Just a few years ago, travelers to Transdniester, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Moldova, would encounter a living museum of the Soviet Union, where the hammer-and-sickle remained on city walls alongside red banners and propaganda billboards. In the early 1990s, when Transdniester's declaration of independence from Moldova ignited a brief war, its self-declared leaders showed little will to modernize. Years later, only limited tourism is officially condoned, although currency-exchange offices are ubiquitous, and a growing subsistence economy fuels the shops and market stalls of the capital, Tiraspol. (Photos by Anthony Georgieff)
