Grigoriopol is the seat of the Grigoriopol District of Transnistria. The city is located on the left (eastern) bank of the river Dniester at in central Transnistria. Grigoriopol is composed of the city itself and a small village Crasnoe. The town itself had a population of 11,473 in 2004.
Grigoriopol district was first established on October 12, 1924 as part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Later, its administrative-territorial position changed several times. In 1971, Grigoriopol district was re-created.
The centre of the district – Grigoriopol – was founded by decree of Catherine II in 1792. For a long time Grigoriopol was an Armenian colony and an important trade centre on Nistru. In Soviet times, Grigoriopol was considered an urban-type settlement, and in 2002, it “regained” the status of the city.
In 1996 and in 2002, the town was the centre of a dispute regarding the attempts of local Moldavian inhabitants to use the Romanian language (written with Latin script characters) in the local Moldavian school, which is against the policy of the government of Transnistria. The Transnistrian press attacked the local authorities "that allowed the fifth column of Moldova in Transnistria to operate". The head of the Parent-Teacher Association of the Moldavian school, Mihai Speian, was arrested by the Transnistrian authorities on August 28, 2002. He was released on September 12, following a protest by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission in Moldova. The school was moved to the village of Doroțcaia, Dubăsari district, which is in the area controlled by the Republic of Moldova.
On the territory of the district there are settlements known as the Glueckstahl colonies: Kolosovo (Bergdorf), Glinoe (Glueckstahl), Karmanovo (Neudorf). German immigrants who later lived in Pridnestrovie for many years founded them at the beginning of the 19th century.
Today Grigoriopol is an important administrative and cultural centre. The population of the whole district is 39,800 people.
Source: https://pridnestrovie-tourism.com/en/grigoriopol-history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigoriopol
To the cache:
It´s the first cache in Grigoriopol ever. It is located outside the city center to protect it from muggles. And why is it called „Forbidden city“? MiroslavRouta and I traveled around Moldova for 5 days at the beginning of August and, among other things, we got permission to enter Transnistria for 2 days. On the way from Tiraspol, our rented car, which I was driving, was stopped by a hitchhiker from Grigoriopol with his wife. They needed to get to the center of Grigoriopol.
Before entering the city, the police were guarding and a sergeant was showing us that we should take the road to the right outside the city. However, we needed to take the young couple into town, so we drove straight. After a while we see a honking and flashing police car behind us. We stopped, the policeman confiscated our passports and documents from the car and ordered us to follow him to the station. There I faced the charge that we had disobeyed an instruction. We didn't think I did anything illegal. Fortunately, everything turned out well, it was the hitchhiker who helped me, who partially translated from Russian to English using his mobile phone, for which I thank him in this way as well. After the policeman found out that we were only tourists, he resolved the situation by negotiation without issuing a fine or perhaps worse consequences and allowed us to enter the city. However, it was not a pleasant situation, every policeman carries a machine gun. The sergeant himself then calmed me down not to be afraid of the weapon. It is therefore a personal memento, which I also dedicate to this cache. Otherwise, we liked Transnistria and all the local people were very nice to us.
Spoiler:
Thanks to MiroslavRouta for the betatest and to the Reviewer for the publishing the cache.