In Bălți, northern Moldova, Renato Usatii is a hero—and not only because he was born in the nearby village of Făleşti. Here, in Moldova's second largest city, it’s hard to find someone critical of Usatii, but even harder to find someone who doesn’t adore him. 'He's a muzhik [Rn: real working man], a simple guy like us. He speaks like us,' says Igor as he smokes a cigarette at the door of the restaurant where he works.
'He understands, for example, that Moldova isn't ready to trade with the EU. European companies will crush ours. For the sake of our economy, we should continue to sell our products to Russia,' says Sergey, a 24-year old computer programmer, and who is against the Association Agreement that Chișinău signed with the EU in June 2014.
Renato Usatii at a Moscow press conference in November 2014. Photo: (c) Aleksei Filippov / VisualRIANIn June, Renato Usatii, 37, was elected mayor of Bălți with 72.46 per cent of the vote. 'You see, people love me. I’m their Nelson Mandela,' Usatii joked with us, standing among the tents that his party Partidul Nostru (Our Party) installed in front of the parliament in Chișinău at the end of September.
