I'm lagging behind on my travelling updates, can't believe I've already been so many places this year! It's getting a bit quieter now but here are still a few catch-up pictures from my trip to Moldova via Bucharest in June. Really nice trip with a great overnight train journey from Bucharest to Chisinau. Reminded me of the sleeper trains in Ukraine a few years ago. I actually slept so well that I didn't wake up when we got back to Bucharest and the conductor had to chase me out in my pyjamas while he already started cleaning the train!
I had done most of my research via the "
Seat 61" website and it was very accurate and helpful as usual, even the timetable was correct and only the price had gone up a little bit. On the outbound journey I shared my cabin with one other girl who was a rheumatologist at a hospital in Chisinau and apart from talking on the phone to her husband for ages at 2 am she was very nice and quiet. Usually there is place for 4 people in a regular 2nd class cabin but I was told that the train is hardly ever fully booked so it was very quiet and we had lots of space so I got one of the more comfortable bottom berths (I learned in Ukraine that the top ones are worse because it gets stifling hot and climbing up and down without a ladder is actually quite difficult). Sheets and a towel were provided and the conductor took care of everything. The only downside was the 3-hour stop at the border between Romania and Moldova where we had our passports checked thoroughly and the wheels of the train had to be changed. Yes, apparently you can change the wheels of a train! And it is just that simple: you lift the train, carriage by carriage, with something that looks fairly low-tec and you replace the wider Romanian wheel sets with narrower Soviet-type ones that fit the narrow gauge rails in Moldova. Quite impressive, but I could have done without the 3-hour layover.
Bucharest was pretty much the way I remembered it: confusing, somewhat shabby and not exactly tourist-friendly. I couldn't find any information about how to get to the city from the airport so I wandered around for a bit and discovered a bus that took me straight to "Gara de Nord". Thank God Romanian is fairly easy to read if you know French, that made the trip a lot as easier. Nevertheless, the total lack of information or maps of the city make it quite difficult to get around without a local guide. I was lucky and I bumped into a nice guy in the metro who helped me find my way round and I finally got the "Casa Poporolui" which was still on my bucket list. Here are are some pictures from the first part of my trip:
Chisinau presented itself actually in a more friendly way - for starters it's much smaller so it's only half as confusing as Bucharest. Basically, there is only one big boulevard in the city centre named after Stefan cel Mare, around which most of the street grid is centred. Fairly idiot-proof. But I was lucky and I had my friend Erika showing me around so actually I wasn't tested on that hypothesis myself. The bus system is similar to Ukraine: there are trolley buses which are the cheapest for inner-city trips and run frequently, stopping at designated stops, and there are the "Marshrutki", the mini-bus taxis that run along fixed routes but stop a bit n'importe où upon request. They're much faster and better for inter-city travel although it is difficult to find the correct one if you don't speak Romanian or Russian. Again, I had my private interpreter/tour guide Erika so I didn't have to worry about that.
The first day we actually didn't spend in Chisinau but we took a trip to Orheiul Vecchi, an old cave monastery and a church which sits on top of an impressive cliff in a pretty valley outside Chisinau. It was also a good opportunity to see the countryside and to visit a little village (although Erika told me that it was probably the richest village in the whole of Moldova and thus not exactly representative). Because the reality is that Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and especially on the countryside the living conditions can be pretty tough. The place we visited, Butuceni, didn't have running water and all around the village were wells to haul water up with a metal bucket - it looked quite 19th-century to me! And this was the "rich" part...
To me, Moldova did not look that poor compared to Ukraine but it is certainly a long way behind Romania which must have benefitted a lot from joining the EU. This also explains Moldova's enthusiasm to join the Union which is displayed all around Chisinau on posters and with EU-flags flying high. It could definitely do with some structural fund subsidies but it is doubtful that this will solve all the problems. Erika told me that many people work abroad and remittances make up a huge part of the Moldovan GDP. The downside is, of course, that all young and qualified people leave and the brain-drain is substantial. But not only that, many parents also abandon their children to work abroad and the grandparents have to take care of them. A lot of families are broken apart like this. Erika also explained to me that hardly anyone can live off an average Moldovan salary. Even though she is an expat she works for a normal salary and even though life in Moldova is of course cheaper than in Sweden, she cannot live off those 160 € especially if she ever wants to travel abroad. Moldovan people get by with help from relatives on the countryside who send food from the farms or by working multiple jobs and by exchanging favours. As an isolated individual with no support network it is almost impossible to get by.
All in all I really enjoyed my stay in Chisinau. It actually only surprises me that Moldova is to most people still such a blank spot on the map - I couldn't even find a guide book with up to date information! The closest thing I found was a chapter in the Lonely Planet on Romania and that was the last edition of 2007 I think. Finally I was lucky and got hold of a German guidebook which was quite good in the end - just a pity for all those non-German speakers out there who would have liked to visit Moldova. It seems like the country is ignored by most people, including its neighbours, mainly because it is too small and too poor to exerce any real power. When I tried do exchange the Moldovan lei I had left over at the end of my trip a Bucharest's main train station I couldn't find anywhere to accept it, not even at regular banks!
Finally, a trip to Moldova wouldn't be complete without visiting Transdnistria, the tiny breakaway pseudo state on the border with Ukraine. The whole political situation is extremely complicated but instead of boring you with it now I'd rather refer to the
wikipedia article. All I want to mention here is that it is much less exciting and much less dangerous than what most people make out of it. Yes, it is a quasi soviet republic where they speak Russian as an official language, they have their own currency (the Transdnistrian Rubel) and pretty much the only foreign country that officially recognizes their sovereignty is Russia. But apart from this, there was no hassle by officials, no impressive Soviet architecture or signs of massive corruption. While these things most certainly exist (it is for example forbidden to take pictures of official buildings), I only witnessed some major boredom while visiting Tiraspol, the "capital" of Transdnistria. There wouldn't even have been any opportunity for police to take bribes or hassle me because I didn't see any. There were no real border controls because I arrived by train and all I had to do was register with a lady behind a counter whose only remarkable features was the even more bored look on her face with me as the only tourist arriving on the train that day. My intentions to splash out and eat well that day because everything is even cheaper than in Chisinau were crossed by the lack of opportunities to spend my money. All in all, Tiraspol was a very sleepy, unremarkable place and I was happy to go back to Chisinau in the evening. Ah well, I guess I can say I've been there.
For those who have not been put off by my less than enthusiastic description and still want to go and visit Transdnistria feel free to write me a message if you want more details. I just don't want to bore the other readers even more.
