Romania Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Back in Bucharest

I flew from Chișinău, Moldova back to Bucharest, Romania early in the morning. I had already spent a day or so in Bucharest and I thought it was fine if not great, but I felt particularly optimistic as a flew in on this day because the weather had changed. I’d like to think that I can judge a city properly whatever the weather, but the truth is it does affect our perceptions. When I had been in Bucharest a few days earlier it had been windy and rainy and cold. On this day it was still cold, but it was sunny and blue skied, and my mood was elevated. Possibly also as a result of the great time that I had had in Moldova and Transnistria.

Since it was the last night of my trip, I decided that instead of staying at the hostel I had stayed at previously I would stay in a proper hotel. I stated at a Moxy Marriott. I know, I know, it’s a big, corporate chain hotel, but there wasn’t really anything else in the centre that was in my budget and looked appealing. I just wanted a little bit of comfort. And when I checked into my room there was a complimentary fruit platter and a dozen pink balloons. I know it was just corporate manipulation of me, but it was wacky and I liked it.

My objectives for this day in Bucharest were to visit an art museum or two and check out some other neighbourhoods.

I started by walking over to the National Museum of Art, which was a good proper National Museum in a gleaming white building and filled with art of various periods. It was very enjoyable.

I walked over to the Cărturești Verona, which is the sister bookstore store to the stunning Cărturești Carousel. This one is also worth a visit if you’re in the neighbourhood. It’s also charming but not grand. I saw at least a dozen things that I wanted to buy, but my backpack and budget wouldn’t allow it so I just browsed.

In my meanderings, I came across a charming little café called Mingle, which I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s a tiny little spot in a little neighbourhood with not many seats and a kind of vintage-y décor. I had a coffee and a cinnamon bun. To make it even better, across the street is lovely mural of the back of a woman’s plaited hair.

I decided to walk over to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was a bit of a hike, but took me past the Romanian Parliament Buildings (“the Palace of the Parliament”). I couldn’t get very close to the buildings because of the vast lawns and walls around them, but I got a good look as I walked by. The buildings are massive. It is said that they are the third largest administrative buildings in the world, which, honestly, is only marginally impressive. I mean to be the largest in the world is something, to be third largest is barely noteworthy. What is noteworthy is that this is allegedly the heaviest building in the world. Now there is a superlative worth bragging about; but I couldn’t help but think how do you know how heavy a building is? You can’t weigh the building. Are people weighing the building materials? Is this just some rough calculation after the fact? Just a bizarre bit of trivia.

The National Museum of Contemporary Art was…okay. If I had known ahead of time what it contained I probably would have skipped it because it was so out of the way. It’s not that what it had was bad, it just was surprisingly small and there wasn’t much in it that I found very interesting. The best part was on the top floor where they had all the artworks that they didn’t have on display. These artworks were in wire cages, but you could walk around and get glimpses of them. I like that part the best. As well, there was a rooftop bar which had excellent views of the city, and I happened to be there right at sunset which was nice.

I walked back to the city in the dark. Everything felt a little more romantic. I stopped in at the Pasajul Macca-Vilacrosse; a 19th century intersection of covered arcade streets lined with shops and (mostly) restaurants. Given how difficult it was to find a place to smoke cigars indoors in Bucharest, this was a perfect place. Smoking was allowed and maybe even encouraged, given the number of hookah lounges that lined the covered streets. I settled in at a table and had a hookah and a cocktail. It was a perfect place for people watching and with heaters nearby was surprisingly cozy, given that it was technically outdoors.

There was one cocktail place called The Vault which is inside a former bank vault that I really wanted to check out but I was so tired and didn’t think that I had the constitution for another cocktail, so I skipped it and went back to my hotel room. I had a good sleep but woke up at about 2:00 in the morning so that I could get to the airport for my flight back home. But first, I would have a short layover in Munich with a bit of time to explore a new city to me: Freising, Germany.

Germany Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Layover in Freising

I was flying back to Vancouver from Bucharest and I had a five-hour five-minute layover in Munich. Whenever possible I like to go into the cities where I have the layovers, and if I had five hours in Frankfurt, I would have gone into the city, but Munich is a different story. Munich is a little too far from the airport for that length of a layover. I waited for a moment and thought I could go in have a coffee and immediately come back, but that seemed a bit stupid, so I looked at other options and I found one 15-minutes away: Freising, Germany.

