold War . This period saw the USSR engage in an arms race, the Space Race , and proxy wars around the globe. The post-Stalin leadership, particularly under Nikita Khrushchev , initiated a de-Stalinization process, leading to a period of liberalization and relative openness known as the Khrushchev Thaw . However, the subsequent era under Leonid Brezhnev , referred to as

6601-574: The Western Romance languages in the course of the period from the 5th to the 8th centuries. To distinguish it within the Eastern Romance languages, in comparative linguistics it is called Daco-Romanian as opposed to its closest relatives, Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . It is also spoken as a minority language by stable communities in the countries surrounding Romania ( Bulgaria , Hungary , Serbia and Ukraine ), and by

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6762-455: The first probe to land on another planet . In 1985, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev , sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika . In 1989, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Soviet-backed regimes , and nationalist and separatist movements erupted across the Soviet Union. In 1991, amid efforts to preserve the country as

6923-554: The general secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union. Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in

7084-485: The right to food , the right to work , and the right to education . The Soviet conception of human rights was very different from international law . According to Soviet legal theory , "it is the government who is the beneficiary of human rights which are to be asserted against the individual". The Soviet state was considered as the source of human rights. Therefore, the Soviet legal system considered law an arm of politics and it also considered courts agencies of

7245-413: The system of appointments . All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership, but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied

7406-433: The third-most populous country . An overall successor to the Russian Empire , it was nominally organized as a federal union of national republics , the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR . In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized . As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , it was a flagship communist state . Its capital and largest city

7567-420: The toga . In the Middle Ages , the archer was featured on the coats of arms of the region. In the 19th century, the city and district coats of arms also featured a horse head. In the early 20th century, a shield representing an archer, standing on a hill, the sun, and three bullrush sticks (elements quite sufficient to identify the place where Bălți is situated in the landscape of the north of Moldova) formed

7728-435: The unification of Moldavia and Wallachia further studies on the language were made, culminating with the founding of Societatea Literară Română on 1 April 1866 on the initiative of C. A. Rosetti , an academic society that had the purpose of standardizing the orthography, formalizing the grammar and (via a dictionary) vocabulary of the language, and promoting literary and scientific publications. This institution later became

7889-459: The "as-well-as" thesis that supports the language development on both sides of the Danube. Between the 6th and 8th century, following the accumulated tendencies inherited from the vernacular spoken in this large area and, to a much smaller degree, the influences from native dialects , and in the context of a lessened power of the Roman central authority the language evolved into Common Romanian . This proto-language then came into close contact with

8050-434: The "liberty to teach in the mother language (Romanian language)". At the same time, Romanian-language newspapers and journals began to appear, such as Basarabia (1906), Viața Basarabiei (1907), Moldovanul (1907), Luminătorul (1908), Cuvînt moldovenesc (1913), Glasul Basarabiei (1913). From 1913, the synod permitted that "the churches in Bessarabia use the Romanian language". Romanian finally became

8211-399: The 10th century. Daco-Romanian (the official language of Romania and Moldova) and Istro-Romanian (a language spoken by no more than 2,000 people in Istria ) descended from the northern dialect. Two other languages, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian , developed from the southern version of Common Romanian. These two languages are now spoken in lands to the south of the Jireček Line . Of

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8372-481: The 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers. In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union , concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government, now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR , to himself. Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling

8533-417: The Assembly, the Executive Council and the provincial administrative bodies. The Romanian language and script are officially used in eight municipalities: Alibunar , Bela Crkva ( Biserica Albă ), Žitište ( Sângeorgiu de Bega ), Zrenjanin ( Becicherecu Mare ), Kovačica ( Covăcița ), Kovin ( Cuvin ), Plandište ( Plandiște ) and Sečanj ( Seceani ). In the municipality of Vršac ( Vârșeț ), Romanian

8694-411: The Communist authorities. Under Joseph Stalin , the death penalty was extended to adolescents as young as 12 years old in 1935. Sergei Kovalev recalled "the famous article 125 of the Constitution which enumerated all basic civil and political rights" in the Soviet Union. But when he and other prisoners attempted to use this as a legal basis for their abuse complaints, their prosecutor's argument

8855-420: The Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941). They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism , demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above. The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over

