Moldova is not new on the map of the Armenian Diaspora, but despite its deep roots, the small Armenian community was dormant and near extinction until the breakup of the Soviet Union and the birth of an independent Moldova in 1991.
"I came here in 1957 as an officer of the Soviet Army, and in all the years I lived here, I had no contacts with other Armenians. I had no Armenian friends," says Ashot Hovhannes Assatourovitch, an 80 year-old retired army officer.
"Getting organized as an ethnic group was not accepted because it was seen as a form of nationalism. Our lifestyles were dictated by a system which had no room for national minorities," he said.
Moldova, which is a little larger than the State of Maryland, has a population of 4.4 million, of which only 64 percent are Moldovans. Ethnic Russians constitute 14 percent of the population along with an equal percentage of Ukrainians followed by a number of smaller ethnic groups like the Armenians.
It was this ethnic diversity that led to the birth of the self-proclaimed Trans-Dniester Moldovan Republic, where more than 60 percent of the population is Russian and Ukrainian. The breakaway republic has no international recognition, but nevertheless has a profound impact on Moldova as a whole because of its geographic location.
The breakup triggered a costly civil war in 1992 which ended in a ceasefire agreement that is now monitored by a commission made up of Russian, Moldovan and Trans-Dniester troops.
It is through this now-autonomous region in eastern Moldova that all fuel and gas pipelines pass—at an extra cost to the central government.
Still very much a predominantly agricultural based society, Moldova has no fuel and energy reserves, and consequently power outages are an almost daily occurrence.
A large billboard at Chisinau airport gives the following explanation:
"Energy is expensive! Maybe you can afford it, but Moldova cannot. Please save."
The energy crisis is further complicated by increasing fuel costs and a slow moving transition to a market economy which is primarily focused on the privatization of both rural and urban state owned enterprises.
Hundreds of factories have been closed in recent years while others are struggling to survive. Agricultural production has also slowed down due to aging machinery and the difficulties of reaching international markets.
While there are no reliable figures for unemployment, driving through the country creates a picture of a society which is constantly improvising to meet the challenges of the shift from state to private management.
Kiosks, small shops and open markets are everywhere, often replacing the once government-owned large department stores which were the pride of the old communist regime.
"People are slowly learning to take care of themselves," a Western diplomat explained.
"You can find a lot of highly trained people in the market place selling fruits and vegetables or other supplies in the kiosks around the city and countryside," he said.
For the thousands of Armenians who live in Moldova, the changing times have also meant a change in their fortunes.
One-time factory managers are now involved in business, mainly with the former Soviet republics. Retirees often depend on financial help from fellow Armenians and even charitable organizations who have stepped in to fill the gap between meager pensions and the soaring cost of living.
Assatourovitch, now a pensioner, was born in Karabakh and was an infant when the territory was annexed to Azerbaijan by communist dictator Joseph Stalin. He joined the Soviet Army as a teenager, studied at the Moscow Military Academy and served in the Soviet Army for 35 years. The longest portion of his military career was his service in Moldova which he calls home.
On a recent Sunday, Assatourovitch and fellow veterans, including 72-year- old Arshalouys Norhadian, gathered at Chisinau's only Armenian restaurant to reminisce the "old days" and discuss the future activities of the rapidly growing Armenian community.
Realizing that his first name triggered looks of disbelief, Norhadian explained that he was named after the first child of his parents, a baby girl, who died soon after birth.
"My mother was a very religious person. I was told she promised God that if she were to have another child, he or she would be named Arshalouys, which in Armenian means sunrise and is almost never given to a boy," he said.
Norhadian was born in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to parents who had moved there for work from Armenia.
"Many of us here were vagabonds. The Soviet Union was our country, and we moved from one city to another. I came here in 1952 as an engineer, but thank God, I had the opportunity to be assigned to the position of Deputy Director of the Armenian railroad and lived in Yerevan for ten years," he said.
Returning to Chisinau after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Norhadian immediately went about finding other Armenians.
