Moldova
"The poorest country in Europe!" is a tagline that made me and my friend Christofer the only tourists in the capital Chișinău in Moldova. At first I was a bit disappointed because I thought it looked richer than other poor countries like Serbia and Kosovo, and I had hoped to see the worst place I've ever seen yet.
We arrived at the Moldovan airport with a flight from Istanbul in Turkey when we took a bus into town for 2 Moldovan leu (which equals 1 Swedish krona), probably the cheapest bus ride ever. I had heard that almost no one could speak English in Moldova so I tried to signal to the ticket seller on the bus that we wanted two tickets, as if he was deaf. He replied by asking in perfect English "do you speak English?" and I felt so ashamed for assuming he wouldn't be able to speak any other language than Moldovan.
I tried hard to see the gates of Chișinău but we arrived late in the evening so I just saw darkness outside. When we flew over Istanbul it looked like a gigantic version of Las Vegas with all the lights glowing from the city under us, but when we flew over Chisinau it was more of some distant and lonely Christmas lights trying their best to light up the dying Christmas tree, but failing.
We thought it was going to be a quick bus ride with only 4 stops but in hindsight we understood that those "stops" were the name of the areas, not the stops. We felt a bit lost when suddenly the bus driver and the man who sold the bus tickets went outside to smoke some cigarettes together and I thought it was funny that they decided to take a break while driving the bus full of passengers. How Moldovan I thought but what we didn't know then was that they did it because we had already reached the final stop and so they had a short break before they went in and started to drive back to the airport again. We panicked when we started to recognize the names of the stops again and so we jumped off as quickly as we could so that we wouldn't end up in the airport again. We had no clue where we were and so we asked some random people in the streets how we should get to our hotel, and we got different directions every time. The capital started to feel like a maze that was turning around and it was cold, rainy and gray and we just wanted to find the hotel so we could get some rest before we would go out for an adventure the next day in this unexplored place. I don't know why but when we finally found the hotel I went to sleep with a good feeling, even though everything that could go wrong had been doing just that since we had arrived and the city wasn't exactly welcoming and warm.
Moldava suffered a major economic setback after the breakup of the USSR when the country got its independence in 1991 and we started off the day by visiting Victory Memorial And Eternal Flame.
The tower was once the tallest building in the city and it was built as a social housing in the late 70's and early 80's to accomodate small familys. It's still used for that purpose but it has been decaying since then, which just makes it more beautiful in its harsh awfulness. I love it but I don't want to live there, to explain how I feel.
We walked all through the huge city and we understood that there's just a lot of gray nothingness, so you won't miss anything if you take the bus. Or maybe you do miss one thing actually, and that's to become lost in unsafe areas with stray dogs barking at you, and even if it's not a pleasant experience, it's still an experience, it's not ordinary life.
The city feels heavy, maybe it's all the gray concrete, and it's also hard to walk in some areas because there are so many times where you will end up having to go back again because there's no road ahead. It took us hours to find the biggest park called Valea, and when we finally found it, it was impossible to get down to it, and when we looked down at it from a bridge, it seemed like it was more of an overgrown trap from a horror movie. And speaking of horror movies I thought of the tagline from the movie Alien "In space no one can hear you scream" and I replaced space with Moldova. Because you feel so alienated in Chișinău, it feels like a place that everybody has forgotten about, and even if a bomb would drop and wipe out the whole country, I bet the media in Europe wouldn't even mention it.
So when we reached the gates of Chișinău after walking through the whole city it felt like a breath of fresh air to get outside of the gray heavy concrete city and see that it was surrounded by woods.
I used too much imagination and it felt like I was in one of those sci-fi films like Hunger Games or Resident Evil. I thought that I had two choices, to live a dull and gray life in the concrete city or go out in the wild outside the gates, which would be dangerous with wild zombie animals but could also lead to salvation where I would find the cure and could be the hero of the made up movie. I quickly made the thought go away and I went into town again!
We watched the football match between Sweden and Italy on our hotel and to our big surprise Sweden won by 1-0. We decided to go out to celebrate and we ended up at Pub 44 which seemed like the Moldovan version of Hooters, that was until the bouncer wouldn't let us in, and we understood that it was instead the Moldovan version of Berghain. We went on our way back to the hotel again but on the way we found another bar, but we were too afraid to go there because there was some guys standing outside. That's how shy we had become after being dissed by the non-English speaking bouncer at Pub 44 and Christofer had heard that sometimes they wouldn't let foreign people inside the bars. We went up to another bar instead but it seemed so boring from outside that we went down to the bar where the guys were. Suddenly one of the guys approached us and said something in Russian and we asked him to speak English. Dima was his name and he said he had thought we were Russian programmers and I laughed and asked him if it was because of our nerdy looks. He seemed surprised that we were from Sweden and he asked what had brought us to Moldova. "We are just here to have some fun" I said and he said "FOR FUN?! FOR FUN!? I'm amazed! I have never heard anyone come to Moldova for fun! I'm so happy to hear this!" he said with a big smile on his face and his friend Denis joined the conversation.