9016-413: The Cyrillic script, and the Latin script as stipulated by the law, the Croat , Hungarian , Slovak , Romanian and Rusyn languages and their scripts, as well as languages and scripts of other nationalities, shall simultaneously be officially used in the work of the bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, in the manner established by the law. The bodies of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina are:

9177-617: The German Metro Group AG , Ukrainian Fourchette and Moldovan Fidesco . Numerous shops, can be found in the central (retail), eastern (en gros) and northern (retail) parts of the city. The biggest shopping galleries are located in the centre and in the Dacia district (north) of the city. Souvenir boutiques are mostly found around the central square Vasile Alecsandri. The central market is open from early morning. A variety of small private stores and supermarkets are available. There are also six public-owned and four private-owned markets. More recently several supermarket chains have opened stores in

9338-403: The Latin alphabet: SSSR ) is the abbreviation of the Russian-language cognate of USSR, as written in Cyrillic letters . The Soviets used this abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. After this, the most common Russian initialization is Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR ) which essentially translates to Union of SSRs in English. In addition,

9499-401: The Moldovan autonomies of Gagauzia and Transnistria . Romanian is also an official language of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia along with five other languages. Romanian minorities are encountered in Serbia ( Timok Valley ), Ukraine ( Chernivtsi and Odesa oblasts ), and Hungary ( Gyula ). Large immigrant communities are found in Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal. In 1995,

9660-449: The Moldovan musicians Doina and Ion Aldea Teodorovici performed a song called "The Romanian language". Romanian is also called Daco-Romanian in comparative linguistics to distinguish from the other dialects of Common Romanian : Aromanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Istro-Romanian . The origin of the term "Daco-Romanian" can be traced back to the first printed book of Romanian grammar in 1780, by Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai . There,

9821-481: The Politburo after the deaths of Lenin and Stalin, as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal, itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee. All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party. Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from

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9982-440: The Romanian dialect spoken north of the Danube is called lingua Daco-Romana to emphasize its origin and its area of use, which includes the former Roman province of Dacia , although it is spoken also south of the Danube, in Dobruja , the Timok Valley and northern Bulgaria. This article deals with the Romanian (i.e. Daco-Romanian) language, and thus only its dialectal variations are discussed here. The differences between

10143-724: The Romanian language. Examples of Romanian acts that had a great success in non-Romanophone countries are the bands O-Zone (with their No. 1 single Dragostea Din Tei , also known as Numa Numa , across the world in 2003–2004), Akcent (popular in the Netherlands, Poland and other European countries), Activ (successful in some Eastern European countries), DJ Project (popular as clubbing music) SunStroke Project (known by viral video " Epic Sax Guy ") and Alexandra Stan (worldwide no.1 hit with " Mr. Saxobeat ") and Inna as well as high-rated movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days , The Death of Mr. Lazarescu , 12:08 East of Bucharest or California Dreamin' (all of them with awards at

10304-426: The Romanian neuter became a mixture of masculine and feminine. The verb morphology of Romanian has shown the same move towards a compound perfect and future tense as the other Romance languages. Compared with the other Romance languages , during its evolution, Romanian simplified the original Latin tense system. Romanian is spoken mostly in Central , South-Eastern , and Eastern Europe , although speakers of

10465-399: The Russian short form name Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovyetsky Soyuz , which literally means Soviet Union ) is also commonly used, but only in its unabbreviated form. Since the start of the Great Patriotic War at the latest, abbreviating the Russian name of the Soviet Union as СС has been taboo, the reason being that СС as a Russian Cyrillic abbreviation is associated with

10626-450: The Soviet Union and turned into SSRs, which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation . After the Soviet invasion of Finland , the Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed on annexed territory as a Union Republic in March 1940 and then incorporated into Russia as the Karelian ASSR in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below). While nominally

10787-500: The Soviet Union in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power, inaugurating rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth but contributed to a famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed millions. The Soviet forced labour camp system of the Gulag was expanded. During the late 1930s, Stalin's government conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents, resulting in mass death, imprisonment, and deportation. In 1939,

10948-425: The Soviet Union , the government represented by the Council of Ministers , and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the final policymaker in the country. At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee , elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952 and 1966), Secretariat and

11109-452: The Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations . It had the world's second-largest economy and largest standing military. An NPT-designated state , it wielded the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world . As an Allied nation, it was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council . Before its dissolution,

