I love to travel. I do it at every opportunity, much to the chagrin of the other half of RedMolotov.com who bemoans the fact that my travel schedule sometimes gets in the way of important things like working hard. One of my friends has, rather unkindly, christened me “bigfoot” on account of my contribution to the carbon output of the aviation industry. Other people who know me less well tend to offer endless comments of the following ilk: “oh, you always go to such strange places”, “where are you going this time, Borat?” or “oh, I could never go there. How do you get by when no one speaks English?”
Favouring, as I do, destinations in the more exotic parts of Eastern Europe, there have been occasions when my itinerary has brought me into close contact with the full force of what corruption and petty bureaucracy remains as a hangover of Soviet times. The only two occasions when I have been required to bribe an official have been in the former Eastern Bloc; prepare yourselves to be regaled about the time that this happened to me in the Country That Does Not Officially Exist™
Moldova, if you were not aware, is a small, largely rural, country that was part of the former Soviet Union sandwiched between Romania and the Ukraine. It is split roughly in two by the Dnister river. It’s something of a schizophrenic nation, but I love it there.
Thanks largely to Uncle Joe, lots of ethnic Russians were moved there at various periods around the middle of the last century. Historically, the ethnic Moldovans themselves are far, far closer to Romanians than the slavs to the north and east; their languages are pretty much one and the same. You can also throw into this mix a large Gypsy minority (particularly in the north which in parts is pretty much the Knightsbridge of Gypsy society) and a small but significant Gagauz (Turkic-speaking) ethnic minority in the south (one of the smallest distinct ethnic groups in the world).
Anyway, following the fall of the Soviet Union the significant Russian population to the east of the Dnister river decided that they didn’t like the turn that events were taking, what with being a bit isolated from Moscow and lots of their fellow Romanian-speaking countrymen wanting to join with Romania and look west to further integration with Europe. The tension was exacerbated by the fact that the Soviet Army had huge stockpiles of weapons in the country which were simply left in-situ in 1991. These weapons were put to good use in the immediate aftermath as the Transdniestr (literally “beyond the Dnister) region declared independence from Moldova. There followed a short but very bloody civil war, a cease fire and a very uneasy truce which has been upheld ever since with the help of large numbers of Russian “peacekeeping” troops.
So, Transdniestr nowadays is an independent country in almost every sense of the word, apart from the fairly important fact that is is not recognised as such by just about every other country in the world. It has its own border guards, police force and military, it also has its own currency (although inflation has been well into four digits). The President, Igor Smirnov, is a former factory boss and Red Army lieutenant (and also an alleged KGB operative) who now runs the place like his own personal fiefdom and there are dark mutterings as to the origin of the money that is propping up the Transdniestran economy which tend to centre around the sale of former Soviet weaponry to such salubrious individuals as the former Iraqi regieme and the Chechen separatists (ironic, given that the regime itself is largely thought to only exist due to backing from Moscow). In theory the country is a socialist paradise – along with Belarus the last bastion of old-style Soviet communism in Europe only with less money. Indeed, in may ways it is like a provincial 60s-style communist theme park, bedecked with hammer and sickles, stirring slogans and statues of Lenin.
Getting in to Transdniestr was a relative breeze, thanks largely to the help of the English-speaking Max who was studying law at university in Chininau (”Proper” Moldova’s capital). Once there the place was a delight of bombastic Soviet architecture with wide tree-lined boulevards and huge statues and monuments depicting the struggle of the workers. There were some comical ironies, such as the pizza restaurant appropriating the symbol of revolution the meaning of which the western world has destroyed by its ubiquity, that of Ernesto Che Guevara. We were also treated to the sight of probably the most out-of-place looking young African gentleman I’ve ever seen walking down the street in his tracksuit and sporting (relative) bling – it was explained to me by Max that he was a footballer for Sheriff Tiraspol (the biggest football team in Moldova/Transdniestr owned by the Sheriff company – a company set up and owned by two former KGB officers which also seemed to run just about every other form of enterprise in the country). We tried to imagine the conversation that the aspiring footballer had back in Lagos with his “Mr. 40%”:
Agent: Good news, lad. I’ve secured you a deal with a club in Europe.
Footballer: Great!
Agent: You’ve not heard the bad news yet: it’s in fucking Tiraspol…
Igon Smirnov’s son is also one of the Sheriff senior figures.