Freising is a small medieval city, founded in 739AD, apparently the oldest in Bavaria, and it’s very near to Munich airport.

I landed at about 7:15 in the morning and immediately made my way to a bus stop just outside the airport. There is a train that goes from the airport to Freising, but on this particular day or this particular time the train wasn’t a convenient option. The bus was super convenient and quick. It was just before 8:00 when I arrived in the city. It was cold and it was misty and pretty much everything was closed. I saw only one or two other people out on the streets. It felt kind of magical. The city apparently has a population of close to 50,000 but arriving in the historic centre that seems hard to believe. The centre is very medieval and picturesque.

I did a little research later and found out that over the years Freising has been at the centre of all sorts of misfortune, from being sacked during the Thirty Years’ War, to being bombed during the Second World War, to inadvertently harbouring a key member of al-Qaida. Of course, my favourite historical tidbit was that it was a site of witch hunts, during which time they executed several witches. Between 1590 And 1722, at least 47 people were executed for witchcraft in the town of Freising, most by either burning or beheading. The batch of witch trials in the 1700s were primarily against beggar children who were accused of witchcraft, several of whom were ultimately beheaded. Children. Did you know that German has a word specifically for witch trials against children? It does and it is Kinderhexenprozesse. Excellent.

Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I was in Freising that day because I picked the town and went there spontaneously. All I knew is that it was a charming little town shrouded in mist. I had a very pleasant walk around and eventually a café opened up, and I had coffee before heading back to the airport by the bus.

I would be happy to have another layover in Munich just long enough for me to visit Freising, but hopefully a little later in the day so I could see what the town is like when things are actually open, and people are about. Plus, I believe there is a museum there that focuses on the witch trials, and I would like to visit that. It was a delightful end to a wonderful trip to Romania and Moldova, and which allowed me to be able to say that I have now visited every country in Europe.

Back at the airport in Munich, they had a proper Christmas market outside, which was delightful.

It was late November, but my travels for 2024 weren’t over. As I had a Christmas trip to Cyprus coming up next.

Moldova Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

More Moldova

I was back from Transnistria and on my second day exploring Chișinău. I think the capital city of Chișinău could reasonably be explored in one day, but I was happy to have two. I was able to move in a bit of a leisurely pace and go on long walks. And that’s really what I did on the second day.

*a large Gulliver’s Travels-inspired mural*

I walked over to the Ciuflea Monastery, which had three buildings, each of them beautiful, I had seen them from the bus when I went into the city, and they were noticeable because they were blue, topped with gold domes. Stunning.

On the way I enjoyed walking through the city, I always say that walking is the best way to see a city and that was certainly true for Chișinău.

I saw the big Soviet-era apartment blocks and oddly placed Soviet style artwork. On the street, sturdy women bundled up in winter coats sold bunches of flowers which were readily purchased by women passing by.

On my way back from the monastery I went to a big market: the Chișinău Central Market. It was great. Exactly what I expected and wanted. Partly indoors and partly outdoors people were selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, and household items. It was a pleasure to walk around and, most importantly, I found people selling piroshkis. They are such a basic thing, but I don’t find them very often outside of places like Russia and Ukraine. My grandmother used to make potato ones and that’s always what I’m keeping an eye out for. So I got a couple from a woman selling them from a little kiosk and I was in heaven.

I went to the National Art Museum of Moldova, which was surprisingly good. The building dated from the 1930s and had a sizeable, but not overwhelming, number of artworks, paintings and sculptures, to visit. I particularly liked some of the busts and the whimsical paintings of men and women with cabbages for heads. The thing that I found incredibly awkward about visiting the art gallery was that I was the only person there when I visited and, in every room, there was an attendant observing. This made me incredibly uncomfortable. I felt like I had to linger over each work of art lest I offend them if I walked past something. And I felt like I had to nod and smile at everyone. It was a bit of an odd experience, but I enjoyed the art.