11270-414: The Soviet Union undertook a campaign of de-Stalinization under Nikita Khrushchev , which saw reversals and rejections of Stalinist policies. This campaign caused tensions with Communist China . During the 1950s, the Soviet Union expanded its efforts in space exploration and took a lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite , the first human spaceflight , the first space station , and

11431-411: The Soviet Union was the world's largest country, a status that is retained by the Russian Federation . Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America . Two other successor states, Kazakhstan and Ukraine , rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. The European portion accounted for a quarter of

11592-582: The Soviet Union's priorities changed. Despite previous conflict with the United Kingdom , Vyacheslav Molotov dropped his post war border demands. The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc , which began following World War II in 1945. The term cold war is used because there

11753-619: The Soviet system but instead accelerated its unraveling. Nationalist movements gained momentum across the Soviet republics , and the control of the Communist Party weakened. The failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Gorbachev by hardline communists hastened the end of the Soviet Union , which formally dissolved on December 26, 1991, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule. With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi),

11914-509: The USSR and Nazi Germany signed a nonaggression pact , but in 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the largest land invasion in history, opening the Eastern Front of World War II . The Soviets played a decisive role in defeating the Axis powers , suffering an estimated 27 million casualties , which accounted for most Allied losses. In the aftermath of the war , the Soviet Union consolidated

12075-584: The USSR from the United States . The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak ) in Tajikistan , at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran ), and Lake Baikal , the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia. Neighbouring countries were aware of

12236-798: The USSR was one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, global diplomatic and ideological influence (particularly in the Global South ), military and economic strengths, and scientific accomplishments. The word soviet is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: совет ), meaning 'council', 'assembly', 'advice', ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of * vět-iti ('to inform'), related to Slavic věst ('news'), English wise . The word sovietnik means 'councillor'. Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет ). In

12397-430: The USSR. Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing Marxist-Leninist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war Tsarist debts, but it

12558-491: The accident were unknown, 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer which resulted from the accident's contamination were reported at the time of the accident, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005). Another major radioactive accident was the Kyshtym disaster . The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with major problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk , where nickel , for example,

12719-434: The background (symbolizing the name of the city ). The central element of the shield is an archer in red clothes, in the military outfit (yellow) of Stephen III of Moldavia ( Romanian : Ștefan cel Mare) times (15th century). The archer represents the medieval military recruitment , formed by local free peasants. On top of the shield is a silver crown in the shape of a fortress wall with seven towers. (The crown represents

12880-447: The beginning of devoicing of asyllabic [u] after consonants. Text analysis revealed words that are now lost from modern vocabulary or used only in local varieties. These words were of various provenience for example: Latin ( cure - to run, mâneca - to leave), Old Church Slavonic ( drăghicame - gem, precious stone, prilăsti - to trick, to cheat), Hungarian ( bizăntui - to bear witness). The modern age of Romanian starts in 1780 with

13041-532: The city also understand and/or speak Ukrainian . "Between the two world wars, the Jewish community of Bălți was a vibrant population of trade, industry and culture, Zionism and Yiddish, political parties and youth movements. Bălți was the second-largest populated city in Bessarabia, with the second-largest number of Jewish inhabitants after Chișinău, and the economic center of the region. In the official 1930 census, Bălți

13202-565: The city in the hands of the Romanians. In September 1941 the last of the Jews of Bălți– some 2,800 people – were expelled to the Mărculești Camp, and the Jewish population of the city ceased to exist. In Mărculești, many members of the community died, and the rest were deported to Transnistria." Theaters: Museums and art galleries : List of FM radio stations from Bălți as of 4 July 2009. Bălți

13363-461: The city itself was 97,930, and that of the suburban villages of Elizaveta and Sadovoe was of 3,221, respectively 1,306. Of these, 46,930 were men and 55,527 were women. Ethnic composition of Bălți (2014) Footnotes : * There is an ongoing controversy regarding the ethnic identification of Moldovans and Romanians. * In March 2023, the Parliament of Moldova approved a law referring to

13524-503: The city population is mainly due to the economic and demographic situation of Moldova, which prompted a wave of permanent or temporary emigration. Remittances from the migrant workers account for 30% of Moldova's GDP , the highest percentage in all of Europe. Often, elderly relatives and children of these workers are left to live in Bălți. The majority of the population of Bălți is bilingual ( Romanian and Russian ), but some people only know one of these two languages. Many people in

