{Info-Prim Neo interview from the series “Independent for 21 years. New Moldovans coming?!” with rural businessman Gheorghe Ursu, who has experienced the Soviet period, as well as the period of independence first-hand, and is convinced that the only people who do not succeed, are those who do nothing. ORIGINALLY published on 7 August 2012 } Gheorghe Ursu together with his wife and another family, with whom they have been friends for years, have opened a full-fledged commercial center in their home village of Mereni, Anenii Noi district. Beside the store that sells housewares, from needles to fridges and shower cabins, the villagers can also use the services of a food store, cafe, hairdressers, pharmacy, and even a wedding hall. The man admits that it is not easy to create, especially to maintain, a business in the village. In his opinion, it is easier in the city, because the population is permanently changing, but the villager are always the same, and there is always the risk for them to grow bored of one and the same thing. In the village you have to keep coming up with something new and good, in order to attract the residents. “We had a canteen open, where we cooked lunch for the village’s schoolchildren and for the Mayor’s Office employees; the canteen operated for about half a year and the people got bored. We were forced to close it down. We opened a billiards hall, the youth played there for several months and then got bored, so we closed it down”, says the man. They still seek solutions to be attractive. For the people who come to shop and don’t find what they were looking for, they have a catalogue with various merchandise they can order, and have it delivered within several days. For several years now they have launched a leasing system for costly goods, such as washing machines, fridges, or cookers. People can buy the items with a 50% initial payment rate, and the rest of payment is distributed throughout the following three months. Gheorghe Ursu says that they have been getting customers from other villages after launching this system. “Many have asked me why I have chosen to open the business in the village, instead of going to the city. But I said, well, if we don’t open it here, then who will? We must show that we can also do it, not only the city. We must show the youth that we can and must do something, and not expect someone to give us everything”, said Gheorghe Ursu. The man retells that he had lived very different times. He graduated agriculture, worked during Soviet times in the agricultural household Mereni, kolkhoz “Pravda”. He worked as a foreman’s assistant, and later became a foreman. He also worked as an agronomist and grew into collective household president. After the break down of the kolkhozes, he worked in Ministry of Agriculture, but left there as well. He attempted several projects in the private sector, but they did not take root. Gheorghe Ursu says that he went through one very tough period; he was the head of a family with four children and was supposed to do something on his own, otherwise he wouldn’t have managed to offer his children a decent life. “I was supposed to do something, because otherwise it would’ve been impossible. There was a series of changes; there were a lot of hardships. The financial state was what it was, and then I thought that a solution would be for me to go for work abroad”, stated Gheorghe Ursu. He went through many hardships until he reached Ireland. The man retells how he had to walk on foot, through wind and rain, to reach Dublin. After some time he managed to get hired at a water bottling. We used to work in the night shift and often worked Saturdays and Sundays, because that gave him the possibility to earn double and gather some money. Additionally, he would work in construction. The man says that he had a well-determined goal – to earn money – but didn’t hesitate in borrowing some technologies and experiences from the foreigners. He worked for several years, until, one day, they called him from home and told him that a friend of his had a business idea, one in which Gheorghe did not believe at the beginning. However, after returning home, together with the family they decided to invest the money gathered in that same project, and thus was founded the commercial Center, which has two co-owners. The Mereni village has a surface of 450 hectares. It has about 6,300 residents, and is approximately 30 kilometers away from Chisinau. [Elena Nistor, Info-Prim Neo] ****** {The first time the news agency Info-Prim Neo used the sentence “New Moldovans coming” was in the summer of 2010, also at the anniversary of Independence. It seemed appropriate to us, to attribute this description to a category of people whom Moldova can lay its future hopes upon. The Info-Prim Neo team believes that Moldova has changes for adequate development only in the case when the society will accumulate a critical mass of new people. We did not refer strictly to young people, and strictly to ethnical Moldovans. “New Moldovans” are all the people who adopt new visions and experiences, new will and mentality; all those who care about themselves, their family, and their country. It is true that the Agency found it necessary to end the sentence “New Moldovans coming” in an exclamation mark (!), as a symbol of hope, and an interrogation mark (?), in order not to scare our luck away. Info-Prim Neo}