Moldova Matters 200th Article!

What a long strange trip it's been...

This week Moldova Matters hit a milestone - 200 articles published! When I started Moldova Matters back in February 2021 the goals of the publication were fairly modest. Following news and updates in Moldova was both a hobby and something I did as part of my day “job” supporting Small Business via the Moldova Small Enterprise Alliance. During COVID lockdowns I decided to take this hobby and use it to practice my writing skills and provide a modest service to those who were interested about reading more about Moldova in English. Since then things have taken on quite a life of their own.

Since that beginning we’ve published 200 articles covering the dizzying series of crises and events of the last 2 years and 4 months. First, in spring 2021 we covered the political and then constitutional crisis as President Sandu succeeded in forcing parliamentary elections against the opposition of both pro-Russian and pro-oligarch parties. Then in July 2021 we had the momentous parliamentary elections that brought PAS to power. This was quickly followed by the first energy crisis of fall 2021, and then to the outbreak of war in February 2022. It’s also important to remember that all of these crises were occurring against the backdrop of a global pandemic and rapidly changing circumstances with Delta and then Omicron coming to Moldova. Since the outbreak of war Moldova Matters has had to shift focus to cover the major geopolitical and security events in which the country became a major participant in world events for the first time. We covered the refugee crisis, energy crisis, tensions with Transnistria and much more. Most recently I was honored to cover the EPC Summit for Moldova Matters, writing on location from historic event in Moldova’s history.

Over the last 2 years and 4 months we’ve put out over 200 articles, an average of more than 7 per month. While we have only around 2000 email subscribers (free and paid) the publication gets an average of 16,000 page views per month including both emails and direct visits to the Moldova Matters website. Moldova Matters has been cited by the Washington Post and I’ve had numerous conversations with journalists from around the world helping people make sense of what’s going on in a country that has traditionally gotten very little international attention. More importantly, I receive multiple emails each week (in addition to comments on articles) from readers asking questions or asking for clarifications on specific topics. I do my best to answer each one thoroughly and to use common questions as feedback for future topics to cover.

While we’ve had multiple contributing authors and numerous people assist in helping me contextualize events and provide relevant analysis, Moldova Matters is largely a one man show. It takes a lot of time to keep up with events and write articles that provide context and analysis for our audience around the world. Moving forward I’ve got some big plans for the newsletter. There are numerous topics in both politics, economics, efforts at reform and more that we plan to explore in more detail. I especially want to focus on more “big picture” content that helps put events in Moldova in context both regionally and in terms of the country’s history.

But for this I need your help.

One thing I’ve never really figured out is how to market or promote the newsletter - nearly all of our readers and subscribers found us through word of mouth from another reader. So today I’m asking you all to please share Moldova Matters with friends or colleagues who would be interested in knowing more about events in this small but important European country. You can send them an email, or post a link to Moldova Matters on social media. I’m very grateful for anyone who takes the time to spread the word!

And for those who can afford to, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5/mo. I want to say a huge THANK YOU to those who have already subscribed - subscriptions are essential in supporting the work behind Moldova Matters. We need to grow our subscribers over the coming months in order to support adding new content and inviting new contributors. If you find Moldova Matters personally useful, or if it provides you with information helpful to your work, please consider a subscription. It really does make a difference.

So on this milestone of 200 articles I want to end by saying thank you to all my readers. It has been humbling over the last 2 years to hear how much people appreciate this newsletter. Without you interest and your words of support I could not have ever gotten here. Thank you.

David Smith

Editor and Lead Author at Moldova Matters