13685-454: The city proper 41.42 square kilometres (15.99 sq mi), the village Elizaveta (an eastern suburb) 9.81 square kilometres (3.79 sq mi), and the village Sadovoe (a north-western suburb) 26.77 square kilometres (10.34 sq mi). Of these, an important portion (20.11 square kilometres (7.76 sq mi)) is agriculturally cultivated. The city itself is located on portions of three hills. The river Răut separates one of

13846-541: The city's industry centres on food processing , notably in the production of flour, sugar, and wine. Manufacturing of furniture and agricultural machinery also plays an important role in Bălți's economy. The service sector has developed after 1989 to cover the basic needs of the population. This city is an important economic centre, with manufacturing playing an important role. Besides traditional for Moldova wine making , sugar , meat processing , flour milling , oil production, and light industry in general, Bălți

14007-524: The city. Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian ; endonym : limba română [ˈlimba roˈmɨnə] , or românește [romɨˈneʃte] , lit.   ' in Romanian ' ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova . Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages , a linguistic group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin which separated from

14168-405: The city. The city has a big Republican hospital, another multifunctional municipal hospital, a children's hospital, and a range of other medical facilities (smaller clinics and hospitals, as well as buildings, named poly-clinics, gathering doctors offices). Bălți Municipality is a territorial unit of Moldova (one of its 3 municipalities not subordinated to other territorial units; it has had

14329-407: The coat of arms of the Bălți county, while these and horse elements - the coat of arms of the city proper. The city's flag is composed of two horizontal strips: a blue one on the bottom, and a silver one on top. The shield and archer elements from the coat of arms are also present in the centre of the flag. Bălți is situated on the tops and slopes of three hills and in two small valleys. The land in

14490-472: The colloquial speech and writing. Outside the political arena the language is most often called "Romanian". In the breakaway territory of Transnistria, it is co-official with Ukrainian and Russian. In the 2014 census , out of the 2,804,801 people living in Moldova, 24% (652,394) stated Romanian as their most common language, whereas 56% stated Moldovan. While in the urban centers speakers are split evenly between

14651-470: The constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu , promulgated the law. The history of the Romanian language started in the Roman provinces north of the Jireček Line in Classical antiquity but there are 3 main hypotheses about its exact territory: the autochthony thesis (it developed in left-Danube Dacia only), the discontinuation thesis (it developed in right-Danube provinces only), and

14812-653: The country Moldovan . In December 2013, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Declaration of Independence took precedence over the Constitution and the state language should be called Romanian. In 2023, the Moldovan parliament passed a law officially adopting the designation "Romanian" in all legal instruments, implementing the 2013 court decision. Scholars agree that Moldovan and Romanian are

14973-429: The country was limited. The state restricted rights of citizens to private property . According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , human rights are the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." including the right to life and liberty , freedom of expression , and equality before the law ; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture ,

15134-643: The country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia , was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones , and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra , taiga , steppes , desert and mountains . The USSR, like Russia , had

15295-538: The differences as 'accents' or 'speeches' (in Romanian: accent or grai ). Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ), commonly known as the Soviet Union , was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area , extending across eleven time zones and sharing borders with twelve countries , and

15456-541: The duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in

15617-708: The economic environment after the breakdown of the Soviet planned economy system, the manufacturing base of the city has severely suffered. Nevertheless, more recently, new economic ties are being created, with collaboration and direct investment mostly from the European Union . Lisa Dräxlmaier GmbH celebrated the inauguration of its second plant in Moldova. The facility, which will be located in Balti, will produce wiring harnesses. The plant has about 13,000 square metres (140,000 square feet ) of production and logistics space. Bălți has several major shopping chain outlets, such as

15778-466: The fact that the locality is a city. Apart from Bălți, only the capital Chișinău , and Tiraspol are allowed to have seven towers, while other cities must limit this number to three or five.) The shield is supported by two rearing silver horses (the white horse is the traditional symbol of the region, which was part of Iași County before 1812). Under the shield, there is a ribbon with the Latin inscription CEDANT ARMA TOGAE , meaning let arms yield to

