In the "old days," all three were part of the Soviet Union's power grid, specifically what is now called the IPS or the Единая энергетическая система. What this effectively means is that all three countries' energy systems (both natural gas and electricity) are still hooked up together although operated separately.

You'd be surprised how often you hear that Transnistria is a super dangerous country.

I certainly like Pridnestrovie. But maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm weird. Maybe I'm a total idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about. Fair enough.

Let's call this one partially mythologized. While it is technically true that Pridnestrovie has money that's made out of plastic, what they've created is actually pretty amazing.

Nope, not Communist at all. Sorry!

Not only have I heard many, many people speaking Romanian in public in Pridnestrovie, I've also done it myself. Nearly one-third of the people who live in Transnistria speak the language, so I don't know where this rumor came from, but it is a persistent one.

Over the past 1,000 years, the area now known as Transnistria has had a lot of names, but none of them were ever "Transnistria" except for a brief period of time during World War 2 when it was under fascist occupation.