 In August 1990, following a refusal of the increasingly nationalist republican government, to grant cultural and territorial autonomy to Gagauzia and Transnistria, two regions populated primarily by ethnic minorities.In response, the Gagauz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was declared in the south, in the city of Comrat.In September in Tiraspol, the main city on the east bank of the Dniester River, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (commonly called the "Dnestr Republic", later Transnistria) followed suit.