Chișinău, Moldova

After my initial two and a half days in Bucharest, Romania, I took a short flight to Chișinău, Moldova. If I had had more time I would have preferred to have taken the train, but the flight was quick and convenient. I was excited to visit Moldova for a couple of reasons. Reason one was that it was my final country in Europe and there was something satisfying about getting to colour in all the countries on my map of that continent. Reason two is that I had heard that Moldova, perhaps along with Belarus, was one of the more Soviet-feeling countries that were formerly in the Soviet Union. Immediately upon landing I realized that I was going to like it.

I took a bus into the city centre which was cheap and convenient. On the way in we passed by huge Soviet or post-Soviet apartment blocks and signs and churches off which made it very clear that this was a country with its with its 20th century roots in the Soviet Union. I was delighted.

I was staying at the Hostel Amazing Ionika Center City, a cozy little hostel downtown. I booked a private room. The hostel had a lot of men from Ukraine living there, presumably having left because of the war, who went off to work each day, but there were also other travelers.

I don’t think that I had even given Moldova any thought until I was in Uzbekistan in 2011 staying at a hostel where no one spoke English but the proprietor insisted that he share some of his cognac with me and he told me with great pride as he held up the glass of burgundy liquid, “Moldova,” he said nodding his head like ‘this is some good stuff.’  Moldova has Been making wine for over 7000 years. It’s not that famous outside of its region but I think it’s actually pretty good, from the little I have tried.

For many years after Uzbekistan, I had been reading about Moldova, but it seemed off limits. For a long time, it was considered to be the most difficult country to visit in Europe because it had prohibitive and seldom-issued tourist visas, but things had changed. I no longer needed a visa to enter the country, and Moldova was on the track to enter the EU. Even more modern accounts of people visiting Moldova described it as poor and unfriendly and uninteresting. I can’t debate the poor element, but I found it quite to my liking. There is something about many of the Eastern European countries where I understand that the people are described as unfriendly. This is not my experience. I find that the people are a bit stern, and they lack in unnecessary or unwarranted smiles and polite chitchat, but all of this suits my temperament perfectly, as I am also chronically immune to superfluous smiling and I have been accused of being unfriendly myself.  Maybe it’s the Eastern European ancestry on my mother’s side.  Anyway, I felt quite at home in Chișinău.

Also, the weather was perfect. It was cold, single digits for the most part, but it was sunny, and I had a winter coat, and I just thought it was delightful weather for walking around. Plus, in a city like this I kind of want to visit when it’s cold. It seems like a slightly poor former Soviet city should be cold. Always. Just to give you a little feeling of the hardship that was so pervasive in its history.

On that first day after arriving early in the morning, that’s what I did, I walked around, I got the lay of the land, and visited a few churches and cafés. The city feels poor – it’s not grand or impressive like a Kyiv or a Minsk – but it has a nice feeling, with leafy squares and beautiful Orthodox churches. There are a couple of museums that I would visit in the coming days.

I had missed breakfast but I went for a lunch at a quirky and cozy little restaurant called Eli Pili and had pierogies and borscht.

Later in the day, I wanted to go smoke a cigar. Unfortunately, Moldova has some pretty strict anti-smoking laws. No smoking inside and most of the places didn’t seem to allow smoking on their patios, but even so, most of the patios were closed because of the cold weather. There is a cigar lounge there called Churchill’s, and I went to it but there was an incredibly high cover fee to go inside and you had to buy one of their cigars, but their selection was dismal and pricey. I would have been happy paying the cover if I could have smoked one of my own cigars, or I would have been happy not paying a cover and buying one of their crappy cigars, but I wasn’t going to spend money on both.

I did a little bit of detective work, and I found a restaurant called Mojo. This restaurant has a no-smoking section and a smoking section, however, in the smoking section they will only let you smoke cigarettes and shisha. They wouldn’t let me smoke a cigar. No problem, so I had a light dinner and some shisha. It was a really lovely restaurant; not cheap, but cheaper than it should be for how fancy it felt. I asked the waiter how it was that they got away with smoking inside when it was banned. He said, “It is better that you do not ask.” Fair enough.

I walked back in the direction of my hostel. Chișinău felt perfectly safe to me at night. I notice that along one street was a stretch of kiosks selling fresh flowers that were open very late. Even past 10:00pm. The next day I asked about it and apparently the flower shops stay open late so that men who stay out too late drinking can buy flowers to bring them home to their wives.

And later in the evening I went to an excellent cocktail bar called Marlene. No smoking was allowed inside which is a shame because the inside basically felt like someone’s house and it was very cozy although quite crowded. I chose to sit outside on the back patio. It was freezing cold, but they provided blankets and given that almost everyone smoked there were other people out there. I had two excellent cocktails and two cigars, which was a wonderful way to end and my first day in this new country.

The next day I had a guided tour planned to visit the semi-autonomous region that is officially no longer called Transnistria. This obviously merits its own post, so read on here. I would return to Moldova for a full day and two nights after that trip, so my Chișinău experiences would continue.