Stepan Caraman

Biography

Stepan Caraman was born on 7 September 1963 in the town of Ceadîr-Lunga, into a Gagauz family. After graduating from vocational school in 1982, he worked a year as a seasonal labourer, and in 1983 he was hired as a worker at the Ceadîr-Lunga mill — the enterprise with which his entire later life would be bound up.

### Education

- (1979–1982) — Ceadîr-Lunga Vocational School, specialty: mechanic

### Professional experience

- (1983–1988) — worker, Ceadîr-Lunga mill
- (1988–1996) — foreman, Ceadîr-Lunga mill
- since 1996 — owner, flour mill and oil press, Ceadîr-Lunga

He is married and, together with his wife, is raising three children.

### Key facts

- Year of birth: 1963
- Place of birth: Ceadîr-Lunga, Gagauzia (UTA Găgăuzia)
- Profession: entrepreneur (flour milling and oil pressing)
- Current position: owner, flour mill and oil press, Ceadîr-Lunga
- Education: vocational school, mechanic

Views and principles

I have decided to run for the People's Assembly of Gagauzia because I know from my own experience what it means to make something with your own hands — and how hard it is to sell your labour at a fair price.

I was born and raised in Ceadîr-Lunga. I joined the town's mill as a worker in 1983, became a foreman, and in 1996 — when everything around us was collapsing — I found the courage to buy the mill and keep it alive. For almost thirty years now, our mill has ground the grain and pressed the oil of farmers from Ceadîr-Lunga and the neighbouring villages.

Every autumn I see the same injustice: a man works the fields for a whole year, then leaves half his earnings at the mill or with the middleman. That is why I will fight for concrete things: transparent, fair crop-processing rates for small farmers; real support for local producers — from affordable credit to markets where they can sell; and jobs here at home, in Gagauzia, so our young people stop leaving.

A man who has kept a mill running for thirty years knows what responsibility means — towards people, towards his given word, towards the land he lives on.

This candidacy is not about office — it is about responsibility. Together we can make labour in Gagauzia paid fairly.

Career analysis

Stepan Caraman's career is, step by step, the story of a man who learned his trade from the bottom up — from shovels and sacks to ledgers and contracts.

As a mill worker he knew real physical labour — the dust, the noise, the hard shifts. That stage taught him respect for the ordinary worker and for every honestly earned leu, a lesson no management textbook can give.

As a foreman he learned to lead people: to organise shifts, to answer for machinery and deadlines. In the hard years after 1991, when enterprises were closing one after another, he was among those who kept the mill running — a school of crisis that hardened him as an administrator.

His 1996 decision — to buy the mill and become its owner — proves entrepreneurial courage and faith in his own land. In almost thirty years he has created jobs, paid wages and taxes, and kept his rates affordable for small farmers, although he could have earned more from speculation.

Finally, his bond with Ceadîr-Lunga is total: he was born here, he has worked here all his life, and his mill serves the farmers of the town and the neighbouring villages. He is not running for Gagauzia from somewhere outside — he is running from its very midst, as a local man whom people know and respect.