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The region between the Pruth R. and the Dniester R. had belonged to the Russian Empire and was known as Bessarabia but became part of Romania after World War I. Most of the population was Romanian-speaking. Stalin took it back in June 1940.

The portion nearest the Black Sea became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; the rest became the Moldavian S.S.R. The official language, Moldavian, was Romanian written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Stalin attached a small strip of land east of the Dniester to the Moldavian S.S.R. When the Soviet Union broke up, that region didn't want to be part of independent Moldova. I think most of the population there is either Ukrainian or Russian.

I think Moldova as a whole is the poorest country in Europe, worse off than Albania or Belarus, but conditions may be even worse in the separatist region.