Business as usual in Transnistria: survival strategies of entrepreneurs in a de facto state

This article analyses how small entrepreneurs navigate the political economy of Transnistria, a de facto state characterised by external dependence, oligarchic concentration of power, and geopolitical uncertainty. Drawing on eleven weeks of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2025, including interviews, participant observation, and detailed field notes, it employs sociological composite portraits of entrepreneurial couples to examine everyday strategies of economic survival. The analysis shows that entrepreneurs operate within a constrained field structured by the dominant Sheriff conglomerate, which functions simultaneously as regulator, partner, and competitor. Within this setting, they combine pragmatic accommodation with selective autonomy, leveraging informal networks and external linkages while maintaining the appearance of “business as usual” in conditions of systemic uncertainty. By foregrounding lived economic practice, the article argues that survival in de facto states is not merely a response to instability, but a patterned form of adaptation in which dependency, flexibility, and strategic ambiguity become normalised.