Political turmoil once again

The Communists seem to have done really well in the election on Sunday. I'm not surprised at all; they ran an awesome campaign. They are much more cohesive than the other parties and did a lot to get the youth vote. I went to an incredible free concert out on the main square on Friday that was put on by the Communist candidate for mayor of Chisinau. He got a Grammy winning DJ, Benny Benassi, who played his most famous song (Satisfaction) to the best fireworks show I've seen in Chisinau this year. There was also a laser show to go along with his performance and a bunch of dancers on another stage. The square was packed with teenagers and people in their 20s. The show must have cost a ton of money to put on and the Communists definitely put a lot of money into all their banners and people walking around with flags and passing out flyers for the past month. Where all this money comes from, no one knows, and several people mentioned that it would be better to share some of that with the pensioners who can barely survive on the money they receive from the government. I've heard mixed reviews from people I've talked to about the Communist party. One lady I talked to broke into tears remembering what the communists did to her family during the Soviet Union and said she can't understand how people in Chisinau can consider themselves communists today even though the communists were responsible for sending their grandparents to Siberia to die. Several people have told me that all the communists are criminals and none of them can be trusted. Others have told me that the communists aren't associated with the ideology of communism at all anymore and are really just like all the other parties.

The communist candidate for mayor of Chisinau, however, ended up with only 48% of the vote so there will be another election in a couple of weeks. The communists are accusing the other parties of fraud and the other parties are accusing the communists of buying votes. In the meantime, a car exploded in the center of Chisinau killing the president of the tennis federation who was also the chief of staff for another candidate. There aren't many details yet but of course there is a ton of speculation.

In other news, I traveled up north to the historic town of Soroca on Sunday with a Peace Corps volunteer. He showed me around the fortress that was established in 1499 and we walked up 500 steps to see the Candle of Gratitude. It doesn't seem to be widely known what this was built to show gratitude for but it quickly became another important site in Moldova when it was built in 2004. Soroca has a large Roma community so there are a bunch of gypsy palaces in the town but we didn't really get a chance to check those out, I just saw them from a distance.