a new principality named "New Moldavia", under Russian suzerainty. Indeed, the colonization had reached in the previous century the Kyiv area (then known as New Serbia) and in 1712 even the Don river, with the Dimitrie Cantemir leadership. Plots of tax-exempt land were distributed amongst Moldavian peasants, while 56 Moldavian boyars (belonging to famous families like Rosetti, Cantacuzino, Catargiu and Sturdza) received large estates which they helped colonize. Dozens of new villages were founded during this colonization stage, which lasted until 1812, when Russia annexed Bessarabia and Transnistria ceased to be a borderland. In the 1890s there were the following fully Moldovan villages in the Bug river area: Iasca, Gradinita, Sevartaica, Belcauca (in the direction of Ovideopol), Malaiesti, Floarea, Tei, Cosarca, Buturul, Perperita, Goiana, Siclia, Corotna, Cioburceni, Speia, Caragaciu, Taslic, Dorotcaia, Voznisevsca (on the Bug), Moldovca si Cantacuzinovca. Indeed, in 1893 according to official data there were 532,416 Romanians in Kherson and Podolia, 11,813 – in Ecaterinoslav, and 4,015 in Tauridia (Crimea). But the real data were estimated up to more than one million. 1917–1924 During World War I, representatives of the Romanian speakers beyond the Dniester (who numbered 173,982 in the 1897 census) participated in the Bessarabian national movement in 1917/1918, asking for the incorporation of their territory in Greater Romania. Nevertheless, Romania ignored their request, as it would have required a large-scale military intervention. At the end of World War I in 1918, the Directory of Ukraine proclaimed the sovereignty of the Ukrainian People's Republic over the left bank of the Dniester. After the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Ukrainian SSR was created. Soviet Era Moldavian Autonomous Republic in Soviet Ukraine The geopolitical concept of an autonomous Communist Transnistrian region was born in 1924, when Bessarabian military leader Grigore Kotovski proposed the founding under the auspices of Moscow of the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast that months later became the Moldavian ASSR of Ukrainian SSR. In 1927 there was a massive uprising of peasants and factory workers in Tiraspol and other cities (Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Kamianets-Podilskyi) of southern Ukrainian SSR against Soviet authorities. Troops from Moscow were sent to the region and suppressed the unrest, causing around 4,000 deaths, according to US correspondents sent to report about the insurrection, which was at the time completely denied by the Kremlin official press. During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of Romanian Transnistrians fled to Romania, the government of which set up a special