Dushanbe The Soviets transformed the area into a centre for cotton and silk production, and tens of thousands of people relocated to the city. The population also increased with thousands of Tajiks migrating to Tajikistan following the transfer of Bukhara and Samarkand to the Uzbek SSR as part of national delimitation in Central Asia. On 10 November 1961, Stalinabad was renamed Dushanbe, the name it retains to this day. Severe rioting occurred in February 1990, after it was rumored that the Soviet government planned to relocate tens of thousands of Armenian refugees to Tajikistan. The Dushanbe riots were primarily fueled by
Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as the Balta district (where the capital was located), which had only 2.52% Moldavians. The official capital was proclaimed the "temporarily occupied city of Kishinev". Meanwhile, a provisional capital was established in Balta and moved to Tiraspol in 1929, where it remained until the MASSR was integrated into the newly created Moldavian SSR in 1940. MASSR had a mixed Ukrainian (46%) and Moldavian (32%) population, which was estimated at 545,500. Its area was and included 11 "raions" on the left bank of Dniester. According to the 1926 Soviet census, the Republic had a population of 572,339, of which: Despite this