Bender, Moldova

Template:Redirect Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox settlement

Bender (Template:IPA, Template:Moldovan Cyrillic) or Bendery (Template:Langx, Template:IPA; Template:Langx), also known as Tighina, is a city within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova under de facto control of the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) (PMR) since 1992. It is located on the western bank of the river Dniester in the historical region of Bessarabia.

Together with its suburb Proteagailovca, the city forms a municipality, which is separate from Transnistria (as an administrative unit of Moldova) according to Moldovan law. Bender is located in the buffer zone established at the end of the 1992 War of Transnistria. While the Joint Control Commission has overriding powers in the city, Transnistria has de facto administrative control.

The fortress of Tighina was one of the important historic fortresses of the Principality of Moldova until 1812.

Name

First mentioned in 1408 as Tyagyanyakyacha (Template:Langx) in a document in Old Slavonic (the term has Cuman origins<ref>History of Bender on the Official website of Republic of Moldova Template:Webarchive: "trecătoare" înseamnă în limba cumană Tighina</ref>), the town was known in the Middle Ages as Tighina in Romanian from Moldavian sources and later as Bender in Ottoman sources. The fortress and the city were called Bender for most of the time they were a rayah of the Ottomans (1538–1812), and during most of the time they belonged to the Russian Empire (1828–1917). They were known as Tighina (Template:IPA) in the Principality of Moldavia, in the early part of the Russian Empire period (1812–1828), and during the time the city belonged to Romania (1918–1940; 1941–1944).

The city is part of the historical region of Bessarabia. During the Soviet period the city was known in the Moldavian SSR as Bender in Romanian, written Template:Lang with the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet, as Bendery (Template:Lang) in Russian and Bendery (Бенде́ри) in Ukrainian. Today the city is officially named Bender, but both Bender and Tighina are in use.<ref>Template:In lang "Cetatea Tighina" Template:Webarchive on Monument.md</ref>

History

The town was first mentioned as an important customs post in a commerce grant issued by the Moldavian voivode Alexander the Good to the merchants of Lviv on 8 October 1408. The name "Tighina" is found in documents from the second half of the 15th century. Genoese merchants used to call the town Teghenaccio.<ref>Poștarencu, D. Din istoria Tighinei, 1992, p. 84.</ref> The town was the main Moldavian customs point on the commercial road linking the country to the Crimean Khanate.<ref name=Nistor>Ion Nistor, Istoria Basarabiei, Cernăuți, 1923, reprint Chișinău, Cartea Moldovenească, 1991, p.76</ref> During his reign of Moldavia, Stephen III had a small wooden fort built in the town to defend the settlement from Tatar raids.<ref>"Bender fortress" Template:Webarchive on Moldova.md</ref>

In 1538, the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent conquered the town from Moldavia, and renamed it Bender. Its fortifications were developed into a full fortress under the same name under the supervision of the Turkish architect Koji Mimar Sinan. The Ottomans used it to keep the pressure on Moldavia. At the end of the 16th century several unsuccessful attempts to retake the fortress were made: in the summer of 1574 Prince John III the Terrible led a siege on the fortress, as did Michael the Brave in 1595 and 1600. About the same time the fortress was attacked by Zaporozhian Cossacks. Template:Scalable image In the 18th century, the fort's area was expanded and modernized by the prince of Moldavia Antioh Cantemir, who carried out these works under Ottoman supervision.

On 5 April 1710 the Bender Constitution (more commonly known as the Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk) was accepted in Bender.<ref>"The First Constitution of Ukraine (5 April 1710)", Harvard Ukrainian Studies</ref> It established the principle of the separation of powers in government between the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches almost 40 years before the publication of Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws.

In 1713, the fortress, the town, and the neighboring village of Varnița were the site of skirmishes between Charles XII of Sweden, who had taken refuge there with the Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa after his defeat in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, and the Turks who wished to enforce the departure of the Swedish king.<ref>Charles XII of Sweden first took refuge in a Moldavian house in the town, then moved to a house specially built for him in Varnița. cf. Ion Nistor, Ibidem, p.140</ref>

During the second half of the 18th century, the fortress fell three times to the Russians during the Russo-Turkish Wars (in 1770, 1789, and in 1806 without a fight).

