Founded in 2004, Ziarul de Gardă has written thousands of articles over 18 years that have matured Moldova. On the occasion of our 18th anniversary, we invite you to remember together the most important stories published in ZdG over the years. 

Together we monitored the communist government, then the protests of 7 April 2009. Together we have also participated in the resignation of a prime minister, uncovered some of Metropolitan Vladimir’s secrets, published photos of a former president’s luxury holidays in the Maldives and Seychelles, revealed corruption schemes involving high-ranking officials, and uncovered the homes and multimillion-dollar fortunes of officials, led by judges and prosecutors. Also together we debunked the Covid-19 falsehoods, and subsequently how to buy the anti-Covid vaccination certificates. We showed who the forest thieves are and how dozens of beggars pretend to be sick to provoke pity from the people. And the maturing continues. 

#1 Communist Government

Born during the communist government, the Guard Newspaper has constantly monitored the embezzlement of public money, corruption in the judiciary and police, and the wealth amassed by communist dignitaries headed by their leader Vladimir Voronin. We have written about the hundreds of hectares of forest leased by companies affiliated to his family and about the luxury properties attributed to the former head of state’s family. It all culminated in coverage of the events of 7 April 2009, when hundreds of young people were ill-treated in police stations. We have uncovered and traced the career paths of the police officers and chiefs who gave illegal orders at the time, as well as the politicians who ruled Moldova. Also then, and in the years that followed, I lived with the Boboc family the drama of Valeriu’s death, from his funeral to the victory at the European Court of Human Rights. 

#2 Judges from “hell“

Immediately after the events of April 2009, we uncovered the judges in “hell”. We found seven magistrates who had tried young men with bruises on their bodies, detained on the streets of Chisinau, in police stations. Arrest warrants were issued for almost all of them, in trials that lasted a few minutes. 

These are just some of the testimonies of girls detained and tried in police stations, published by ZdG: “They punched me in the face”, “They pulled my legs with a stick”, “They beat me because I didn’t want to undress”, “They forced me to undress my underpants even though I had my period”, “They kept me without water”, “They tried me in 5 minutes”, “They convicted me without guilt”.

After that, most of them uttered the same phrase: “I left Moldova and I don’t want to come back”. Of the seven magistrates “from hell”, Dorin Popovici was the only one dismissed shortly after the ZdG articles about his work were published.  

#3 Trafficking in people, weapons, drugs

Illegal trafficking in arms, drugs and human beings has always been in the ZdG’s sights. For 10 years we followed the famous case of heroin hidden in bean bags. Four people were convicted definitively and irrevocably, but none of them ended up behind bars, having previously left Moldova. 

We also followed the files of the notorious 2000s pimp Alexandru Covali, alias Șalun. In 2020 we revealed that he and other members of his group were released early. Soon after his release, Șalun left the country. At the same time, we also published the revelations of one of the girls trafficked by Șalun, whom we found in Timișoara. “He sold me to a Turk for 10 thousand dollars a night. The transaction was made right in front of me, right in that apartment he brought him. After that he started to take us to hotels, but the worst for us was the sauna, because in the sauna we would get beaten up,” Natalia recalled. 

#4 Bribery for prosecutors

The “Bribes for prosecutors” investigation, published in 2011, led to one of the most high-profile trials in the history of the Guardian. 

We reported then how two prosecutors from Glodeni, under criminal investigation in a bribery case, were removed from prosecution. The article displeased the two state prosecutors, who argued that we should not have written about that case. They sued the Guardian and demanded moral damages totalling one million lei. The first court partially ruled in their favour, ordering us to pay the two half a million lei, a decision that put ZdG’s existence at risk. The Court of Appeal reduced the amount to 20 thousand. It was only in July 2012 that the Supreme Court of Justice dismissed as unfounded the applications filed by the two Glodeni prosecutors.

#5 Wages of dignitaries

In 2012, Ziarul de Gardă started a series of investigations into the wealth of Moldovan dignitaries. Almost weekly, we uncover the million-dollar homes and hidden wealth of judges, prosecutors and other high-ranking officials, all paid from the public budget. 

We showed how the head of the National Integrity Commission, an institution empowered to check the wealth of officials, lived in a house worth millions. Later, we reported on how Viorel Chetraru, head of the National Anti-Corruption Centre, bought a house worth millions from his … mother-in-law. In 2016 we found the house under construction registered in the name of the parents of the most publicized prosecutor of that time, Adriana Betisor, the one who handled the most important corruption cases in Moldova. Then we also reached the National Anti-Corruption Centre. With monthly salaries of around 20 thousand lei, most of the heads of the institution in charge of fighting corruption drove luxury cars and lived in spacious houses or apartments costing millions of lei. 