"The change was very dramatic. Suddenly, hundreds of Armenians who had lived here all their lives were appearing out of nowhere. It was no longer a problem to belong to an ethnic group," he said.
One of the first people he came in contact with was Andranik Petrossian, an industrialist and longtime resident of the Moldovan capital who was later to become the President of the Armenian Community Council of Moldova.
"As individuals, Armenians have always been very respected here. At one point, the Assistant First Secretary of the Moldovan Communist Party was Armenian—a man by the name of Desmijian” Norhadian said.
Starting with a core group of less than a dozen, the Community Council has become a magnet, attracting Armenians from across the country.
"You cannot imagine what freedom does and means," Petrossian says.
In the short few years since its birth, the Community Council has organized chapters in most Moldovan cities, reclaimed the three remaining Armenian churches which were shut down during the communist era, started Armenian language classes and helped launch an Armenian Women's Association which is active in social work.
Several hundred Armenians have already joined the Council as dues paying members, and organized nation-wide elections for its governing body.
"Our churches are now open for the first time since the 1940's. A young priest from Yerevan is already here, and our old traditions now at least have a good chance to survive the test of time," Petrossian said.
A group of volunteers are busy organizing Armenian classes at one of the city's public schools whose headmaster is an ethnic Armenian. The old Armenian Church, which was built nearly 200 years ago—or to be more exact, in 1804—has been renovated, the missing bell restored, and opened for services.
Its adjacent building now serves as the headquarters of the Armenian Community Council which plans to expand the premises to house a Community Center to encourage the cultural activities of the thousands of Armenians that live in the city.
According to recent "unofficial" statistics, the pre-Soviet era community of 5,000 has swelled to nearly 30,000 after the arrival of new immigrants from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh.
"We are getting stronger every day," says Vinera Zakaryan, a music teacher from Stepanakert who founded the Women's Association after moving to Chisinau in 1993.
"I felt the absence of an organized Armenian community on my own skin. We had nowhere to turn to for help. We had no money and no friends. I don't want to see the same thing happen to others who come after us," she said.
Zakaryan has mobilized a group of close to 100 Armenian women who work as volunteers, helping new immigrants with jobs, taking care of the elderly, visiting the sick in hospitals and providing the community with the much-needed cultural activities it lacked during the communist era.
In recent months, the group has completed the landscaping work around Chisinau's St. Mary's Armenian Church, organized several fundraising events, including a concert by a visiting Armenian singer in one of the city's main halls.
"The men are too busy with other things, therefore it is up to us to reach out to the community." she said.
The Armenian Women's Association has already been recognized as an independent organization and invited to attend an international women's conference in the Moldovan capital.
"Imagine the joy when we got the invitation letter. The greater visibility we have, the better for the Armenian community," she said.
But activity is not confined to Chisinau.
In the Moldovan city of Beltsy, 100 kilometers northwest of the capital, another small group of Armenians are busy reclaiming the community's old heritage.
Yervant Kojoyan, who settled in Beltsy 18 years ago, said one of the community's first tasks was to get back the Armenian Church which was once used as a picture gallery.
"This church has not functioned as a religious sanctuary for 45 years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of the independent state of Moldova, the church, which was built around 1904 on the site where the first Armenian sanctuary was built in 1816, was given to the city's small Catholic community.
"It took a lot of negotiating for the Armenian community to take it back— but on condition that we share it, at least for a while, with the Catholics," Kojoyan says.
Since the re-opening of the church, dozens of Armenian families have come forward because "they now have something Armenian they can identify with."
According to community sources, some 4,500 Armenians live in the Beltsy region of Moldova.
Across Moldova, the story repeats itself. Armenians from different backgrounds, old and young, are re-grouping in a community which first began several centuries ago.
"A lot of time was lost during the communist era. We can be an asset for Armenia, and it is our duty to organize and strengthen our institutions," Petrossian says.
At Chisinau's Armenian restaurant, the conversation often drifts back to the "old days", but only as a reminder that the future is what needs attention.
