August is the most difficult month for people of the post-Soviet states. In 1991, August was the month of the hopes. Year after year, in August, people return to the old pains with new questions: Was it worth fighting for independence? What has changed? How much longer do we have to fight? When will we really live a happy life in an independent state?

In August, as a rule, the coup d’état of August 19-21, 1991, is marked, followed by the exit, one by one, of the states that made up the former Soviet Union: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania broke away on August 23, Ukraine – on August 24, Belarus – on August 25, Moldova – on August 27.

It was the month of heavy battles, freedom gains, and high hopes. August should be a month of continuous celebrations, a month in which we rejoice that we were strong in battles, that we obtained firm rights, that we set out on a different path and there is no way back.

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine for subsequent generations the number of freedoms re-acquired in August 1989 – August 1991. During this period we re-acquired the freedom of identity, the right to bear Romanian names or of any other origin, the right to one’s own culture, the right to have an opposition, to organize protests, to create political movements, the right to freedom of expression and free independent media, the right to work or not to work, the right to leave and return, and even to emigrate, the right to create entities, to own property, to do business. These and many other rights were not possible in the Soviet Union and became practically possible overnight. Why, then, are the people sad? 

August 2020 has found people in a worse state than ever. Farmers confronting with a grueling drought, medical workers in a national depression, teachers and educators caught in an Andromeda-sized nebula, migrants in an iron enclosure, retirees in lethargic isolation, small businesses imprisoned. Is there anyone who could encourage all of these people, who could bring the spirit of celebration, pride, and national unity in this state of collective depression?

It is obvious that the Government is overwhelmed and cannot cope with the situation when the doctors are suffocating, the teachers are derailed, and the farmers got on tractors and set off for Chișinău, instead of going to the fields.

It is obvious that the Government has neither money nor skills and time to turn people’s lives into a celebration.

What does our President do these days? Moldova has a president, who does not have too many administrative obligations. However, he is the most entitled to deal with the festivities related to national holidays.

Dodon is on vacation. In August, when everyone is having the hardest time, he sent his family to Turkey, and then declared that he was taking a vacation, which he would spend in Moscow. 

On August 19, we commemorate the coup, the three days that marked the last outburst of Soviet abuse, which led to peoples’ release out of the Moscow prison. However, the president of the sovereign and the independent state of Moldova is in Moscow on this day.

Let’s imagine, for example, that the leaders of the Baltic States would spend their August vacation in Moscow, especially this August when people’s concerns are not about holidays. Imagine that the president of Ukraine is going on holiday to Moscow. This August, Alexander Lukashenko would go to Moscow just for one last vacation or for a new commitment.

While humanity is feverishly looking for a vaccine against coronavirus, we still seem to need a vaccine against the virus of Soviet mentality. Moscow labs cannot make it. However, citizens who want to live in an independent and prosperous state can develop it. That is why in August only the leaders who need to be vaccinated have their vacation in Moscow. We like to be independent. We stay on guard.