Tiraspol - City of Moldova

Tiraspol is the second largest city in Moldova and is the capital and administrative centre of the de facto independent Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. The city is located on the eastern bank of the Dniester River. Tiraspol is a regional hub of light industry, such as furniture and electrical goods production.

Tiraspol was founded by the Russian general Alexander Suvorov in 1792.The city celebrates its anniversary every year on October 14.

Tyras, or Tiras was a colony of Miletus, probably founded about 600 BC, situated some 10 km. from the mouth of the Tiras River. Of no great importance in early times, in the 2nd century BC it fell under the dominion of native kings whose names appear on its coins, and was destroyed by the Getae about 50 BC. In AD 56 it seems to have been restored by the Romans and since then formed part of the province of Lower Moesia. A series of its coins exists, featuring heads of Roman emperors from Domitian to Alexander Severus. Soon after the time of the latter it was destroyed again by the Goths. Its government was in the hands of five archons, a senate, a popular assembly and a registrar. The types of its coins suggest a trade in wheat, wine and fish. The few inscriptions are also mostly concerned with trade. Its remains are scanty, as its site has been covered by the great medieval fortress of Monocastro or Akkerman.

During the Middle Ages, the area around Tiraspol was a buffer zone between the Tatars and the Moldavians, inhabited by both ethnicities.

The Russian Empire conquered its way to the Dniester river from Turks and in 1792, the Russian army built some fortifications to guard the western border near a Moldavian village named Sucleia. The name was given after the Latin name of the Dniester river on which it was built.

June 15, 1828: A customs house was established in Tiraspol. The purpose of its creation became suppression of smuggling. This customs house was subordinated to the chief of Odessa customs region. It began operations with 14 employees. They inspected shipments of bread, paper, oil, wine, sugar, fruits and other goods.

The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was created in Ukraine in 1924, with Balta as its capital. The republic had Romanian, Ukrainian and Russian as its official languages. Its capital was moved in 1929 to Tiraspol, which remained the capital of the Moldavian ASSR until 1940.

On July 1, 2005, the Lucian Blaga Lyceum, a high school with Romanian as its language of instruction, was registered as a Transnistrian non-governmental establishment. The registration of six Romanian language schools was subject of negotiations since 2000. The tension increased in the summer of 2004, when the Transnistrian authorities forcibly closed the schools that used the Moldovan language in the Latin script, which, according to the official PMR view, is considered as Romanian. Moldovan, written in the Cyrillic script, is one of the three official languages in the PMR. Romanian, however, is not. Some economic measures and counter-measures were taken on both banks of the Dniester.

On July 6, 2006, an explosion, believed to be caused by a bomb, killed at least eight people in a minibus.

On August 13, 2006, a grenade explosion in a trolleybus kills two, injures ten.