Someone stole 1/8th of Moldova's GDP

[Monoriu]

Come on, we have half a million people protesting all the time out of a population of 7 million and that's not that big a deal.

7% of your population attending a protest is a pretty big deal. And you certainly seemed to think it was a big deal several months ago, when some of the protesters were blocking streets & your workplace.

Half a million people march and protest in HK every year on 1 July, and they are routinely ignored. 

[Eddie Teach]

It signifies there is major discontent among the populace. Manifestations of this discontent aren't restricted to this one protest you don't care about.

[Maladict]

I have spoken to Romanians about that, and most said that while Moldova would have liked that, most Romanians didn't want them, mostly because of how run down the place was/is. But there seems to be a fair amount of exchange/cooperation between the countries.

Yeah that's pretty much what I've heard.
I guess everyone likes to have a country on their eastern border they can make fun of.

[Monoriu]

It signifies there is major discontent among the populace. Manifestations of this discontent aren't restricted to this one protest you don't care about.

I just don't see how 10k protesters is a lot, even out of a population of 3.5 million.  Our population is only double that, and a protest of 20k probably happens every other month that barely makes page 4 of the newspapers.  If the government is determined to ignore the protesters, numbers don't mean anything. 

[Eddie Teach]

You should probably be comparing HK to Chisinau rather than Moldova as a whole, since the amount of effort needed to participate is much greater for people in the countryside. So their 10k protest may be equivalent to 100k in Hong Kong.