#6 Rapes and abortions in the psychoneurological boarding school

In 2013, news of rapes at the Balti Psychoneurological Boarding School shook society. We went there to talk to the victims. Their testimonies were shocking. Humiliated, kidnapped, raped for years, then forced to abort, they saw no way out. While the director of the institution at the time claimed he was unaware of what was going on, the victims claimed the opposite. After the ZdG article was published, the director was dismissed. Doctor Stanislav Florea, accused of rape, was put in the dock. The trial lasted several years, during which time Ziarul de Gardă monitored the case. We went to the hospital many times, discovering new and new victims. In the meantime, two witnesses died under suspicious circumstances. Only in 2019, after several court hearings and articles published by ZdG, Stanislav Florea was finally sentenced to 15 years in prison.

#7 Secrets of the Metropolitan

In 2014, we uncovered some of Metropolitan Vladimir’s secrets. We showed that His Eminence owned, on lease, through a company in which he is listed as a founder, a hectare of forest near the village of Ruseștii Noi, on which he has built a holiday home, fenced and hidden from the eyes of ordinary mortals. ZdG found out that Metropolitan Vladimir lived in a million-dollar house a few kilometres from Chisinau. The luxury property was registered in the name of a woman, with whom the churchman had even been on holiday in Turkey by the sea in 2012. ZdG then discovered on an account on the Russian social networking site ok.ru several photos in which the metropolitan was with that woman on the seaside. Later, we published more pictures of the two. After several weeks of silence, the Metropolitan spoke about the articles in the Guardian newspaper in front of parishioners. He hinted that the woman he was with at the seaside was his cousin and that the articles targeting him were “a devilish work”. 

#8 Prime Minister with fake diploma

The year 2015 was all about the uncensored CV of then Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici. A ZdG investigation showed that Gaburici failed to pass the baccalaureate exam in 1995, when he was studying at the Republican College of Microelectronics and Computer Technology. He was later enrolled at the university on the basis of a false diploma, stamped with the stamp of a high school he never attended. Gaburici has refused to talk about this on every occasion. After a criminal case was opened three months after taking office, Chiril Gaburici resigned. However, the criminal case was closed because the statute of limitations had expired. 

#9 Dark affairs

Rigged public tenders, favouring relatives or the direct involvement of officials in business deals with the state was another area of interest for ZdG. In January 2016 we revealed that the firm of the head of the Public Procurement Agency’s sister was winning tenders worth tens of millions of lei, and at the same time we brought to light the hidden business of the family of the then mayor of the capital, Dorin Chirtoaca. Firms controlled by his brother, but registered as intermediaries, were dotting the city with coffee kiosks. Lucian Chirtoaca still owns several kiosks in Chisinau, also through intermediaries. 

ZdG also revealed the interests and involvement of state dignitaries in the video surveillance project. The disagreements between them eventually led to the failure of video surveillance on national roads. Another case of public money being directed to the relatives of dignitaries was covered by ZdG in 2017, when we wrote that the company controlled by the family of a CNA directorate chief won tenders to supply food to several kindergartens in Chisinau. The official was initially suspended from his post and later left the system.

#10 Dodon’s luxury

In January 2020, Ziarul de Gardă exclusively reported pictures of budget politician Igor Dodon’s luxury holidays. Dodon’s family has enjoyed exotic holidays in the Maldives, Seychelles, Dubai or at an exclusive villa on the grounds of one of the most luxurious hotels on the Aegean Sea, a resort run by the family of Russia’s prosecutor general at the time, Yurii Ceaika. During his time as a member of parliament and country president, Ziarul de Gardă first wrote about Dodon’s million-dollar house, bought with money from Plahotniuc’s bank. Subsequently, in 2019, we presented, in the investigation “All the President’s People”, the wealth of millions registered in the name of Dodon’s family and friends, subjects that later became criminally investigated by prosecutors in a criminal case in which the former president is accused of illicit enrichment. 