All in all Tiraspol and Transdniestr seemed a pleasant place: other than the large groups of young uniformed men (the Transdniestran militia) there was little in the way of menace and, despite the complete lack of any tourism whatsoever, noone really took any notice of us. Our problems started when it came time to attempt to leave the workers’ paradise and head on to Odessa in the Ukraine.
Forgive me for digressing somewhat, but my wife works as a speech and language therapist with a particular specialism in stroke care. Basically, depending on where in the brain your stroke occurs, you can suffer seriously impaired communication that can effect your speech, reading, writing and comprehension – much as myself and my intrepid companion were about to experience.
We spoke pretty much zero Russian. With Max gone it turned out that the majority of the general population in Transdniestr spoke even less English. Add to this the fact that everything in the country is written in the Cyrillic alphabet (which although one can phonetically transcribe I am by no means an expert, doing so at the rate of approximately a word or two a minute – and even then you may have the pronunciation but still not a clue about the meaning) and you might begin to appreciate the difficulty of finding out what time the bus leaves (if, indeed, there were a bus) for Odessa. Sat in a shiny new bus station with no timetable and the only fop towards provision of information being a woman in a kiosk displaying the total absence of any pretence of customer service which can only be honed from eighty years under a totalitarian Soviet regime. I even got shouted out at great length by the elderly street vendor for taking a bottle of water out of her Chlorofluorocarbon-emitting fridge hooked up to a car battery and then attempting to pay her.
Then, once in the safety of the only bus out of town we shortly came to the Ukranian border. There had recently been some problems between Transdniestr and Ukraine (linked to customs, smuggling, weapons, drugs, human trafficking, the illegal trade in human organs, that sort of thing) which had led to increased border security and even the cancellation of all trains between the countries (or the country and self-declared independent socialist republic) and the fact that we were trying to exit a country that doesn’t officially exist, via a border manned by guards that were not officially recognised, into a country that does not formally recognise the place where we were coming from did not increase our confidence.
After much checking of passports and examining of luggage of our fellow companions, and after a great deal of Eastern European-style queuing, four people were told to report to the border guards for interrogation (I’d like to think that’s what they said, in fact the two of us and, by some amazing coincidence, the only other two “westerners” on the bus – two Swiss who had been on the bus from Chisnau and not stopped in Transdniestr – were pointed to a door and left in no doubt that we were supposed to wait there).
The Swiss went in first. We waited outside. And waited. We joked about thumbscrews and lights in the eyes and smiled at the people with machine guns. Eventually our neutral friends emerged, pallid of face, beads of sweat on their brows and solemnly and silently walked onto the bus. It was our turn.
We were faced with three people: a young soldier on the right, an older official type seated behind his expansive desk and what can only be described as a young goon by the door; all six-foot five and eighteen stone of him. The conversation started with a few questions in broken English/Russian:
Chief guard: Where from?
Us: England, Manchester.
Chief Guard: Manchester? Manchester United?
Us: Da (yes).
Chief Guard: Manchester United? David Beckham?
Us: Da, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo, Bobby Charlton…… Andrei Kanchelskis…
Chief Guard: Andrei Kanchelskis? Nyet (no).
Second Guard: Da, Andrei Kanchelskis, da…
(there then followed an animated five minute conversation between the three guards during which it was established that, da, Andrei Kanchelskis (a citizen of the Ukraine, the promised land that we were so desperate to get to at this point, had in fact played for Manchester United)
At this point my companion lifted the sleeve of his t-shirt to reveal a Manchester United tattoo on his upper arm. This was met with great excitement by our three interrogators, especially the youngest and largest of the three who virtually lifted my friend off the floor by his shoulder in order to get a better look.
Chief Guard (satisfied): Da, Manchester United.
Us: Yes. Manchester United. Da. Can we go now please….
Chief Guard: How much money?
Us: Pardon?
Chief Guard: How much money you have now?
(it was fortunate at this point that the vast majority of our kitty sat safely ensconced at the bottom of our rucksacks)
We promptly leafed through our wallets and offered that our worldly posessions at that point amounted to something approaching a measly €50. Well, perhaps not so measly as the average “official” monthly wage in Transdniestr was about $45 per month.
The Chief looked at us at length. He leaned forwards on his desk and scribbled on a small scrap of paper. He passed the paper across the desk to us.
€30 it said.
We looked at each other, took out the necessary notes and placed them on the desk. The Chief placed the large book that he was holding on top of them, his face breaking into a large friendly grin he offered us his hand to shake:
“Thank you very much” he said.
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