15939-511: The features that individualize Common Romanian, inherited from Latin or subsequently developed, of particular importance are: The use of the denomination Romanian ( română ) for the language and use of the demonym Romanians ( Români ) for speakers of this language predates the foundation of the modern Romanian state. Romanians always used the general term rumân / român or regional terms like ardeleni (or ungureni ), moldoveni or munteni to designate themselves. Both

16100-413: The first Romanian school, and Ion Heliade Rădulescu . The end of this period is marked by the first printing of magazines and newspapers in Romanian, in particular Curierul Românesc and Albina Românească . Starting from 1831 and lasting until 1880 the modern phase is characterized by the development of literary styles: scientific, administrative, and belletristic . It quickly reached a high point with

16261-583: The forced collectivization of agriculture , rapid industrialization , and the Great Purge , which eliminated perceived enemies of the state. The Soviet Union played a crucial role in the Allied victory in World War II , but at a tremendous human cost, with millions of Soviet citizens perishing in the conflict. The Soviet Union emerged as one of the world's two superpowers, leading the Eastern Bloc in opposition to

16422-742: The founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan PSPs . In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR

16583-491: The government. Extensive extrajudicial powers were given to the Soviet secret police agencies . In practice, the Soviet government significantly curbed the rule of law , civil liberties , protection of law and guarantees of property , which were considered as examples of "bourgeois morality" by Soviet law theorists such as Andrey Vyshinsky . The USSR and other countries in the Soviet Bloc had abstained from affirming

16744-473: The gradual development of bilingualism . Russian continued to develop as the official language of privilege, whereas Romanian remained the principal vernacular. The period from 1905 to 1917 was one of increasing linguistic conflict spurred by an increase in Romanian nationalism. In 1905 and 1906, the Bessarabian zemstva asked for the re-introduction of Romanian in schools as a "compulsory language", and

16905-454: The high levels of pollution in the Soviet Union but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union it was discovered that its environmental problems were greater than what the Soviet authorities admitted. The Soviet Union was the world's second largest producer of harmful emissions. In 1988, total emissions in the Soviet Union were about 79% of those in the United States. But since the Soviet GNP

17066-507: The highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989, the first in Soviet history. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since

17227-539: The hills to the north-east, the slopes of this hill are occupied by the neighbourhood Slobozia. Răut's affluent Răuțel separates another hill in the south, the slopes of which are the Podul Chișinăului. The largest of the three hills dominates the valleys of the creek and river, and contains the city centre and the old town, and the neighbourhoods Pământeni, Dacia , 6th district, 8th district, the city's main industrial area, and Molodova neighborhood. The top of this hill

17388-594: The infamous Schutzstaffel of Nazi Germany , as SS is in English. In English-language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. The Russian SFSR dominated the Soviet Union to such an extent that, for most of the Soviet Union's existence, it was colloquially, but incorrectly, referred to as Russia . The history of the Soviet Union began with the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution and ended in dissolution amidst economic collapse and political disintegration. Established in 1922 following

17549-592: The influence of the Mukacheve eparchy in Ukraine. The language spoken during this period had a phonological system of seven vowels and twenty-nine consonants. Particular to Old Romanian are the distribution of /z/, as the allophone of /dz/ from Common Romanian , in the Wallachian and south-east Transylvanian varieties, the presence of palatal sonorants /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, nowadays preserved only regionally in Banat and Oltenia , and

17710-556: The language can be found all over the world, mostly due to emigration of Romanian nationals and the return of immigrants to Romania back to their original countries. Romanian speakers account for 0.5% of the world's population, and 4% of the Romance-speaking population of the world. Romanian is the single official and national language in Romania and Moldova, although it shares the official status at regional level with other languages in

17871-531: The language, working together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department for Romanians Abroad. Since 2013, the Romanian Language Day is celebrated on every 31 August . Romanian is the official language of the Republic of Moldova. The 1991 Declaration of Independence named the official language Romanian, and the Constitution of Moldova as originally adopted in 1994 named the state language of

18032-466: The large Romanian diaspora . In total, it is spoken by 25 million people as a first language . Romanian was also known as Moldovan in Moldova, although the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled in 2013 that "the official language of Moldova is Romanian". On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliament approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and

18193-592: The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East was found in Israel, where Romanian was spoken by 5% of the population. Romanian is also spoken as a second language by people from Arabic-speaking countries who have studied in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s. Small Romanian-speaking communities are to be found in Kazakhstan and Russia. Romanian

