Pridnestrovie is home to 555,000 people made up of 35 different nationalities. It is a multi-ethnic, tolerant society where languages, cultures and religions coexist peacefully side by side. Meet the people of this young nation.

Most of PMR's citizens are Europeans

Few countries in the world can claim to be as diverse as Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica. For more than a thousand years Pridnestrovie was a border country where civilizations came together. As the frontier of the West, and at times part of Poland, Lithuania, and imperial Russia, Pridnestrovie was the outpost in the fault line war between Islam and Christianity. The result? A rich tapestry of people and cultures. Today, slavs (mainly ethnic Russians and Ukrainians) make up almost 58% of the population. Ethnic Moldavians represent 33%. The rest are a vibrant cultural mix of Poles, Bulgarians, Jews, Gagausians, Germans, and others.

Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica has a population of 555,000 people who live on a country of 4,163 km², nearly twice the size of Luxembourg. In terms of population, Pridnestrovie is more than double the size of Iceland (296,000) or Belize (283,000). Thanks to a statefunded compulsory education system and a high emphasis on learning, the literacy rate is 99.6%.

35 nationalities, tolerance and peace
Pridnestrovie has no ethnic violence or racial conflicts. Unlike other post-Soviet countries, such as Bosnia or Kosovo, all nationalities and ethnic groups in PMR coexist peacefully. Pridnestrovie has always been a country of newcomers, with immigration having been a constant factor for hundreds of years. More than any other state in Europe, it is like the big melting pot of the USA.

A young nation

Among the 35 nationalities in Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica there is no religious strife. We have freedom and religion and some ten different faiths are active in the country. Religions in Pridnestrovie are firmly Christian (Orthodox 91%, Catholic 4%, Baptist 1%, other 2%). Among believers, jews make up 2%. Pridnestrovie has no muslim population.

PMR is an industrialized nation, with two thirds of the population living in cities. This is in line with Western European standards. More than a third of the people live in the country's capital, Tiraspol (266,300 inhabitants).

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» Pridnestrovie.net: Profiles and views of PMR's population