There are some countries in the world that when you mention its name to someone, you are very likely to be asked immediately…. “ah yes…I’ve heard of that. Now, where exactly is it ?” The Republic of Moldova is one such country.
There are some countries in the world that when you mention its name to someone, you are very likely to get the response…”where ? I’ve never heard of it.” The Pridnestrovian Moldovian Republic (the PMR)…aka Pridestrovie or Transnistria, is one such place. Another is Gagauzia.
So I set out on a recent trip to put Moldova firmly on my map and these other two places as well.
For a change, I did not fly as a non rev for several reasons. There are extremely limited options as far as flights are concerned, requiring connections over certain cities, and the flights into Moldova are frequently quite full. So I travelled STN-KIV on the (five a week) Air Moldova A320.
The flight was ‘interesting’. Seats are old and worn, and there is not much room between rows, meaning that knees are usually touching the seat in front, but the seats do not recline, (so it doesn't get any worse). The tray tables are more like little shelves that drop down at chin level, and the inflight entertainment consists only of a ‘book service’ – something like an inflight library. The food service consists of one fairly solid bread roll, but there is a choice of chicken or pork. If you choose pork, your roll will have a slice of processed ham in it; otherwise it is a slice of processed chicken. The drinks are limited to a variety of soft drinks and wine. Moldovan wine has a good reputation, mostly in Russia and surrounding states, and cannot be easily found in the UK, so a cup of the delicious velvet stuff certainly helped to manage the bread roll. But there were no refills. After landing the passengers broke out in a long round of applause which I think is common practice in Russia and surrounding areas.
I arrived in Chisinau, (pronounced ‘Kishinow’) not knowing exactly what to expect. I had booked a hotel in town for the first three nights while I explored places ‘on foot’, after which I rented a car to tour the country for four days.
Chisinau is not a very large city, and there are not too many sights that are of any specific interest, although I do love to walk around and absorb the atmosphere. There are two parks that take centre stage in the city, almost opposite each other on the main road. The most well-known is Cathedral Park, which has an orthodox cathedral in the centre, and next to the main road, at the perimeter of this park is a Triumphant Arch, much like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris or Marble Arch in London. The other park, Stefan cel Mare Park, is a small park with a nice fountain at the centre, and a statue of Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) at the entrance. For those interested, there is a Wikipedia article on Stefan cel Mare.
Next to the Parks, is the Parliament building, which is quite modern, and opposite the Parliament is the Presidential Palace. A new president was elected in late 2016 and he has directed some modifications to his palace. As a result there is currently a high metal solid fence around it while works proceed. So you can see nothing of the palace at the moment.
Behind the presidential palace is the Catholic Cathedral, which by any standards is small and unimpressive, but that too is being renovated so I could not see inside.
The central market may be of interest to some people - it is a very busy place where all manner of produce from the countryside is sold, as well as clothing and virtually anything else. Behind the market is the central bus station. The buses in Moldova are normally mini-vans (called ‘Marshrutkas’) that hold 20 or so people and criss-cross the whole country between towns and villages on a frequent basis. On some routes they only go when full, and on others, they have a regular timetable. The main form of transport within Chisinau is the trolleybus. These are cheap, frequent and usually crowded.
Moldova is western looking, like its neighbour, Ukraine, and is trying to throw off its former soviet culture. In Chisinau, the vast majority of signs are in Moldovan, which is basically Romanian and in the familiar Latin script.
On my second day, I took a Marshrutka to the city of Tiraspol, which lies in the breakaway region/state of Transnistria (the PMR). At the PMR border, armed guards ensure that every vehicle and person is stopped. Vehicles are searched and sometimes persons too. Passports are checked, visitors questioned, and limited visas issued for foreigners. This border used to be rife for bribes to get into the PMR, but their government has clamped down and there was no hint of a bribe when I crossed. The bus route ends at the railway station where the first thing one has to do is to change some currency into their Roubles. There are numerous little exchange kiosks all over town, as it is illegal to pay, or even attempt to pay for anything in any foreign currency.
In Tiraspol, I walked around the city in about two hours. There are a number of soviet statues (Lenin, Suvorov etc.) and everything is written in Russian (Cyrillic alphabet). I saw the war memorial with graves from the 1990-92 ‘war of independence’, complete with a tank and eternal flame. The shops are very old soviet style, with nothing in the windows except large pictures or just blinds. The number of tourists I saw on this day, I could have counted on one hand.
I took a trolleybus to the nearby town of Bender, which lies on the Moldovan side of the river, although controlled by the PMR, and which has an interesting checkpoint (with armed guards and a camouflaged Russian tank) at the entrance to the city, at the end of a bridge from which a nice view of the river and old fort could be seen. Just round the corner from the heavily armed checkpoint is a two storey police ‘hut’ from which the police keep an eye on traffic, and pedestrians, and pop out every so often to stop some poor driver and require him to present his papers inside the hut.
I returned to Chisinau on nearly the last bus of the day (around 6pm) in good time before my visa ran out at 10pm.