18354-586: The late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget . The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium (successor of the Central Executive Committee ) to wield its power between plenary sessions, ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court ,

18515-542: The late 1970s and early 1980s. The constitution , which was promulgated in 1924 , 1936 and 1977 , did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in

18676-519: The media regarding the forgery of the census results. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia determines that in the regions of the Republic of Serbia inhabited by national minorities, their own languages and scripts shall be officially used as well, in the manner established by law. The Statute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina determines that, together with the Serbian language and

18837-521: The mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , the nominal head of state . The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations . However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with

18998-582: The municipality is elected for four years. Vasile Panciuc, PCRM , is the incumbent from 2001 and was re-elected twice: in 2003 during the anticipated elections (as a result of a new reform of the administrative division in Moldova), and in 2007. Until recently, voters in the Bălți municipality mainly supported the PCRM . This is explained by the fact that the municipality contains a large Russian-speaking minority (43%) which primarily votes Communist. However, support for

19159-519: The name of rumână or rumâniască for the Romanian language and the self-designation rumân/român are attested as early as the 16th century, by various foreign travelers into the Carpathian Romance-speaking space, as well as in other historical documents written in Romanian at that time such as Cronicile Țării Moldovei  [ ro ] ( The Chronicles of the land of Moldova ) by Grigore Ureche . The few allusions to

19320-410: The name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although all republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936 . In addition, in the regional languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukrainian SSR . СССР (in

19481-626: The name was/is also rendered in Cyrillic as Бэлць ( Russian pronunciation: [ˈbɛɫts] ). The current coat of arms and flag of Bălți, elaborated by Silviu Tabac from the Moldovan State Commission for Heraldry , were adopted by the Municipal Council in April 2006. A shield, with alternating six silvery strips (symbolizing water), and six blue strips (symbolizing earth), form

19642-615: The national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution, making the name Moldovan obsolete. At the 2004 census, 90.7% of the population (110,961 people) identified themselves as Christian Orthodox , 2.1% (2,609) as Baptist , 0.8% as Catholic , 0.5% as Seventh-day Adventist , 0.4% as Pentecostal , 0.2% as Methodist , 0.1% as Evangelical , 0.09% as Muslim , 0.06% as Presbyterian , 0.04% as Old Believers , 0.04% as Reformed , 1.8% (2161 people) as followers of other religions, 0.4% as atheist , and 2.7% (3,304) as non-religious . The post-independence decrease in

19803-417: The newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR , and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt . The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power 'in the period of transition'. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR. The judiciary

19964-592: The north of Moldova is very fertile, mostly consisting of black earth or chernozem . Several extraction sites for raw materials used in the construction industry are also found in the vicinity of Bălți. The creeks Răuțel, Copăceanca, and Flămândă cross the territory of the municipality, and flow into the river Răut . Also, several lakes are situated in Bălți: City Lake, Komsolskoe Lake, Hunters and Fishermen Lake, Strâmba Lake. The municipality covers an area of 78.0 square kilometres (30.1 sq mi), of which

20125-466: The north-east or the north-west at about 2–5 m/s. The city is situated in the 7th zone of seismic activity , with a well-felt earthquake (generally without any serious structural damage to the city's buildings) occurring every 35 years on average. According to the 2014 census , 102,457 inhabitants lived within the Bălți municipality limits, a decrease compared to the previous census in 2004, when 127,561 inhabitants were registered. The population of

20286-564: The northern part of the city is called Dacia , and is colloquially sometimes referred to as BAM . A district in the eastern part is known as 10th district . Cultural venues in the city include: Churches: Bălți has a warm-summer humid continental climate ( Köppen climate classification Dfa ). The all-time maximum temperature registered in the city was 38 °C (100 °F), the all-time minimum −32 °C (−26 °F). There are 450 to 550 mm (18 to 22 in) of annual rainfall, mostly during summer and fall. Winds are generally from

20447-603: The official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force fourth, and Navy fifth). The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis , under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov , it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989, there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on

20608-475: The official language with the Constitution of 1923 . Romanian has preserved a part of the Latin declension , but whereas Latin had six cases , from a morphological viewpoint, Romanian has only three: the nominative / accusative , genitive / dative , and marginally the vocative . Romanian nouns also preserve the neuter gender , although instead of functioning as a separate gender with its own forms in adjectives,

