Russian Empire
In 1792, the southern part of Transnistria was ceded by Ottoman Empire to the Russian Empire whereas northern part (north of the Iagorlîc River) was annexed in 1793 in Second Partition of Poland. At that time, the population was sparse and the Russian Empire encouraged large migrations into the region, including people of Ukrainian, Romanian, Russian and German ethnicity.
Russia began attempting to lure Romanian settlers (mostly from Moldavia, but also from Transylvania, Bukovina and Muntenia) to settle in its territory in 1775, after it gained the largely uninhabited territory between the Dnieper and the Bug. But the colonization was to be in a larger scale after 1792/3, to Transnistria and beyond, when the Russian government declared that the region of steppes without population between the Dniester and the Southern Bug was to become a new principality named "New Moldavia", under Russian suzeranity.
Indeed, the colonization had reached -in the centuries before- the Kiev area 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.
Read more about this topic: History Of Transnistria
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