Moldovans Have Hunger for Hope

Mealtimes at the Zoti home are governed by a simple rule: If there’s money, there’s food. Most often, there’s little of either.

“When there’s something to eat, I call our son to the table, and when there isn’t, I don’t,” says Tatjana Zoti, her face dominated by spirited blue eyes and cheekbones chiseled by hunger. “Rare are the times when we feel we have eaten enough.”

The Zotis don’t complain. Misery loves company in Moldova, Europe’s poorest country. With average incomes less than the equivalent of $30 a month, most people share the same lot: cold apartments, empty refrigerators, hand-me-down clothing and a hope that things just have to get better.

But worse may be ahead. There is unrest over the Communist government’s attempt to wrest the former Soviet republic back toward Moscow after more than a decade in which previous administrations courted Romania, Moldova’s western neighbor.

More than 65% of Moldovans speak a Romanian dialect; the rest speak Russian or Ukrainian.

Frictions over language and education ostensibly led to 80,000 protesters’ confronting machine-gun-toting police in Chisinau, the capital, in late March. But the real dispute is whether the country should be looking east or west.

“I came here because I do not want to go back into the Soviet slammer,” said one demonstrator, Ion Rosca, suggesting that his country’s eastward turn is shutting the door to hopes for Western-style prosperity and democracy.

Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova has long been torn between east and west.

Annexed from Russia by Romania during World War I, it then became part of the Soviet Union, reverted to Romania during World War II, then was reclaimed by Moscow. It gained independence when the Soviet Union broke up at the end of 1991.

High hopes that accompanied the communist collapse were soon lost to deepening gloom as a series of governments became mired in corruption and infighting.

Anti-Romanian Slavs revolted in 1992, carving out the self-proclaimed republic of Trans Dniester, a strip of territory along the Ukrainian border that bleeds Moldova’s economy through arms smuggling and untaxed trade worth billions of dollars a year.

Crime is rampant. Austrian police confiscated the Moldovan interior minister’s car a few years ago in Vienna after a computer check revealed it had been stolen.

Misery leads to gruesome acts: Two women were arrested last year for selling human remains from a state cancer ward as food.

Fueling recent unrest is the disappearance of anti-communist leader Vlad Cubreacov in late March. Anti-communists blame the government. The communists say the kidnapping was an attempt to build resentment against them and feed the demonstrations that started early this year.

Critics of the government say a human exodus helped the Moscow-leaning communists win election last year because Moldovans, frustrated at the growing misery, voted with their feet years ago. Some 500,000 citizens--more than 10% of the population--are estimated to have left.

Reflecting the depth of frustration, even government members are blunt about the misery. “Nobody is seriously interested in our country,” says Deputy Economics Minister Marian Lupu.

Only a few thousand believe that they have a stake in the nation--many of them former communist insiders who profited from Moldova’s disintegration by snapping up the bargains in halfhearted campaigns to sell state industry.

They are found at restaurants like the Barracuda, where a quartet plays cool jazz and guests wash down cockscomb salad, tripe soup and other local delicacies with satiny Moldovan wine. A bargain by Western standards, the bill for three on a recent visit came to a month’s average pay.

In another part of the city, among decaying Soviet-era concrete high-rises, the Zotis count their blessings.

Andrei, 44, an electrical engineer, earns just over $10 a month at state radio and television. In a good month, he makes a little more repairing TVs and radios. Rent and utilities alone consume more than a third of monthly income.

Tatjana, 39, an unemployed biologist, is taking accounting classes. Patting her husband’s knee, she makes light of their plight, as she shares with visitors the contents of their refrigerator: two tiny sausages and half a bottle of vodka.

“When he has food, he feels lazy,” she says, smiling at Andrei, whose lumpy sweater hangs much too loosely on his frame.

Grinning at his guests, Andrei raises a glass for a toast: “May we live long and flourish!”