A demographic history of Transnistria shows that Transnistria has been home to numerous ethnic groups, in varying proportions, over time. Ethnicity prior to 1792 The word "Transnistria" means literally "lands beyond the Dniester" (called the Nistru in the Romanian language). These lands are historically related to the neo-Latin populations that lived east of the Dniester River. In the coastal area of these lands, during the Roman Empire, there were small cities of nearly 5,000 inhabitants such as Tyras and Olbia. Roman colonists settled in these areas under the protection of Roman legionaries. The interior of Transnistria was sparsely populated by eastern European tribal groups. The region between the Dniester River and the Bug River, having a steppe topography, was continuously subjected to invasion during the Middle Ages by imperial and tribal forces. Beside the droughty periods typical for the region, the second reason for the underpopulation of the Black Sea northern shores is the vicinity of the Tatars. Their presence, both military and civil, impeded the settling of the east European type life and blocked the Moldavian or even Polish expansion to the east. The Transnistrian lands settled in the Middle Ages by Romanians were only partially and temporarily ruled by Moldavian princes or possessions of the Moldavian Principality. Probably those Romanians living east of the Dniester were only a few thousands. The steppe around the Bug river was mostly depopulated in the 13th and 14th centuries because of the Golden Horde, according to some travelers (like in the "Chorographia Moldaviae" of Georg Reicherstorfer, written in 1541). They found there only some Vlach (Romanian) shepherds and a few Romanian and Slav villages. Meanwhile, the Romanian colonization east of Dniester -that had started around the year 1000 AD- had reached the Kiev area in the 15th century and in 1712 even the Don river, with the Dimitrie Cantemir leadership.} Ethnically the area of Transnistria between the Dniester and the Bug rivers -even if depopulated- was probably 2/3 Romanian speaking (while between the Bug and the Dnieper rivers most of the population was Slavic), when Russia started to conquer it. Indeed, according to the results of the census (quoted in Romanian sources) of 1793 AD, 49 villages out of 67 between the Dniester and the Bug were Romanian. Russian Empire period (1792 - 1917) In 1792, the whole territory between the Dniester and the Bug rivers (that historically was part of the