They recommended this bar to be safe and we didn't know exactly what they meant by that, since every bar in Sweden is safe, but it sounded good so we went in. After a while we noticed a lot of people going into a small room with a closed door and we got curious and went there. We got 20 eyes staring back at us when I opened the door while they were playing poker, but then I saw Dima and he invited us. After a short while we all ended up outside and more people joined us like Sandu and Dimas girlfriend Tanea. They were all so friendly and funny and we had such a good time. Sandu brought a cognac bottle from the car and when it was empty some hours later Dima invited us to his home the next day to play some Playstation and drink some beer, so nice of him!
The next day we woke up and Christofer was so hung over from all the cognac he had been drinking the day before that he didn't leave the hotel bed until we went to eat a pizza late in the evening, so unfortunately we missed the invitation from Dima. Maybe Chișinău isn't the most inviting place, and maybe it's gray and dull most of the time, but the people there are so friendly that it doesn't matter, I left the city with a great memory and that was more than I had hoped for. I hope the future will be brighter for the people of the country, they really deserve it!
* Best things about Moldova – the people are so friendly and I enjoyed the fact that it was hard to find some great spots, because when you finally find them, it feels like a unique experience since no other foreign tourists visit them
* Most mediocre thing about Moldova – Stefan Cel Mare Park is beautiful to take a stroll in at night, but at daytime it looks awful
* Worst things about Moldova – it's poor, heavy gray concrete surrounds you everywhere and the distances are huge areas of nothing, but there is still something I love about this country, maybe it's because I love underdogs! Go Moldava go!
Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. Croatia
2. Montenegro
3. Andorra
4. Cyprus
5. Greece
6. Italy
7. Monaco
8. Malta
9. Netherlands
10. Iceland
11. Denmark
12. Lithuania
13. Macedonia
14. Portugal
15. New Zealand
16. Ireland
17. Belgium
18. Poland
19. Estonia
20. Switzerland
21. San Marino
22. Kosovo
23. Romania
24. Finland
25. Latvia
26. Moldova
27. Norway
28. France
29. Bulgaria
30. Luxembourg
31. Liechtenstein
32. China
33. Bosnia And Herzegovina
34. Albania
We arrived at the Moldovan airport with a flight from Istanbul in Turkey when we took a bus into town for 2 Moldovan leu (which equals 1 Swedish krona), probably the cheapest bus ride ever. I had heard that almost no one could speak English in Moldova so I tried to signal to the ticket seller on the bus that we wanted two tickets, as if he was deaf. He replied by asking in perfect English "do you speak English?" and I felt so ashamed for assuming he wouldn't be able to speak any other language than Moldovan.
I tried hard to see the gates of Chișinău but we arrived late in the evening so I just saw darkness outside. When we flew over Istanbul it looked like a gigantic version of Las Vegas with all the lights glowing from the city under us, but when we flew over Chisinau it was more of some distant and lonely Christmas lights trying their best to light up the dying Christmas tree, but failing.
We thought it was going to be a quick bus ride with only 4 stops but in hindsight we understood that those "stops" were the name of the areas, not the stops. We felt a bit lost when suddenly the bus driver and the man who sold the bus tickets went outside to smoke some cigarettes together and I thought it was funny that they decided to take a break while driving the bus full of passengers. How Moldovan I thought but what we didn't know then was that they did it because we had already reached the final stop and so they had a short break before they went in and started to drive back to the airport again. We panicked when we started to recognize the names of the stops again and so we jumped off as quickly as we could so that we wouldn't end up in the airport again. We had no clue where we were and so we asked some random people in the streets how we should get to our hotel, and we got different directions every time. The capital started to feel like a maze that was turning around and it was cold, rainy and gray and we just wanted to find the hotel so we could get some rest before we would go out for an adventure the next day in this unexplored place. I don't know why but when we finally found the hotel I went to sleep with a good feeling, even though everything that could go wrong had been doing just that since we had arrived and the city wasn't exactly welcoming and warm.
Moldava suffered a major economic setback after the breakup of the USSR when the country got its independence in 1991 and we started off the day by visiting Victory Memorial And Eternal Flame.
It's a Communist-era architecture and the flame is dedicated to the unknown soldiers who died in World War II. The few tourists that had visited Chișinău before us had all said the same thing, that there was nothing to see and it's true in one way, but at the same time there is some gold to be found if you just search hard and long for it, and I kind of liked that, that it wasn't going to be easy to be amused. There are some few conventional sightseeing attractions like the Arc de Triomphe, but they don't make it worth a visit.
It's the aftermath of decades of Soviet-influenced construction that is the most compelling reason for a visit, like the Romanita Collective Housing Tower.
