My stories from Transnistria and Moldova

Hi guys, I am doing a quick post today on some stories from my recent trip to Transnistria and Moldova. This is just a collection of observations that will be summarized into one paragraph each. Transnistria is a breakaway region from Moldova - it is majority Russian speaking and the locals were worried that upon the dissolution of the USSR, they would lose their Russian identity and be forced to speak Romanian instead, which is the official language of Moldova. So they fought a two year war of independence from 1990 to 1992 and about a thousand people died, it ended in a stalemate with the West backing Moldova and Russia backing Transnistria - an uneasy truce has lasted till today, though with the war raging on in nearby Ukraine, tensions are at an all time high. In fact at one point on my trip, I was just 1.5 km from the border with Ukraine but it was forbidden to cross that border given that it is controlled by Russian troops and I wasn't confident I would be let back into Transnistria even if I did manage to cross over into Ukraine. Russia is effectively using Transnistria as a military base today and the place is full of Russian soldiers in Russian uniforms, you will see the Russian flag flying everywhere in Tiraspol. In my previous post, I talked about how to cross that border from Moldova and get a visa on arrival, that is the logistical issues covered; in today's post, let's look at the human side of that experience. 

Why did you come to Transnistria? It is so dirty! 

On the bus on the way back from Tiraspol to Chisinau, my partner and I were the only two people who boarded the bus at the station. The bus driver was surprised to see us two foreigners there and I had greeted him in Russian as I boarded the bus, so he knew I spoke some Russian whilst my partner and I were speaking mostly in English. Thus the bus driver started talking to me and his first question was one that surprised me, he wanted to know why I had come to Transnistria on holiday as it was so dirty - yup, those were his very words. He said I could have gone to France, Austria, Finland, Germany, there are so many other beautiful countries in Europe but no, I had come to Transnistria of all places on holiday? I struggled to answer that question for two reasons: firstly, I wanted to be tactful, I didn't want to say that I had come out of morbid curiosity to see one of the poorest parts of Europe frozen in time, stuck back in Soviet times. So I told him that I have already travelled  to many different parts of Europe already and I was liked the history of the area, I also liked Moldova because it was a bilingual country and I can speak both Romanian and Russian. Trying to express all that in Russian was a challenge, my Russian is functional and basic - this required a far more nuanced reply to try to explain something that complex. Clearly, my driver didn't think that any tourist should bother with Tiraspol though I can't imagine that I was the first tourist that has come across? On our trip there, we met an Italian student Filippo and we spent the day there together as the only tourists in town, but it was a freezing cold day in November. A day trip to Tiraspol from Chisinau is one of the most popular things to do as listed on Tripadvisor and besides, Tiraspol is the second biggest city in Moldova and there is plenty to see and do there. I'm sure there are tourists who want to visit the Eiffel Tower and Disneyland on holiday, but I've been there and done a lot of that already. I certainly didn't have the vocabulary to translate the words 'morbid curiosity' into Russian and even if I did, I did not want to risk offending my bus driver. He then wanted to talk to me about living in England and asked me if I would go watch all the football matches, he knew a lot about all the famous English football teams like Manchester United and he was disappointed when I said I'm not interested in football. He has never been to the UK, but has learnt a lot about the UK through watching football matches.

It is so cut off from the rest of the world. 