Along with Bessarabia, the city was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1812,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and remained part of the Russian Governorate of Bessarabia until 1917. Many Ukrainians, Russians and Jews settled in or around Bender, and the town quickly became predominantly Russian-speaking. By 1897, speakers of Romanian made up only around 7% of Bender's population, while 33.4% were Jews.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Tighina was part of the Moldavian Democratic Republic in 1917–1918, and after 1918, following the Union of Bessarabia with Romania, the city belonged to the Kingdom of Romania, where it was the seat of Tighina County. In 1918, it was shortly controlled by the Odesa Soviet Republic which was driven out by the Romanian army. The local population was critical of Romanian authorities; pro-Soviet separatism remained popular.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On Easter Day, 1919, the bridge over the Dniester River was blown up by the French Army in order to block the Bolsheviks from coming to the city.<ref name=Kaba/> In the same year, there was a pro-Soviet uprising in Bender, attempting to attach the city to the newly founded Soviet Union. Several hundred communist workers and Red Army members from Bessarabia, headed by Template:Ill, seized control in Bender on 27 May. However, the uprising was crushed on the same day by the Romanian army.

Jewish school in Tighina, 1937. The portrait of king Carol II of Romania is also visible

Romania launched a policy of Romanianization and the use of Russian was now discouraged and in certain cases restricted. In Bender, however, Russian continued to be the city's most widely spoken language, being native to 53% of its residents in 1930. Although their share had doubled, Romanian-speakers made up only 15%.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Along with Bessarabia, the city was occupied by the Soviet Union on 28 June 1940, following an ultimatum. In the course of World War II, it was retaken by Romania in July 1941 (under which a treaty regarding the occupation of Transnistria was signed a month later), and again by the USSR in August 1944. Most of the city's Jews were killed during the Holocaust, although Bender continued to have a significant Jewish community until most emigrated after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Jews were deported to Transnistria by the Romanian authorities in 1941, where a large majority of them died.<ref>See Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of the Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000), p. 129, 131-132, 199, 201. </ref>

In 1940–1941 and from 1944 to 1991 it was one of the four "republican cities", not subordinated to a district, of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union. Since 1991, the city has been disputed between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria. Due to the city's key strategic location on the right bank of the Dniester river, Template:Convert from left-bank Tiraspol, Bender saw the heaviest fighting of the 1992 War of Transnistria during the Battle of Bender. Since then, it is controlled by Transnistrian authorities, although it has been formally in the demilitarized zone established at the end of the conflict.

Moldovan authorities control the commune of Varnița, a suburb on the fringe of the city to the north. Transnistrian authorities control the suburban communes of Proteagailovca, which borders the city to the west and Gîsca, which borders the city to the south-west. They also control Chițcani and Cremenciug, further to the south-east, while Moldovans are in control of Copanca, further to the south-east.

Administration

Nikolai Gliga is the head of the state administration of Bender Template:As of.

List of Heads of the state administration of Bender

Tom Zenovich (1995 ~ 30 October 2001<ref>Template:In lang Olvia Press News Agency Template:Webarchive</ref>)
Aleksandr Posudnevsky (30 October 2001<ref>Template:In lang Olvia Press News Agency Template:Webarchive</ref> ~ 11 January 2007<ref>Template:In lang REGNUM News Agency</ref>)
Vyacheslav Kogut (11 January 2007<ref>Template:In lang Official website of the Supreme Council of Transnistria</ref> ~ 5 January 2012)
Aleksandr Moskalyov, acting Head of Administration (5 January 2012<ref>Template:In lang Transnistrian News Portal Pridnestrovets.RF Template:Webarchive</ref> ~ 9 February 2012)
Valery Kernichuk (9 February 2012<ref>Template:In lang Official website of the President of Transnistria</ref> ~ 15 November 2012<ref>Указ Президента ПМР №754 Template:Webarchive</ref>)
Yuriy Gervazyuk (24 January 2013<ref name="Gerva">Template:Cite web</ref> ~ 18 March 2015)
Lada Delibalt (20 March 2015<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> ~ 7 April 2015<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>)
Nikolai Gliga (7 April 2015<ref name="gliga" /> ~ )

Climate

Template:Weather box

People and culture

Demographics

In 1920, the population of Bender was approximately 26,000. At that time, one third of the population was Jewish. One third of the population was Romanian. Germans, Russians, and Bulgarians were also mixed into the population during that time.<ref name=Kaba/>

At the 2004 Census, the city had a population of 100,169, of which the city itself 97,027, and the commune of Proteagailovca, 3,142.<ref name="pop-stat.mashke.org">The Transnistrian census of 2004 data by nationality at http://pop-stat.mashke.org/pmr-ethnic-loc2004.htm</ref>