20769-543: The other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees , local Soviets and executive committees . While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary. The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies ) played an important role in Soviet politics. It

20930-560: The partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II . Up until his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin controlled all foreign relations of the Soviet Union during the interwar period . Despite the increasing build-up of Germany 's war machine and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , the Soviet Union did not cooperate with any other nation, choosing to follow its own path. However, after Operation Barbarossa ,

21091-529: The party's highest body the Politburo . Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs . It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in

21252-454: The party, nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned . The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets ) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history, at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in

21413-480: The printing in 1780 of Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae , the pre-modern phase was characterized by the publishing of school textbooks, appearance of first normative works in Romanian, numerous translations, and the beginning of a conscious stage of re-latinization of the language. Notable contributions, besides that of the Transylvanian School , are the activities of Gheorghe Lazăr , founder of

21574-655: The printing in Vienna of a very important grammar book titled Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae . The author of the book, Samuil Micu-Klein , and the revisor, Gheorghe Șincai , both members of the Transylvanian School , chose to use Latin as the language of the text and presented the phonetical and grammatical features of Romanian in comparison to its ancestor. The Modern age of Romanian language can be further divided into three phases: pre-modern or modernizing between 1780 and 1830, modern phase between 1831 and 1880, and contemporary from 1880 onwards. Beginning with

21735-518: The printing of Dacia Literară , a journal founded by Mihail Kogălniceanu and representing a literary society, which together with other publications like Propășirea and Gazeta de Transilvania spread the ideas of Romantic nationalism and later contributed to the formation of other societies that took part in the Revolutions of 1848 . Their members and those that shared their views are collectively known in Romania as "of '48"( pașoptiști ),

21896-713: The public sphere, in literature and ecclesiastically, began in the late 15th century and ended in the early decades of the 18th century, by which time Romanian had begun to be regularly used by the Church. The oldest Romanian texts of a literary nature are religious manuscripts ( Codicele Voronețean , Psaltirea Scheiană ), translations of essential Christian texts. These are considered either propagandistic results of confessional rivalries, for instance between Lutheranism and Calvinism , or as initiatives by Romanian monks stationed at Peri Monastery in Maramureș to distance themselves from

22057-472: The regional varieties are small, limited to regular phonetic changes, few grammar aspects, and lexical particularities. There is a single written and spoken standard (literary) Romanian language used by all speakers, regardless of region. Like most natural languages, Romanian dialects are part of a dialect continuum . The dialects of Romanian are also referred to as 'sub-dialects' and are distinguished primarily by phonetic differences. Romanians themselves speak of

22218-543: The same language, with the glottonym "Moldovan" used in certain political contexts. It has been the sole official language since the adoption of the Law on State Language of the Moldavian SSR in 1989. This law mandates the use of Moldovan in all the political, economic, cultural and social spheres, as well as asserting the existence of a "linguistic Moldo-Romanian identity". It is also used in schools, mass media, education and in

22379-467: The status of municipality since 1994), containing the city itself, and the villages of Elizaveta and Sadovoe . The Mayor Office ( Romanian : Primăria ) is headed by the Mayor ( Romanian : Primar ), and administers the local affairs, while the Municipal Council serves as a consultative body with some powers of general policy determination. It is composed of 35 council members elected every four years. As

22540-469: The struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare , propaganda campaigns, espionage , far-reaching embargoes , rivalry at sports events and technological competitions such as the Space Race . Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs), all four being

22701-678: The territory occupied by the Red Army , forming satellite states , and undertook rapid economic development which cemented its status as a superpower . Geopolitical tensions with the US led to the Cold War . The American-led Western Bloc coalesced into NATO in 1949, prompting the Soviet Union to form its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact , in 1955. Neither side engaged in direct military confrontation, and instead fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . In 1953, following Stalin's death ,

22862-492: The truth". Human rights in the Soviet Union were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 and a one-party state until 1990. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labour unions , private corporations , independent churches or opposition political parties . The freedom of movement within and especially outside

23023-473: The two names (with the capital Chișinău showing a strong preference for the name "Romanian", i.e. 3:2), in the countryside hardly a quarter of Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their native language. Unofficial results of this census first showed a stronger preference for the name Romanian, however the initial reports were later dismissed by the Institute for Statistics, which led to speculations in