Transnistria has its own currency - the Transnistrian Rouble and it is used solely in Transnistria, it is virtually impossible to get hold of even in Moldova and you need to show up in Transnistria with hard currency, usually Moldovan Lei, US dollar or Euros and exchange it for the local currency. Sometimes you can pay in Moldovan Lei, given that many of the locals there would go over to Moldova on a regular basis but that's just about the only other currency they are familiar with. Our Italian student friend Filippo tried to pay for some food in the market with Euros, but the lady there wouldn't accept payment in Euros. It didn't help that Filippo didn't really speak much Russian, he had some of the basics but wasn't enough for him to explain to her what a Euro was. So if a local food vendor didn't accept payment in foreign currency, then that's fair enough and I can't imagine trying to pay for street food in Seoul or New York with Euros, they would expect you to pay in local currency especially for a very small purchase. What did surprise me however, was the fact that this lady in the market genuinely had no idea what the Euro was, she asked her friend from a neighbouring stall in Russian, "this tourist wants to pay me in this foreign currency called the Euro, have you ever heard of it?" Her friend really didn't know either but then helpfully pointed us to the money changer at top of the stairs and said, "they may be able to help you change your money." This is hardly surprising given that the locals can't go anywhere with their ID/passport, the only real countries they can travel to are Moldova and Russia. This is because Moldova considers Transnistria a part of their territory and Russia effectively controls Transnistria. Transnistria shares a border with Ukraine but Ukraine wouldn't let you cross that border unless you hold a passport from a real country as it doesn't recognize Transnistria's independence. But given that Moldova has suspended all flights to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, it leaves them with only Moldova as their window to the rest of the world. There are currently no functioning airports in Transnistria as Moldova and Ukraine have refused to grant permission for transit through their air space to get to Transnistria. The media in Transnistria is tightly controlled and the locals are basically fed propaganda directly from Moscow - whilst it is not quite as bad as North Korea, Transnistria does feel very much cut off from the rest of the world. 

Getting lost in Tiraspol 

The three of us got hopelessly lost in Tiraspol whilst trying to find the bus station, we had gotten off the bus in the middle of town but then I said, it was prudent to actually find the actual bus station and check the schedule for the buses back to Chisinau as we don't want to miss the last bus. Filippo had a map on his phone which seemed to indicate a bus station on the edge of town so we started walking towards there and after walking about 15 minutes, we got hopelessly lost. We found ourselves in an industrial wasteland with abandoned buildings and rusty gates, it was like we were in a post-apocalypse world where the humans had been killed off by a nuclear bomb. Luckily, there was a petrol station there and I managed to get directions to the real bus station - it seems that Filippo's map was hopelessly out of date as there used to be a separate bus station but now the bus and train stations are both in the same place. What we had seen was a far cry from the centre of Tiraspol which was actually really attractive, there were beautifully tended flower beds in front of the grand military monuments. Mind you, this was late November and it was around zero degrees, yet the lovely flowers were somehow in full bloom and no, they were not plastic flowers. That means they every few days as they take fresh pots of flowers out of the greenhouse to replace the ones that have died in the cold. We found a new children's playground in the middle of town between the military monument and the main market - it was the kind of quality you would expect to find in New York, Stockholm or Tokyo. In the playground was a chic café selling you coffee at London prices. There were even modern shopping malls in the town centre that were selling all kinds of expensive branded goods and there were also some very nice (and expensive) restaurants too.. This made me think of Pyongyang, where there is an immaculate, modern centre of town that they want to show to the tourists, to give them the best possible impression of North Korea, whilst you only have to walk 15 minutes away before you see the old buildings that are literally falling apart. Of course, many visitors who visit Tiraspol will be on an organized day trip with a tour agency and they would only be shown the nicest parts of Tiraspol before being whisked away, back to Chisinau without ever seeing anything like what I saw when I got lost in Tiraspol. In North Korea, you will get into big trouble for wandering off on your own like that and taking pictures of very old buildings falling apart, but nobody seemed to care in Tiraspol when I did that.

Rumours of friendly locals are greatly exaggerated. 

I read a lot on Tiraspol before going on this trip as it is really one of the most unusual destinations for tourists. One myth that was repeated over and over again was that the locals were super friendly as so few tourists visit and they are more than happy to welcome tourists who visit. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't encounter any hostility at all - in fact, all my interactions were friendly but were they that happy to see us tourists there? Not really, the only person whom I talked to at length was my bus driver and when I asked for directions to locate certain tourist attractions, people were more than happy to tell me where to go but this wasn't that different from what I would experience elsewhere in Europe. Perhaps it has a lot more to do with the fact that we were a group of three guys, one of the travel bloggers who was warmly welcomed was a very attractive European lady so I think her warm welcome was based on her good looks (she got plenty of attention from the local men who wanted to chat to this beautiful lady visiting Tiraspol), rather than the fact that she was a foreigner visiting Tiraspol. We were mostly left on our own and I never once felt unsafe, even after dark in Tiraspol. Look, I know I am a bald middle-aged man and I am quite happy to be left on my own as long as I don't encounter any racism. In fact, the worst racism I have encountered has been in Africa - I have travelled to remote places where the locals have rarely or never seen an East Asian looking person like me in real life. So they tend to run up to me and scream, "JAPAN JAPAN JAPAN!" in my face, as if a) I am deaf and I can't hear them unless they shout so loudly at me and b) I somehow need reminding of what country I am from - that's usually my cue to tell them to fuck off. To a lesser degree, I have encountered that same kind of racism in Georgia but no one behaved like that in Transnistria. I am a Russian speaking East Asian tourist and there's plenty of Russian speaking areas in central Asia and the Russian Far East where people who look just like me speak Russian as a first language. So whilst I didn't encounter any super friendly locals in Tiraspol, I was just happy enough to have been spared the nasty racism I have encountered when travelling in Africa. So I was not sure what to expect, given all the bloggers who have written about Tiraspol are all white. 

