Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistria lies across the Dniester river on the country's eastern border with Ukraine. Moldova's capital and largest city is Chișinău.
Moldovan, also known historically as Moldavian, is one of the two local names for the Romanian language in Moldova. Moldovan was declared the official language in Article 13 of the constitution adopted in 1994, while the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Moldova used the name Romanian. In 2003, the Moldovan parliament adopted a law defining Moldovan and Romanian as glottonyms for the same language. In 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova interpreted that Article 13 of the constitution is superseded by the Declaration of Independence, thus giving official status to the name Romanian. The breakaway region of Transnistria continues to recognize Moldovan as one of its official languages, alongside Russian and Ukrainian. Ukraine also continues to make a distinction between Moldovan and Romanian, with one village declaring its language to be Romanian and another declaring it to be Moldovan, though Ukrainian officials have announced an intention to remove the legal status of Moldovan. On 16 March 2023, the Moldovan Parliment approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution. On 22 March, the president of Moldova, Maia Sandu, promulgated the law.
The Moldova national football team represents Moldova in international football and is controlled by the Moldovan Football Federation, the governing body for football in Moldova. Moldova's home ground is Zimbru Stadium in Chișinău and their head coach is Serghei Cleșcenco. Shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union, they played their first match against Georgia on 2 July 1991.
The ȘOR Party is a populist political party in Moldova.
Virginia Ruzici is a former professional tennis player from Romania. She won the 1978 French Open singles championship.
Sport in Romania are an important part of the country's culture. Romania has risen to prominence in a number of sporting areas in recent decades. Association football is the most popular sport in Romania, a nation of 20 million. The most successful club is Steaua Bucharest, who were the first Eastern European side to win the European Cup and the European Supercup in 1986. Romania is one of only four national teams from Europe that took part in the first World Cup in 1930. The Romania national football team has taken part in seven FIFA World Cups and had its most successful run during the 1990s, when they reached the quarterfinals of the 1994 FIFA World Cup, losing to Sweden in the penalty shootout. Romania was ranked third by FIFA in 1997.
The Romania Billie Jean King Cup team represents Romania in Billie Jean King Cup tennis competition. It is governed by the Federația Română de Tenis and currently competes in the World Group I, the highest level of the competition.
Serghei Stroenco was a Moldovan professional footballer and manager. Serghei Stroenco has played a record number of 445 games in Moldovan National Division. He died in Vladimirovca at the age of 46 on 24 December 2013.
Mihaela Buzărnescu is a Romanian professional tennis player.
Mihaela Steff is a former female table tennis player from Romania. From 1998 to 2005, she has won two medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the World Table Tennis Championships, in the Table Tennis World Cup, and in the Table Tennis European Championships.
Ionuţ "Ion" Moldovan is a former professional tennis player from Romania.
Indiggo and the Indiggo Twins are the stage names for Gabriela Modorcea and Mihaela Modorcea, twin sisters and Romanian-American professional actresses, dancers, singers, and writers. They were born in Romania, received visas for extraordinary artistic abilities, became American citizens and live in New York City. They speak English, French, German and Romanian and sing in seven languages.
Anna Bondár is a Hungarian tennis player. She has career-high WTA rankings of No. 50 in singles, achieved on 18 July 2022, and world No. 43 in doubles, achieved on 30 January 2023. She is the current No. 1 Hungarian WTA player.
Irina Maria Bara is a professional tennis player from Romania.
CS Măgura Cisnădie is a professional women's handball club in Cisnădie, Sibiu County, Romania, that competes in the Liga Naţională.
Moldova participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Hey Mamma" written by Anton Ragoza, Sergei Ialovitski, Sergey Stepanov, Mihail Cebotarenco and Alina Galetskaya. The song was performed by the group SunStroke Project. The Moldovan broadcaster TeleRadio-Moldova (TRM) organised the national final O melodie pentru Europa 2017 in order to select the Moldovan entry for the 2016 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine. 40 entries competed to represent Moldova in Kyiv, with 14 being shortlisted to participate in the televised national final after auditioning in front of a jury panel. After a semi-final and final which took place on 24 and 25 February 2017, "Hey Mamma" performed by SunStroke Project emerged as the winner after gaining the most points following the combination of votes from a jury panel and a public televote.
The 2018 WTA Tour was the elite professional tennis circuit organised by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for the 2018 tennis season. The 2018 WTA Tour calendar comprises the Grand Slam tournaments, supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF); the WTA Premier tournaments ; the WTA International tournaments; the Fed Cup and the year-end championships. Also included in the 2018 calendar is the Hopman Cup, which is organized by the ITF and does not distribute ranking points.
Marco Alexandru Dulca is a Romanian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Liga I club Chindia Târgoviște.
Mihaela Guma is a Moldovan footballer who plays as a midfielder and a defender. She has been a member of the Moldova women's national team.
Corina Claudia Corduneanu is a Romanian former tennis player.
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