23184-546: The unrecognised state of Transnistria , Moldovan is one of the official languages. However, unlike all other dialects of Romanian, this variety of Moldovan is written in Cyrillic script . Romanian is taught in some areas that have Romanian minority communities, such as Vojvodina in Serbia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary. The Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) has since 1992 organised summer courses in Romanian for language teachers. There are also non-Romanians who study Romanian as

23345-428: The use of Romanian in official government publications, public education and legal contracts. Advertisements as well as other public messages must bear a translation of foreign words, while trade signs and logos shall be written predominantly in Romanian. The Romanian Language Institute (Institutul Limbii Române), established by the Ministry of Education of Romania, promotes Romanian and supports people willing to study

23506-407: The use of Romanian in writing as well as common words, anthroponyms, and toponyms preserved in the Old Church Slavonic religious writings and chancellery documents, attested prior to the 16th century, along with the analysis of graphemes show that the writing of Romanian with the Cyrillic alphabet started in the second half of the 15th century. The oldest extant document in Romanian precisely dated

23667-403: The world's longest border , measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or 1 + 1 ⁄ 2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a coastline . The country bordered Afghanistan , the People's Republic of China , Czechoslovakia , Finland , Hungary , Iran , Mongolia , North Korea , Norway , Poland , Romania , and Turkey from 1945 to 1991. The Bering Strait separated

23828-417: Was Moscow . The Soviet Union's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917. The new government, led by Vladimir Lenin , established the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally socialist state . The revolution was not accepted by all within the Russian Republic , resulting in the Russian Civil War . The RSFSR and its subordinate republics were merged into

23989-408: Was also the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was 'window dressing' for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called 'Russians', not 'Soviets', since 'everyone knew who really ran the show'. Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of

24150-419: Was carried out within the terms of the Soviet Civil Code. Some Soviet legal scholars even said that "criminal repression" may be applied in the absence of guilt. Martin Latsis , chief of Soviet Ukraine 's secret police explained: "Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what

24311-404: Was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from the Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status. In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Soviet-occupied Bessarabia , and Ukrainian SSR. Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania were also annexed by

24472-434: Was instrumental in the Red Terror and Great Purge , but was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov , the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure, culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in

24633-508: Was known to be based in the city. No up to date information is available. There are 13 lyceums and 6 professional education institutions ( Romanian : colegii ) offering the last 3 years of high school education and 2 years post-high school technical education. Also, 14 secondary schools (numbered 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 21, 23), 7 professional or professional-technical schools (numbered 1 through 7), and 3 boarding schools , including one for visually impaired are located in

24794-428: Was listed as having 14,229 Jewish residents, about 60% of its total population. "Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Agreement, Bălți was absorbed into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940, coming under Soviet rule. "On 22 June 1941, the Germans invaded the USSR. On 9 July, Bălți was occupied by German and Romanian armies, and waves of abuse and murder began. At the end of July, the German units and Gestapo officers left

24955-424: Was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers , but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars . The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment,

25116-450: Was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts ( People's Court ) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law , where the judge, procurator , and defence attorney collaborate to "establish

25277-459: Was only 54% of that of the United States, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the United States per unit of GNP. The Soviet Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was the first major accident at a civilian nuclear power plant . Unparalleled in the world, it resulted in a large number of radioactive isotopes being released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses were scattered relatively far. Although long-term effects of

25438-425: Was published in Vienna in 1780. Following the annexation of Bessarabia by Russia in 1812, Moldavian was established as an official language in the governmental institutions of Bessarabia , used along with Russian, The publishing works established by Archbishop Gavril Bănulescu-Bodoni were able to produce books and liturgical works in Moldavian between 1815 and 1820. Bessarabia during the 1812–1918 era witnessed

25599-477: Was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924. All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of

25760-482: Was that "the Constitution was written not for you, but for American Negroes, so that they know how happy the lives of Soviet citizens are". Crime was determined not as the infraction of law, instead, it was determined as any action which could threaten the Soviet state and society. For example, a desire to make a profit could be interpreted as a counter-revolutionary activity punishable by death. The liquidation and deportation of millions of peasants in 1928–31

25921-506: Was the Russian responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic —lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help. By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became

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