Ethnic composition
Ethnic group	1930 census	1959 census	1970 census	1979 census	1989 census	2004 census<ref name="pop-stat.mashke.org"/>
Ethnic group	1930 census	1959 census	1970 census	1979 census	1989 census	the city itself	Proteagailovca	The municipality	%
Russians	15,116	N/A	N/A	N/A	57,800	41,949	1,482	43,431	43.35%
Moldovans¹	-	N/A	N/A	N/A	41,400	24,313	756	25,069	25.03%
Romanians¹	5,464	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	61	0-5	61-66	0.06%
Ukrainians²	-	N/A	N/A	N/A	25,100	17,348	658	18,006	17.98%
Ruthenians²	1,349	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	-	-	-	-
Bulgarians	170	N/A	N/A	N/A	3,800	3,001	163	3,164	3.16%
Gagauzians	40	N/A	N/A	N/A	1,600	1,066	25	1,091	1.09%
Jews	8,279	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	383	2	385	0.38%
Germans	243	N/A	N/A	-	-	258	6	264	0.26%
Poles	309	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	190	0-12	190-202	0.20%
Armenians	46	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	173	0-16	173-189	0.18%
Roma	24	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	132	0-5	132-137	0.13%
Belarusians	188	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	713	19	732	0.73%
others	188	N/A	N/A	N/A	8,300	7,440	0-31	7,440-7,471	7.44%
non-declared	51	N/A	N/A	-						N/A
Greeks	37	N/A	N/A	-						N/A
Hungarians	24	N/A	N/A	N/A						N/A
Serbs, Croats, Slovenes	22	N/A	N/A	N/A						N/A
Czechs, Slovaks	19	N/A	N/A	N/A						N/A
Turks	2	N/A	N/A	N/A						N/A
Albanians	1	N/A	N/A	N/A						N/A
Total	31,384<ref name="citypopulation1930">1930 Romanian Census data for the Tighina County Template:Webarchive</ref>	43,000	72,300	101,292<ref name="citypopulation1989" >Template:Cite web</ref>	138,000<ref>Marian Enache, Dorin Cimpoesu, Misiune Diplomatica in Republica Moldova (Iași: Polirom, 2000), p. 399</ref>	97,027<ref name="citypopulation2004">Template:Cite web</ref>	3,142<ref name="citypopulation2004"/>	100,169	100%

Note: ¹ Since the independence of Moldova, there has been ongoing controversy over whether Romanians and Moldovans should be counted officially as the same ethnic group or not. At the census, every citizen could only declare one nationality. Consequently, one could not declare oneself both Moldovan and Romanian.

Note: ² The Ukrainian population of Bessarabia was counted in the past as "Ruthenians"

Native language
Language	1930 census	2004 census
Russian	16,566	N/A
Yiddish	8,117	N/A
Romanian	4,718	N/A
Ukrainian	1,286	N/A
German	225	N/A
Polish	219	N/A
Bulgarian	78	N/A
Turkish	26	N/A
Greek	21	N/A
Hungarian	20	N/A
Romani languages	16	N/A
Czech, Slovak	14	N/A
Armenian	11	N/A
Serbo-Croatian, Slovene	8	N/A
Albanian	2	N/A
other	11	N/A
non-declared	46	N/A
Total	31,384<ref name="citypopulation1930"/>	100,169

Population dynamics by years: <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

<timeline> Colors=

 id:lightgrey value:gray(0.9)
 id:darkgrey  value:gray(0.7)
 id:canvas value:rgb(1,1,1)
 id:barra value:rgb(0.6,0.7,0.8)

ImageSize = width:auto height:300 barincrement:30 PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:20 right:5 DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:0 till:133000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = late BackgroundColors = canvas:canvas ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:50000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:lightgrey increment:10000 start:0

BarData=

 bar:1897 text:1897
 bar:1939 text:1939
 bar:1959 text:1959
 bar:1970 text:1970 
 bar:1989 text:1989 
 bar:1991 text:1991 
 bar:2004 text:2004 
 bar:2008 text:2008 
 bar:2009 text:2009 
 bar:2010 text:2010 
 bar:2011 text:2011 
 bar:2012 text:2012 
 bar:2013 text:2013 
 bar:2014 text:2014 
 bar:2015 text:2015 
 bar:2015-10 text:15/10 
 bar:2016 text:2016 
 bar:2017 text:2017 
 bar:2018 text:2018 
 bar:2019 text:2019 
 bar:2020 text:2020

