|
MoldovaTransportation and Telecommunications
Unavailable
Figure 21. Transportation System of Moldova, 1995
In 1995 the main means of transportation in Moldova
were
railroads (1,150 kilometers) and a highway system (20,100
kilometers overall, including 14,000 kilometers of paved
surfaces)
(see
fig. 22). The major railroad junctions are
Chisinau, Bender, Ungheni, Ocnita (Oknitsa, in Russian),
Balti,
and Basarabeasca (Bessarabka, in Russian). Primary
external rail
links connect the republic's network with Odesa (in
Ukraine) on
the Black Sea and with the Romanian cities of Iasi and
Galati;
they also lead northward into Ukraine. Highways link
Moldova's
main cities and provide the chief means of transportation
within
the country, but roads are in poor repair, and gasoline
shortages
make interurban motor transportation difficult. The
country's
major airport is in Chisinau.
Shipping is possible on the lower Prut and Nistru
rivers, but
water transportation plays only a modest role in the
country's
transportation system. In 1990 a total of 317 million tonkilometers of freight were carried on inland waterways as
compared with 15,007 million ton-kilometers on railroads
and
1,673 million ton-kilometers on roads (see
table 13,
Appendix A).
The movement of manufactured goods and of passengers on
all
means of transportation started to decline in 1989. From
1993 to
1994, for example, the total amount of transported goods
fell by
31 percent, passenger traffic decreased by 28 percent, and
the
number of passengers declined by 24 percent. The main
causes for
these declines are the high cost of transportation, a lack
of
fuels, and the poor state of Moldova's transportation
infrastructure: approximately 20 percent of Moldova's
roads are
considered in a critical technical state.
Moldova's telecommunications facilities are poor, but
they
were being upgraded in 1995. In 1990 Moldova had an
average of
twelve telephones per 100 inhabitants (heavily
concentrated in
urban areas), and there were more than 200,000 unfilled
orders
for telephone installation. In 1994 Moldova installed
23,800
telephone lines, which included public phones with direct
international dialing capabilities. Some 10,000 digital
lines in
Chisinau were upgraded by a German company. In 1994 a new
company
in Chisinau, a joint venture with partners from Greece and
Italy,
was soon to produce automatic telephone exchanges at the
rate of
50,000 lines a year.
Moldova is connected to Ukraine by landline and is also
now
linked to countries outside the former Soviet Union via
Bucharest
rather than via the switching center in Moscow, as had
previously
been the case.
As of 1993, three television channels were widely
available
in Moldova: Moldova's two national channels
(Radioteleviziunea
Nationala), Romanian state television (Televiziunea
Romāna), and
Russian state television (Ostankino Kanal 1).
Radioteleviziunea
Nationala's daily fifteen hours of broadcasting included
five
hours of Russian-language broadcasts. Broadcasting in
other
minority languages was more limited: Ukrainian (three
hours per
month), Gagauz (three hours per month), Bulgarian (three
hours
per month), and Hebrew and Yiddish (1.5 hours per month
for both
together). Televiziunea Romāna broadcast fifteen hours
per day,
and TV Ostankino broadcast nineteen hours per day. In 1995
there
was one independent television station in Chisinau (whose
coverage included most of the republic).
In 1993 nine AM radio stations were reported
broadcasting, in
four cities: four in Grigoriopol (Grigoriopol', in
Russian),
three in Chisinau, one in Cahul (Kagul, in Russian), and
one in
Edinet (Yedintsy, in Russian). Separatists in the
self-proclaimed
"Dnestr Republic" had taken over the radio facility in
Grigoriopol and broadcast on two of the AM frequencies.
The
cities of Balti, Cahul, Edinet, Straseni (Strasheny, in
Russian),
and Ungheni each had one FM radio station broadcasting on
the
same frequencies used when Moldova was part of the Soviet
Union.
Plans for international shortwave radio service were
delayed
because of the loss of the Grigoriopol facility to the
separatists. Several private radio stations operated in
Moldova
in 1995. At least one of these was funded by an American
Christian group. The others broadcast music, mostly for
young
people.
Data as of June 1995
|