On the next day, I picked up a rental car from the airport (there is no town office for car rentals). I had already planned out my routes in some detail as I do not use a sat-nav, and soon got underway skirting around the city, to head north. Driving in Moldova is not for the feint-hearted, but driving in the city is best left to the locals. The roads are very bad, many of them are full of potholes, and those that are not, are very often like a patchwork of tarmac in 3D, causing responsible drivers (like me!) to slow down to around 20kmh for the sake of the car’s suspension.
The country has numerous monasteries, many of which are worth a visit for one reason or another. My first stop was a place called Old Orhei, where there is a monastery on a clifftop overlooking a river. The views here were awesome and unlike any other place I have seen. I drove through a nearby village and saw several interesting old houses and another small monastery. I then visited another monastery in the countryside at Curchi, set in beautiful grounds and where the inside of the church was gleaming with highly polished gold (it is usually just plain gold) and brilliant white paint.
Then I carried on to Moldova’s second city called Balti. I had expected a smaller version of Chisinau, but in fact it became clear that these people are finding it more difficult to shake off the soviet ways, or perhaps they are less keen to look west. Cyrillic writing was as much if not more in use than the Latin alphabet. And I found people speaking Russian almost as much as in Tiraspol, and noted that there seemed to be no other tourists around. I walked around Balti in the early evening and saw everything in less than two hours. There is a very wide pedestrian road in the centre, which comes alive more in the evening with the occasional guitarist, or violinist, and at one place a small group of people gathered and singing much like an ad-hoc choir. There is a city park which is small and relatively uninteresting, and a statue of Stefan cel Mare in front of the city hall (offices). There is also a war memorial with a tank, remembering those who died in the 1990-92 war.
The following day I continued north through the town of Edinet to Ocnita on the Ukraine border. I was surprised here to find the actual border right next to the road but no fence of any sort. It was just a white marker on the ground with a post about two to three feet on each side, with the colours of Moldova on the post on ‘my’ side and the Ukraine colours on the other post. There was a sign nearby warning not to cross, and about a hundred yards away, an old (soviet style) watchtower that seemed to be no longer used. I am sure there must be a proper fence of some sort on the other side of the field but effectively I could have walked into the Ukraine for a minute when there was no one around. I then continued east, very roughly following the river which forms the border here, to the border town of Otaci. This was an interesting small town where lorries are continuously using the border crossing (bridge) over to Ukraine.
I then continued south –east to the town of Soroca for the night. The roads on this section were no more than extremely rough ground full of huge potholes, made worse by the heavy lorries that crawled along trying to avoid the biggest holes. Indeed one lorry had actually overturned, seemingly because of the bad road.
Soroca has a couple of interesting attractions. One is a fort, and the other is a candle monument on a hill. I saw both once I had arrived in Soroca, and before the huge thunderstorm that cleared the air on such a hot day. The views from the candle monument were magnificent with views up and down the river and over Ukraine on the other side.
On the next day I drove south and visited two monasteries on the way to my overnight in Orhei. The first monastery was in Saharna, which has extensive grounds in the hills at the back, which are open to the public for walking and hiking, and includes a small bathing pool for the resident monks, in an ‘open’ outhouse set in the flow of a stream. Saharna is a short distance from the border town of Rezina, where queues of lorries make their way over the bridge into the PMR. The second monastery was at Tipova. The Monastery lies on the other side of the small village (just a few one room houses and farms), and at first sight seems a little ordinary. However a short walk behind the monastery brings you to the edge of some cliffs, overlooking the river, with the PMR on the other side. I was immediately struck by the awesome views and tranquillity of this place.
There is a small path down, and along the cliffs to what is known as the Tipova cave monastery, which is thought to be the largest cave monastery in Moldova. The pathway is narrow and steep in parts, but makes for an interesting short hike (about 20 minutes each way).
On my last full day, I drove south from Orhei, skirting around Chisinau and across hills and countryside to the town of Comrat. This is in another ‘breakaway’ (autonomous) region, called Gagauzia, however unlike the PMR, there is no border control, just a large sign stating that you are entering Gagauzia. This region also looks to Russia for support and so Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet dominate. Comrat is a very small city and has the usual Russian statues outside some government buildings (which seemed to be almost every building along the main road in the middle of the town). A large yellow Orthodox cathedral marks the centre of town, with a very small ‘cathedral park’ next to it.
I had a couple of hours to drive around Gagauzia and to see their other main town of Ceadir Lunga. Gagauzia has their own police force with a zero tolerance on driving offences, and there are frequent police ’traps’, not just for speeding but to stop drivers to examine their papers and vehicle. At once place there were about a dozen police stopping almost every vehicle. Thankfully, I was doing well under the speed limit, and for whatever reason, was one of a few allowed to proceed without stopping.
I cut across country from Comrat back to Chisinau where I stayed overnight on the edge of the city. The next day, I just dropped the car at the airport and flew back to Stansted. It was the same plane and the same crew, as I had on the outbound flight one week earlier!
During my short stay in Moldova, I did not get the time to visit any of the huge wine cellars of Milestii Mici or Cricova, where a tour of their wine cellars includes some element of tasting. I shall save that for another day when I am not driving!
Lee
Photos from this trip, for those who may be interested, can be found using this link :
https://www.flickr.com/gp/75686213@N06/VqnXTS