The tower was once the tallest building in the city and it was built as a social housing in the late 70's and early 80's to accomodate small familys. It's still used for that purpose but it has been decaying since then, which just makes it more beautiful in its harsh awfulness. I love it but I don't want to live there, to explain how I feel.
We walked all through the huge city and we understood that there's just a lot of gray nothingness, so you won't miss anything if you take the bus. Or maybe you do miss one thing actually, and that's to become lost in unsafe areas with stray dogs barking at you, and even if it's not a pleasant experience, it's still an experience, it's not ordinary life.
The city feels heavy, maybe it's all the gray concrete, and it's also hard to walk in some areas because there are so many times where you will end up having to go back again because there's no road ahead. It took us hours to find the biggest park called Valea, and when we finally found it, it was impossible to get down to it, and when we looked down at it from a bridge, it seemed like it was more of an overgrown trap from a horror movie. And speaking of horror movies I thought of the tagline from the movie Alien "In space no one can hear you scream" and I replaced space with Moldova. Because you feel so alienated in Chișinău, it feels like a place that everybody has forgotten about, and even if a bomb would drop and wipe out the whole country, I bet the media in Europe wouldn't even mention it.
So when we reached the gates of Chișinău after walking through the whole city it felt like a breath of fresh air to get outside of the gray heavy concrete city and see that it was surrounded by woods.
I used too much imagination and it felt like I was in one of those sci-fi films like Hunger Games or Resident Evil. I thought that I had two choices, to live a dull and gray life in the concrete city or go out in the wild outside the gates, which would be dangerous with wild zombie animals but could also lead to salvation where I would find the cure and could be the hero of the made up movie. I quickly made the thought go away and I went into town again!
We watched the football match between Sweden and Italy on our hotel and to our big surprise Sweden won by 1-0. We decided to go out to celebrate and we ended up at Pub 44 which seemed like the Moldovan version of Hooters, that was until the bouncer wouldn't let us in, and we understood that it was instead the Moldovan version of Berghain. We went on our way back to the hotel again but on the way we found another bar, but we were too afraid to go there because there was some guys standing outside. That's how shy we had become after being dissed by the non-English speaking bouncer at Pub 44 and Christofer had heard that sometimes they wouldn't let foreign people inside the bars. We went up to another bar instead but it seemed so boring from outside that we went down to the bar where the guys were. Suddenly one of the guys approached us and said something in Russian and we asked him to speak English. Dima was his name and he said he had thought we were Russian programmers and I laughed and asked him if it was because of our nerdy looks. He seemed surprised that we were from Sweden and he asked what had brought us to Moldova. "We are just here to have some fun" I said and he said "FOR FUN?! FOR FUN!? I'm amazed! I have never heard anyone come to Moldova for fun! I'm so happy to hear this!" he said with a big smile on his face and his friend Denis joined the conversation.
They recommended this bar to be safe and we didn't know exactly what they meant by that, since every bar in Sweden is safe, but it sounded good so we went in. After a while we noticed a lot of people going into a small room with a closed door and we got curious and went there. We got 20 eyes staring back at us when I opened the door while they were playing poker, but then I saw Dima and he invited us. After a short while we all ended up outside and more people joined us like Sandu and Dimas girlfriend Tanea. They were all so friendly and funny and we had such a good time. Sandu brought a cognac bottle from the car and when it was empty some hours later Dima invited us to his home the next day to play some Playstation and drink some beer, so nice of him!
The next day we woke up and Christofer was so hung over from all the cognac he had been drinking the day before that he didn't leave the hotel bed until we went to eat a pizza late in the evening, so unfortunately we missed the invitation from Dima. Maybe Chișinău isn't the most inviting place, and maybe it's gray and dull most of the time, but the people there are so friendly that it doesn't matter, I left the city with a great memory and that was more than I had hoped for. I hope the future will be brighter for the people of the country, they really deserve it!
* Best things about Moldova – the people are so friendly and I enjoyed the fact that it was hard to find some great spots, because when you finally find them, it feels like a unique experience since no other foreign tourists visit them
* Most mediocre thing about Moldova – Stefan Cel Mare Park is beautiful to take a stroll in at night, but at daytime it looks awful
* Worst things about Moldova – it's poor, heavy gray concrete surrounds you everywhere and the distances are huge areas of nothing, but there is still something I love about this country, maybe it's because I love underdogs! Go Moldava go!
Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. Croatia
2. Montenegro
3. Andorra
4. Cyprus
5. Greece
6. Italy
7. Monaco
8. Malta
9. Netherlands
10. Iceland
11. Denmark
12. Lithuania
13. Macedonia
14. Portugal
15. New Zealand
16. Ireland
17. Belgium
18. Poland
19. Estonia
20. Switzerland
21. San Marino
22. Kosovo
23. Romania
24. Finland
25. Latvia
26. Moldova
27. Norway
28. France
29. Bulgaria
30. Luxembourg
31. Liechtenstein
32. China
33. Bosnia And Herzegovina
34. Albania
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