#11 Oligarchs

The properties, businesses and involvement of controversial politicians and businessmen Vladimir Plahotniuc, Veaceslav Platon, Vladimir Filat and Ilan Șor in bank fraud were extensively covered in the pages of Ziarul de Gardă. We described Platon’s road to freedom, who are the people who contributed to Vlad Filat’s release from prison and how Ilan Shor and Vladimir Plahotniuc were helped by the Moldovan justice system to erase the traces of their involvement in the billion theft. We have explained in an easy-to-understand animation how the billion was stolen.

#12 Transnistria region

Over the past 18 years, the Guardian has closely monitored events in the Transnistrian region, watching how people’s rights are constantly violated. We have shown how year after year elections in Moldova have been rigged by corrupting voters on the left bank of the Dniester. During the presidential elections in November 2020 and later, the early parliamentary elections in 2021, the Guard newspaper showed how the inhabitants of the Transnistrian region were brought to the polling stations and paid to vote for Igor Dodon and the Communist and Socialist Electoral Bloc respectively. In the light of the war in the neighbouring country, the Transnistrian conflict is again coming to the fore as a threat to state security. Thus, while more and more challenges tangential to the Transnistrian region were being launched in the public space, ZdG went to the region and showed what the mood on the left bank of the Dniester actually is. Over time, we have been reporting on the phenomenon of kidnappings carried out by employees of the institutions of force subordinated to the unrecognised regime in Tiraspol, and we have followed the cases of victims of the phenomenon whose traces disappeared in the Transnistrian region.

#13 Human rights

Articles on the violation of the most basic human rights have occupied thousands of pages of the Guard Newspaper in its 18 years of existence. We have written about patients who died waiting for years for a life-saving transplant, but also about the mothers of children with cancer, mothers who are often left alone in the face of numerous problems. I have reported cases of torture and pushed for its elimination.

“He would ring him with his hands up and a 24kg ‘ring’ (weight) on his sexual side and pull him down and up there he would stand on an iron bar,” recalled the mother of a boy tortured to admit to a crime he said he did not commit.

We publicised cases of discrimination of all kinds, including on the basis of sexual orientation, as in the case of Marin Pavlescu, a young man harassed in the army for being gay.

#14 Charity

The hard and sad life stories of our heroes have raised awareness and generated charity. After describing the story of a family with a five-month-old baby living in a dilapidated block of flats without drinking water, electricity and heating in the middle of winter, a bank account was opened in the family’s name at the request of ZdG readers. More than four thousand euros were collected. And for Marin – the blind boy from Briceni who lived alone in an unhealthy apartment with mice swarming around, we collected more than 3,500 dollars, which enabled him to enjoy a repaired home and get rid of his debts to the state. Such stories have been and surely will be told again. 

#15 Beggars without masks

In the Beggars Without Masks survey, published in 2019, we uncovered dozens of beggars cheating on the streets of the capital. Some moved clumsily, using crutches or walking with crooked legs. Others were in wheelchairs or ostentatiously displayed their “prosthetics” to impress. This is how many beggars were seen every day on the streets of Chisinau: old, sick, helpless. After 5 months of following them closely, I found that many of them obtained the mercy of passers-by by deception, being, in fact, perfectly healthy, and when they were caught, they became aggressive. As of January 2022, begging accompanied by feigning a disability is punishable by a fine or unpaid community work.

#16 Covid-19

The years 2020-2021 were marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, with all its consequences: frightened people, unprepared health system, economic crisis, manipulation and falsehoods. In June 2020 we debunked the rumour, extremely widespread at the time, that relatives of people who had died of various illnesses were being paid money to accept Covid-19 as the reason for death. We later demonstrated how false certificates with negative Covid-19 results, required for travel abroad, were sold and how vaccination certificates could be bought for thousands of lei.

#17 Forest illegalities

In January 2021 we brought to public attention the clear-cutting in the Durlești forest and the reinforced concrete constructions springing up in place of trees. As a result of our investigation a criminal case was opened, the felling was stopped and the constructions demolished. And also in 2021, in a series of investigations, including in video format, we show how forests are being destroyed and stolen by the very people who are supposed to be guarding them. In the course of documenting this article, we were stalked, threatened and intimidated. But we didn’t give up. 

#18 War in Ukraine

The year 2022 is about the war in Ukraine. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, ZdG has written thousands of news stories and delivered live text reports every day. We met refugees at border crossings, listened to their cries of pain and told their stories. We also accompanied them to the homes of those who decided to host them and published countless lessons in solidarity. I have exposed the war-mongers and those who tried to profit financially from the refugees.