MOLDOVA

Moldova, or, in full, the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. The country is a parliamentary democracy with a President as its head of state and a Prime Minister as its head of government. The official state language is Moldovan, identical to Romanian. 11% of the population uses Russian as the native language. It is one of only two states in the world with a democratically-elected communist government.

In the middle ages, the part of the present territory of Moldova west of the river Dniester was part of the Principality of Moldavia, and it was annexed from the latter, then a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, by the Russian Empire in 1812, under the name of Bessarabia. Upon the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1917-1918, Bessarabia joined Romania. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union, and after changing hands in 1941 and 1944 during World War II, it was split between the Ukrainian SSR and the newly-created Moldavian SSR.

With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Moldavian SSR held free elections in February 1990, after which it changed its name to Republic of Moldova.

Moldova has officially been a neutral country since its independence.

For the 2004 census, Orthodox Christians, who make up over 90% of Moldova's population, were not required to declare the particular church they belong to. The Moldovan Orthodox Church, autonomous and subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church of Bessarabia, autonomous and subordinated to the Romanian Orthodox Church, both claim to be the national church of the country.

Protestants have 0.26% of Moldova's population (about 12,000 people). Judaism in Moldova is practiced by the Jewish population estimated at 1.5% as of 2000.