I stopped and had coffee at a few stylish cafés and continued to wander around taking pictures of the odd bit of street art or other notable sites. As much as I hate the “I heart anything” signs, but I felt like I had to take one in front of the Chișinău one.

Finally, I had heard that there was one more Lenin statue that I hadn’t seen, and it was quite a long walk through Valea Morilor Park, along a lake before following a dead-end road. It was a long and pleasant walk in the cool air. I eventually found the monument, but it wasn’t just Lenin, it was Lenin and Karl Marx and Georgi Dimitrov (the leader of the Bulgarian Communist party). What a find! It was worth the walk.

Even better, it was right outside the fenced off grounds of what appeared to be a small amusement park for children. It was closed, but some of the animatronics were still running. Is there anything creepier than a slightly disused amusement park? Maybe not. It was daytime so this wasn’t too bad, but it definitely had horror movie vibes.

*these eyes were opening and closing and moving side to side*

I rounded out the evening with dinner and a cigar on a chilly patio and a bit of work before going to bed. I had a great time in Chișinău (and in Transnistria). I don’t know that I’d make a point of revisiting the city, but I wouldn’t rule out revisiting Moldova.

Early the next morning I would fly back to Bucharest for one more day in the night before heading home.

Moldova Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Transporting to Transnistria

On my second day in Moldova I left Chișinău and took a tour to Transnistria.

The Unrecognized Country

One of the coolest things about visiting Moldova is that it gives you the opportunity to visit the territory most commonly known as Transnistria. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1990 and Moldova became its own country, Transnistria declared itself an independent state and it has remained that way, although it is technically part of Moldova it is not recognized as a sovereign country. So for those of us that are counting UN countries, we can’t include it in our country count, but it’s certainly a place worth visiting and is a bit of a political and geographic curiosity.

Throughout this post I’m going to refer to it as ‘Transnistria’ although its full name is the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic or PMR. About two months before I visited it became illegal to refer to it as Transnistria and the requirement is to refer to it by its full name or as Pridnestrovie, but It is still commonly known as Transnistria so that’s the name I’m going to use. (Although I do really enjoy pronouncing Pridnestrovie with a Russian-sounding accent.)

Getting There

You can absolutely visit on your own from Chișinău driving or on a bus, but I had only one day and I wanted to learn about the region, so I hired a guide for the day. I booked for a company called PMR Tours, and I would highly recommend them. They have a vast array of tours of Transnistria ranging from half a day to multiple days and the tours can focus on micro topics like mosaics or beer or Jewish history. I picked two half day tours and combined them. I did a general history tour and a Soviet tour.

I was picked up at my hostel by a driver, Zhenya, big and stern-looking (but nice) who spoke no English, and we drove across the border into Transnistria. You need to bring your passport with you to cross into Transnistria and they will stamp a piece of paper and put it in your passport. It feels a little bit intimidating crossing the border, as there are armed Russian soldiers and proper checkpoints, but I get the feeling that it’s just for show more than anything. The drive took about an hour and a half, maybe a little less.

Bender

We drove to a city called Bender, where I was joined by my English-speaking guide Valiery. Bender is an old town dating back to at least the beginning of the 15th century and was a great place to start our tour as it is a place of a lot of historical significance. It is home to the medieval fort called Tighina Fortress, which we toured, and I learned a lot of history about the region.

Also enjoyable was that the fort had a small museum of instruments of torture. While I will seldom pay anymore to go into a torture museum, I’m always happy when I get to look at the instruments of torture. I just can’t get over how cruel we are and the lengths to which we spent time and energy coming up with new and innovative ways to be cruel. It’s so awful that I can only find it amusing. There was one other fellow who was there as a tourist, and we were both in the torture museum at the same time. We hadn’t spoken to each other, so finally I just blurted out to him, “So, what’s your favorite form of medieval torture” And it turned out to be a great conversation starter. Since then, I have used it at two separate business networking events to start conversations with strangers when I was bored. Give it a try. People will think that you are a weirdo, but it really does get the conversation going.

