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CHIȘINĂU

Markets are places of movement and encounters. In the world of finance, they are personalized and described with human characteristics: The markets are restless, the market will sort it out, the invisible hand of the market - to name a few paraphrases. 
But markets, like borders, are places where stories are made and happen. 

One of these is that of John Onoje in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. In 2011, he declared himself President of the Republic of Moldova after the elected parties had been unable to agree on a coalition for several months. 
Onoje was born in Sierra Leone in 1959 and came to Moldova as a refugee. Today, he sells coffee at the capital's largest market and is a member of the Free National Party. He belongs to a tiny minority of people of color in the country and still faces massive racist problems, even in politics - as the politician Vladimir Voronin once called him in a public speech "a black man who has just climbed down from a tree".

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