Symbols of the former Soviet empire linger in Transnistria. (Image by Marisha.)

From Alex Hoban and Henry Langston’s Vice article about Transnistria, an independent if unrecognized strip of the former Soviet Union which remains a pre-Glasnost gulag:

“Out on the fringes of the former USSR, in one little pocket of Eastern Europe, the trauma of the Soviet Empire’s collapse has never quite been shaken off. Since 1990 a little-known strip of land between Ukraine and Moldova has encased itself in an isolated world where Lenin still looms large. It has its own border control, passports, currency and everything else you normally need to be a real country – including a population that’s double the size of Iceland’s. Its Soviet credentials are impeccable: It’s being run as a corrupt leader-cult led by an elite of weapons smuggling crooks who’ll sooner gut your face than quote Marx. Yet its sovereignty is recognised by no-one and therefore, it isn’t a real country. Its name is Transnistria, but in the eyes of the world, it simply isn’t there.”