*instruments of torture – and conversation starters*

From the fort we drove a little more into the city and made stops to visit tanks and monuments and memorials to battles, fallen soldiers, and Holocaust victims.

sights of Bender

Outside the Cities

The owner of PMR Tours (I think), Andrey, joined us and we drove through Bender to visit some churches outside of the city. On the way we passed and stopped at some excellent Soviet era monuments and a couple of mosaics. I love that in the Soviet times they would do these elaborate mosaics not just for government buildings or art galleries, but to commemorate industry. That was the case on this company that made electrical cables, and still does.

We visited a massive monument to the two World Wars, which also gave a wonderful view of the countryside, misty and green.

We stopped to visit another building, and I can’t recall what the significance of the building was historically, but it had an enormous Lenin head out front, and as some well-preserved Soviet paintings inside.

During the drive and all the stops, I got to ask lots of questions about Transnistria today. Transnistria in most ways does function like a sovereign territory. It has its own border controls and currency. It has its own police and soldiers and ambulances and government. It’s just that it’s under the umbrella of Moldova.

Tiraspol

We got to a river, with a car ferry. It was a very simple operation. We drove onto the ferry which crossed the river using some sort of chain under the surface. A man, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth used a large lever and winch to pull us across the river. He had a friendly dog as his companion.

A short drive later and we were into Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. The history continued, but much of the visit to Tiraspol was focused on taking me to Soviet era buildings and statues of Lenin. I thought Minsk had the most statues of Lenin, but Transnistria is a contender for the most Lenins I’ve seen in one country.

Tiraspol is a nice city. It had a beautiful park, lots of public statues, and the sort of broad streets and big buildings that you would expect from the Soviet Union. The public statues were particularly impressive, not only of Lenin, but of people who fought in the wars, of the celebrated cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who died at 34 in a MIG crash, and of…Harry Potter. Yes, there is a statue of Harry Potter just outside of the local university. The reason for it, allegedly, is that Harry Potter stood up against the prevailing forces and was brave and fought for justice and freedom. I suppose this resonates with the people of Transnistria as they have been oppressed and fought for independence from the Soviet Union and from Moldova and that fight carries on. In 2024 this seems a little bizarre, but I can imagine that 50 or 100 years from now Harry Potter will just be a historical literary figure, and it will be less bizarre that he is depicted in marble.

A lot of accounts of Transnistria describe it as quirky or bizarre, and I think the Harry Potter statue is one example that could warrant that description, but I didn’t find Transnistria to be weird. It is just a small territory striving for independence with a strong connection to its history. There is a lot of pride there and I think it’s a bit demeaning to write it off as just a quirky roadside attraction.

*a monuments to students and faculty who fought in WWII*

We wrapped up the tour with lunch at a local restaurant, and I chatted with my two guides. This was one of my favorite things about the trip because unexpectedly, the conversation took a turn from the history and contemporary politics of Transnistria into semi-professional arm wrestling.

One of my guides is incredibly passionate about arm wrestling. I think it came up because I told him that I was from Canada and there was some arm wrestler from Canada, but I can’t quite recall the origins. But once he started telling me that he was involved in arm wrestling I could not stop asking questions. At first I thought it was just a group of guys that got together to arm wrestle in someone’s garage once a week, but he explained that it’s much more organized than that and that they have arm wrestling equipment and specific exercises, and they have matches, and it’s a whole community of people that are passionate about this activity. I’m not a documentary filmmaker, but I would like someone out there who is to make a documentary about the men of Transnistria and their experiences around semi-professional arm wrestling, because it sounds like a fascinating tale of masculinity, competition, and personal identity in state struggling for recognition. Seriously, somebody please make this movie.

I rejoined with my original driver and was taken back to Chișinău, Moldova. It was such a wonderful day. I really wish that I had spent or could have spent more time there, and I would absolutely consider going back to spend a few days in one of the villages of the countryside.

That evening, I went out for dinner at a surprisingly good Italian restaurant (Little Napoli) for pizza and a glass of local wine and then back to my new favourite Moldovan cocktail lounge, Marlene, and had another cigar and cocktail, shivering in the night air. It had been a great day.

I still had one more day in Moldova before I would return home. On to the next day…

Wandering North

Back in Bucharest

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The Unrecognized Country

Getting There

Bender

Outside the Cities

Tiraspol

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