When I was a kid it seemed like half of the world’s flags were some version of this flag. Red field, soviet hammer and sickle, and a stripe. A blue stripe (Ukraine). A double blue strip (Turkmenia). A dark blue strip (Azerbaijan). Etc. Now there is only one hold out waving this classic. Little Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), has a flag frozen in time.
According the Wikipedia, Transnistria is an unrecognised country located in the narrow strip of land between the river Dniester and the Moldovan–Ukrainian border that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. Transnistria is not a Soviet Socialist Republic, but seems to have kept the Soviet era Moldova flag out of spite.
In 1990, amidst the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was established in hopes that it would remain within the Soviet Union should Moldova seek unification with Romania or independence. Transnistria’s ethnic and linguistic composition differed significantly from most of the rest of Moldova. The share of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians was especially high and an overall majority of the population spoke Russian as a mother tongue. Moldovian independence occurred in August 1991 and Transnistrians, were all… “Fuck this. We are still part of the rapidly crumbling Soviet Union.”
Transnistria refused to fly the new Moldovan flag and instead continued to use the flag of the former Moldavian SSR. There was some fighting but a cease fire brokered in 1992 has held and Transnistria now seems to be a semi-stable, non-country country. The throwback flag was made the official flag of Transnistria in 2000.
