Krazy Kommunists!

I've been busy since I last blogged. I've spent a lot of time on trains and had a great time in Moldova. So far I am lukewarm on Romania.

Back in Moldova, I took a day trip to Soroca, a town that has the largest gypsy settlement (settlement, as in a while back they put down roots and didn't move around, so they are relatively prosperous). The other attraction in Soroca is the fortress. When I arrived, it was apparently time for the dude who ran it to take his break, so he said "Hey lady, I am leaving for 30 minutes. I will lock the door. My wife will come and unlock it in 30 minutes. Is that OK?" And so I was locked in the fortress. I spent some time setting my camera timer on its maximum of 30 seconds and racing around the path at the top of the castle to the other side to pose for pictures.
I went to the village, to Soroca, and to Tirsapol in big vans called maxi taxis. They are like tro-tros/matatus in Africa except they are much newer vehicles. But they will still cram 60 people inside one van, and the windows don't open, so it can be a bit torturous. They use the same maxi taxis within cities as buses. They cost $.30 and you can get on or off wherever you'd like so long as it's on the route. Unlike in Africa, where literacy is lower and they've got a guy yelling the destination out the window, Moldovan maxi taxis have signs in their windows with their route number/destination.

I also went out at night for drinks, and witnessed Moldova's money moving around. There were some really nice cars by the bars, including one stretch hummer.

Saturday, my awesome couchsurfing hostess took me to Transdniestr's capital, Tirsapol, along with a few others from couchsurfing. My host works for a human rights/democracy organization and works on Transdniestran issues, so she had really interesting insights into Transdniestr and Moldovan politics. For instance, the majority of Moldova's people vote democratic, but they vote for one of the seven different democratic parties, while the communist party is just one party, and that's how they stay in power.

But let's back up: what is Transdniestr? Transdniestr is a "state" recognized by no member of the UN. Moldova contains a mix of Romanian and Russian speakers, the Russians having come rather recently from the 1812 invasion. Just after Moldova declared its independence (and, tangentally, changed a lot of signs from the cyrillic to latin alphabet, making some older Russian speakers illiterate overnight), Transdniestr declared its independence. The area is majority Russian although the Romanian minority is something significant like 40%, and the territory itself, a small portion of Moldova along the Ukranian border, contains about 40% of Moldova's energy potential. So understandably, the Moldovan government was not willing to let it go, although if they did they'd have a much easier time entering the EU/unifying with Romania (which some people want). Furthermore, Transdniestr wants to join Russia, even though the Ukraine is in the way, and Moldova doesn't want Russia up against its border.

So Transdniestr has some crazy percentage of its population in the army, many of whom are occupied with border control duties, patrolling the artificial unrecognized border they've set up. This creates problems if you enter Moldova from the Ukraine through Transdniestr, because you won't have a Moldovan entry stamp. And it creates problems if you enter Transdniestr as a westerner, because the border guards will shake you down for a bribe of at least 10 euro, and I heard of one guy who refused and got his camera taken instead. However, we crossed with a Moldovan (who speaks Russian as well as Romanian and English) so we didn't have to pay a bribe. But as soon as she disappeared into the toilet on the "border" we were surrounded and harrassed until she came and rescued us. The border crossing is really hilariously ghetto: they scan your passport upon entry and exit. I wonder what they did before scanners; photocopies perhaps.

Transdniestr has its own currency which is completely worthless outside its borders. I changed the equivalent of $4.5 from 40 Moldovan lei to 33 Transdniestrian roubles, which bought me a delicious cold soup for lunch, some ice cream, a little souvenier communist sticker, and a ride to the bus station, plus a 5 and a 1 and a collection of change left over as souveniers.
The city is full of communist monuments. I did a whole photoshoot with the tank.
Note the huge Lenin statue in the background.
The men in the foreground of this picture are doing the "Moldovan squat," which men tend to do when they're waiting for something instead of standing around waiting for something.

My couchsurfing host said that since she'd been to Tirsapol a week or so ago, the below sign was new. It proclaims support for South Ossetia.We saw a guy putting up posters that say something like "Together we are stronger" or "Victory through unity" and have the flags of Transdniestr and the 3 breakaway republics within Georgia.
And below is an embassy/office for cooperation between Transdniestr and Abkhazia (if I'm remembering correctly).

I'd been told that going to Transdniestr was like going back to Soviet times. While the gigantic Lenin and all the other communist stuff around the city was interesting/amusing, I was absolutely in awe when we went into a bookshop and the clerk was totalling orders on an abacus. My jaw literally dropped.


Despite the fact that Transdniestr has many monuments to communism, a communist president named Smirnov (kinda like the vodka), the country has quite a bit of money on display and shows a fondness for some aspects of capitalism. The president pretty much has his hands in the pocket of every businessman, there's some shady arms dealing going on, and there are some ridiculously rich Transdniestrans. I was amused by the Adidas sign, the weird Disney-like construction going up in front of a communist apartment building, the flashy movie theater, and several other sites. Not pictured are the two (!!) regulation football stadiums, one with a roof and one outdoor, that cost one of Transdniestr's rich businessmen a fortune to build and cannot possibly be profitable but are impressive for show.


The below two sites flank some sort of government building. The first is a monument to good communist Transdniestrans, except some of them aren't Transdniestran, like the mayor of Moscow, who appears in the photo second from the left. I don't think the astronaut is, either, but who knows. The second display is of all these rich business men; owners of Tirsapol's shopping mall, stadium, etc. It's basically a delightfully ironic monument to capitalism.

I took the below photo to caputer a lisence plate from the country that doesn't exist, but the car is also pretty spiffy.

As I mentioned, at the border between Moldova and Romania they hike each car of the train up on jacks and slide out the wheels and slide in the new ones.
After Moldova I headed for Brasov, from which I made a day trip to Sinaia. Sinaia's got a really neat architectural style and Peles castle where the Transylvanian royal family lived. It's one of Europe's newest castles and inside were some seriously ornate rooms.


Next to Peles castle was a less ornate castle built for the Princes/Princesses. The decorating style there was a little more down to earth and I really liked the paintings in the nursery below.
Romanian money is plastic!
Brasov was a scenic town also crawling with tourists. Romania is the most touristy and expensive place I've been on this trip, which is funny, because for many of the backpackers I'm meeting in the hostels here, it's the cheapest place they've been.
See the little Hollywood-style Brasov sign up there? I took a cable car up to it (hiking in Brasov is dangerous; a tourist was killed by a bear there 3 weeks ago) and the below view is from right next to the sign.




After Brasov I backtracked to Bucharest, because I wanted to tour the aforementioned largest building in the world besides the Pentagon, heaviest building in the world, building that is 4-5 kilometers around and has a kilometers-long fountain streting in front of it, etc. It was built in just 5 years with shifts working 24 hours a day and the communist government displaced 30,000 homes for the palace, fountain, parks, etc. Then in 1989 as it was nearly complete the Romanians had their revolution and killed Ceaucescu. It was quite an interesting tour. Although it cost me an extra 6 hours on the train and basically a full day to go back and do it, I'm glad I did. The painting below was a favorite of Ceaucescu's and I found it quite interesting, the room is the largest in the palac.


And now here I am in Sighisoara, a tiny little town crawling with tourists for its scenic old town. Below; a picture of the clock tower that was built starting in the 14th or 15th century, and a picture from inside the torture museum of some sort of torture instructional.