Villagers in northern Moldova go to vote just for the sake of dressing nicely and getting out of the house. People confess that they no longer trust politicians at all and that they are doing worse.
The northeastern region, or more precisely, Moldova, is one of the poorest regions in Romania. Especially in the countryside, things seem to be getting worse from one year to the next. In Botoșani county, for example, people and animals suffer from thirst, although the region has hundreds of ponds and two large rivers. Villages are depopulating at an accelerated rate, and young people who have gone to work abroad have nowhere to return. There are entire areas where sewerage is missing, and gas is an exotic utility for most villagers. We can hardly talk about health care, considering that four municipalities do not even have a family doctor. However, once every four years, the politicians ask the peasants from the villages of Botoșani to vote. Increasingly poorer, older and sicker, the Botošan villagers say that they are tired of promises and that they ended up going to vote just to socialize but also to wear their Sunday clothes.
“Even after a hundred years, they won’t win our trust”
In Gorbănești, Botoşani county, hundreds of villagers came out to vote at the polling station set up in the school in the center of the commune. Most of them are elderly people who come to vote with their wives. A few young people sneak in with their parents or grandparents. But the burden of voting is borne by the seniors. As in every round of elections. Young people are either gone abroad or don’t care about voting. “Young people are already sick, depressed. They are passed from one authority to another, from one institution to another. Nobody prepares them for the future anymore. Hardly anyone takes a serious, realistic approach to their professional training. They don’t expect anything anymore“, says Constantin Prisacariu, a villager from Gorbănești.
Other villagers say that young people do not come to vote because they are disappointed and that they do not want to live in Romania anymore. “What to look for in the vote if he dreams of Germany or England. He has no job here. Or if he finds it in the city, he is poorly paid, he ends up dying of hunger. Either he goes to the cow in poverty, or he goes to the gym, but at least for more money.” says another villager. In fact, the elderly also confess that they go to vote because that is what they are used to, but mainly to socialize and to wear their Sunday clothes. Moș Dumitru went out with his wife to vote. “CI have this costume from the wedding of one of my nieces. I’m going to vote to wear it again. Let’s exchange a word here. Now we are also noticed. That’s it after that. I no longer have any faith in politicians. Even after a hundred years, it no longer earns our trust“, says the villager.
“It was better in Ceaușescu’s time”
Moș Dumitru’s wife is even more blunt when it comes to politicians. “How to trust if they haven’t done anything. How the villages were 20 years ago and how they are now. Maybe there is a cable, some extra shops, but the children are missing, the young people are missing. Without them the village is dead. We don’t have a spoonful of water in the wells“, says the woman. Suddenly, another villager halted his horse and looked anxiously across the sun-scorched fields. “Uhow are you? It is not water for animals, for people. Crazy grants, combinations and spells with everything. And they want me to go vote for them? I’m not going and that’s it. The old men go and the herd escapes. Nothing changes anyway. It was better on Ceaușescu’s will. Now desert and poverty, and lack of everything”, says the villager.
The village of five people visited by politicians every four years
One of the most depopulated villages in Moldova is located in Gorbănești commune. It has only five inhabitants and is abandoned in a forest in the middle of the plain. It was baptized by the communists “Mihai Eminescu” because the great poet used to come to this hamlet, to the mansion of a great boyar in the area, to court his daughter. The village of “Mihai Eminescu” was a prosperous locality until three decades ago. It had a school, a post office and almost a hundred inhabitants. With the economic disaster of the 90s, people left wherever they could see. Now there are only five people left, three of whom are elderly. The only utility it enjoys is electricity. I take water from the only drinking well. The forest invades every corner of the village. Although they were effectively abandoned in the middle of the field, without roads, water or any kind of facility, the elderly of Mihai Eminescu go to vote conscientiously. “I’m going to vote that this is the way it should be done. We also go out into the world“, says aunt Adela Aionesei, 83 years old. In fact, the woman from Botoša confesses that the last time a politician visited the village, even in passing, was four years ago.