I ignored official UK government travel advice. 

On the official UK government website, I was warned not to go to Transnistria - allow me to quote the official advice from their website: "The FCDO advises against all travel to Transnistria. There is widespread military activity in Ukraine, including in areas close to some Moldovan borders. Transnistria is outside the control of the Moldovan authorities. Our ability to offer consular support within this region is extremely limited, and in the event of military action on/near the border with Ukraine, would be further reduced. On 7 June, the Transnistrian de facto parliament gave greater powers for prosecutions and pre-trial detentions against those regarded as “extremists”. The de facto authorities interpret “extremism” in a way that includes many activities that British nationals would consider legitimate, including moderate protest or freedom of expression." Reading that did make me wonder if I was crazy to want to visit Tiraspol but in the end, my trip turned out to be okay. Basically, if you get into trouble abroad (say you get arrested), you could always turn to your embassy in that country for help but given that the UK does not recognize Transnistria, the British ambassador in Chisinau would not be able to help me if I got into trouble in Transnistria - that's why I was advised against all travel there. I was also slightly worried about being detained by corrupt Russian guards at the border, given that some border guards in the region may be corrupt and may want to get a bribe from tourists holding Western passports. Again, that never happened - in fact the only place where I had encountered this kind of blatant corruption are Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and Indonesia. The very worst country when it comes to that kind of corruption has got to be Indonesia, hands down - they are even more corrupt than the north Africans. I hate to sound racist, but there's clearly a running theme there and on the contrary, I have never had this kind of trouble with corrupt officials in Eastern Europe before. I doubt the Russian soldiers will do anything that will scare away all foreign tourists entering Transnistria from Moldova - after all, tourism is one way for them to earn some money in what is a desperately poor corner of Europe. On the other hand, you have to make sure you don't break any law there. I did read loads of warnings not to travel there but I've yet to find any stories of tourists getting into any kind of trouble in Transnistria. There are far more dangerous places in the world to visit.

As you might have read on my blog, I got called up for jury duty in January - that's so frustrating as it means I have to put my whole life on hold until that's done, it is scheduled to be approximately two weeks but it could be shorter or longer, depending on the case I get put on and that's the luck of the draw. I suppose this is a form of national service in the UK, where citizens are expected to perform this but it is completely random who gets picked from the electoral register and when it happens. I accepted it is going to happen and I just wanna get it over and done with. I do a lot of volunteer work and have done so for years, but I like the idea of choosing what I volunteer for and when I do it - this time, it's a letter in a post to tell me that I must do it on this date or else it is a criminal offence. In the meantime I've booked another holiday in the coming days to travel to the French-Italian border for some skiing early in the season and I have deliberately picked a ski resort where I can have breakfast in Italy, lunch in France and dinner back in Italy. I shall be staying in a beautiful farmhouse in the pristine Italian Alps before spending 24 hours in the city of Turin. This trip means that I have hit my objective of visiting at least 12 countries in 2023, one per month - that was the norm for me before the pandemic. So the 12 countries for this year are as follows: Spain, Norway, Austria, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Denmark, Moldova, Transnistria, Romania and France. If you don't want me to include Transnistria in that list, then feel free to include the UK as I did do some domestic traveling as well a little closer to home as well. One theme this year was visiting border regions - I made four trips that involved visiting more than one country and in two of those trips, I visited three countries. Okay people and so that's it from me for now on this topic. Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.