PlotData=

 color:barra width:15 anchor:till align:center shift:(0,5)
 bar:1897 from:0 till:31797 text:31,7
 bar:1939 from:0 till:30700 text:30,7
 bar:1959 from:0 till:43109 text:43,1
 bar:1970 from:0 till:72321 text:72,3
 bar:1989 from:0 till:129969 text:129,9
 bar:1991 from:0 till:133000 text:133
 bar:2004 from:0 till:97027 text:97,0
 bar:2008 from:0 till:94404 text:94,4
 bar:2009 from:0 till:94056 text:94,0
 bar:2010 from:0 till:93751 text:93,7
 bar:2011 from:0 till:93327 text:93,3
 bar:2012 from:0 till:92990 text:92,9
 bar:2013 from:0 till:92383 text:92,3
 bar:2014 from:0 till:91882 text:91,8
 bar:2015 from:0 till:91044 text:91,0
 bar:2015-10 from:0 till:90507 text:90,5
 bar:2016 from:0 till:84600 text:84,6
 bar:2017 from:0 till:83700 text:83,7
 bar:2018 from:0 till:83200 text:83,2
 bar:2019 from:0 till:83100 text:83,1
 bar:2020 from:0 till:83200 text:83,2

</timeline>

Media

Radio Chișinău 106.1 FM

Sport

FC Tighina is the city's professional football club, formerly playing in the top Moldovan football league, the Divizia Națională, before being relegated.

Notable people

Liubov Abravitova (born 1980), Ukrainian diplomat
Mehmed Selim Pasha (1771–1831), Ottoman statesman
Lev Berg (1876–1950), leading Jewish Russian geographer, biologist and ichthyologist
Boris Solotareff (1889–1966), Russian painter
Jerzy Neyman (1894–1981), Polish mathematician and statistician
Baruch Agadati (1895–), Russian-born Israeli classical ballet dancer, choreographer, painter, and film producer and director
Mozes Kahana (1897–1974), writer, poet, first chairman of the Moldovan Writers' Union
Sir Michael Postan FBA (1899–1981), British historian
Yosef Kushnir (1900–1983), Israeli politician who served in the Knesset
Maurice Raizman (1905–1974), French chess master
Yevgeny Fyodorov (1910–1981), Soviet geophysicist, statesman, public figure and academician
Zrubavel Gilad (1912–1988), Hebrew poet, editor and translator
Tamara Buciuceanu (1929–2019), Romanian stage, screen and TV personality
Emil Constantinescu (born 1939), Romanian professor and politician, who served as the third President of Romania, from 1996 to 2000.
Viktor Sokolov (born 1962), admiral and commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet
Nicolai Lilin (born 1980), Italian-Moldovan writer famous for writing Siberian Education, a fake memoir which narrated his youth in Bender
Template:Ill (1931–2022), Romanian opera singer
Ilie Cazac (born 1985), former Moldovan tax inspector and political prisoner
Liuba Chișinevschi (1911–1981), Romanian communist
Template:Ill (1929–2009), Russian writer
Roman Roșca (born 1982), Moldovan jurist and politician

Sport

Veaceslav Semionov (born 1956), Moldavian football manager and former footballer. Since November 2014 he is the head coach of Moldavian football club FC Dacia Chișinău
Fedosei Ciumacenco (born 1973), Olympian Moldovan race walker, competed in the 20 kilometres distance at the Summer Olympics: 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008
Serghei Stolearenco (born 1978), Moldovan former sprint freestyle swimmer, competed in the men's 50 m freestyle at the 2000 Summer Olympics
Alexandru Melenciuc (born 1979), Moldovan footballer. He currently plays for Navbahor Namangan
Andrei Tcaciuc (born 1982), Moldavian football midfielder who plays for FC Speranța Crihana Veche
Igor Bugaiov (born 1984), footballer, who plays for FC Irtysh Pavlodar
Alexei Casian (born 1987), Moldavian football midfielder who represents Lane Xang Intra F.C.
Vadim Cemîrtan (born 1987), Moldovan football striker who plays for FC Bunyodkor
Artyom Khachaturov (born 1992), Armenian-Moldovan footballer who currently plays for Moldovan club FC Zimbru Chișinău