January 7, 2014
An interesting Christmas: Visiting a place that doesn't exist
In order to try and aleviate some of the boredom from my onward journey I decided to take a detour through the breakaway Moldovan state of Transnistria. This narrow strip of land running along the Eastern border between the river Dniester and Ukraine has its own government, parliament, military, language, flag and national anthem but it is not officially recognised by Moldova, the UN, or anybody else. Therefore I couldn't count it as one of my visited countries and I wasn't sure if it was worth the effort of going. But then I read that corruption was rife and that 'nowhere else can you be interrogated by the KGB wearing hammers and sickles' and I knew I just had to go.
The road I chose to take towards Transnistria was the major M14 highway that I had followed most of the way through Moldova but ominously there was almost no traffic at all when I turned onto it from my small road ten kilometres from the border. And just before the bridge over the river into Transnistria there was a minor road which turned off to the right towards the delightfully-named town of Bender (which is in Transnistria but on the Moldovan side of the river.) There were two bored-looking Moldovan police at this junction who had no interest in checking my passport or anything (Moldova doesn't recognsie the border) but who told me to turn here and take the road south to Bender to cross into Transnistria. I was just planning to pop across to the capital Tiraspol ten kilometres beyond the border and back but I wanted to go on the M14, down through Transniatria and then leave at Bender to avoid doubling back on myself. The police told me that the border here on the M14 (the major highway through the country, remember) was closed to cars, but that I was welcome to try.
So I cycled on towards the bridge and came to the Transnistrian border where a big gate blocked the road. I was able to cycle around this and beyond it there was a marquee of army netting through which was clearly visible a tank with the Russian flag painted on the side. Transnistria bucks the trend in terms of rogue states by actually wanting to be a part of Russia and, as Gerry told me, is the last stand of the USSR, although he also told me he is best friends with Sting, so I took it with a pinch of salt.
Three army men stepped out from behind the netting. They were dressed in the full camouflage gear with neat Russian flags sewn to their arms and machine guns slung over their shoulders. The border is notoriously corrupt and I was looking forward to getting a good story about being asked for a bribe and stoically refusing. The lead guy, not much older than me and balding, came up to me and shook my hand in a friendly manner. 'He's just trying to gain your trust,' I thought, 'Its a trick, better watch out.' He asked me where I was going and I told him Tiraspol. To this he nodded and pointed me the way and waved me through. He was very pleasant, I couldn't believe how easy it was, he didn't even look at my passport. I started cycling on towards the bridge, got about five metres and then stopped. I knew I needed to get an immigration card and have it stamped on entry and clearly this had not happened. I looked around at the bleak Eastern European landscape and realised that this was really one of the most surreal moments of my life - I was about to ride a bicycle into a country which doesn't even exist and the only people anywhere near me were three Russian army guys standing in the road watching me with machine guns. I figured if I carried on without a stamped immigration card I was going to get right royally screwed over on the way out so I turned the bike around and rolled back over to the checkpoint. I made the motion of someone stamping a form and said "Stamp, Stamp?" The bald guy looked at me and said "Bender!" which seemed a little harsh. "I'm sorry, what did you call me?" "Bender, Bender" he repeated, pointing toward the road the Moldovan police told me to take originally. Oh! The town called Bender, of course! So, in my most sensible move of the day, I went back around the gate and past the Moldovan police and on towards Bender on the Moldovan side of the river.
This road went up a steep hill and at the top I rounded a corner and came to another Russian army checkpoint. Again there was the tank, again the young soldiers with machine guns, and again they waved me straight through. I stopped anyway, to ask about the stamp. Come on guys, seriously, I'm looking for a story here, surely one of you wants to ask for a bribe, or interrogate me a little bit? But again they were friendly and just told me to go on to Bender. I didn't really want to go through this border checkpoint without a stamped immigration card, because it seemed like a good way to get right royally screwed over later, but everyone seemed so nice in this rogue state I thought what could possibly go wrong?
Continuing on, I was sure I was in Transnistria. The cars all had a red and green striped flag on the licence plates instead of the Moldovan plates, and the signs were all in Russian. And it looked really rather a lot like Russia too, it felt like being back there. I passed through a village which was all tower blocks but with green space outside like I had seen in all the Russian villages. And soon I was in the town of Varnita right next to Bender. Here I sat on a bench by a memorial to the 1992 conflict of Transnistria which is when the state declared independence from the recently-independent-itself Moldova. It was all very much reminding me of Russia, where I had seen memorials in every single village (although these were for the Second World War.)
Although everything here was very Transnistrian I realised that I had only been travelling through a 'buffer-zone' as I came across the real, actual border on the edge of Bender. 'Now things might finally get interesting!' Again there were a couple of soldiers that were only stopping the cars with Moldovan plates, the ones with Transnistrian were just waved through (so if you want to get into Transnistria, just catch a lift with a Transnistrian). Of course I was also stopped and told to go to one little portacabin at the side of the road, and after that to another one on the other side of the road.
At the first one my passport was copied and nothing else. This was still going far too easily. There were a few people queuing at the second portacabin and I asked the guy next to me in the queue where to get the immigration forms. He went up to the booth and got one for me. He was a really nice man, born in Transnistria and now living in Chisinau, but his mother still lived in Tiraspol and he was going to visit her because it was Christmas Day. To me it felt like Christmas was a only a matter of a few weeks ago, but it does come around so quick, doesn't it?
I filled out the form and handed it over along with my passport through the window of the portacabin. The man who looked at it was middle-aged and had a silly moustache, but spoke English. He shook his head, and explained that there was a problem with my Moldovan stamp. He said I should have registered with the Moldovan authorities within three days. I was quite sure that this was nonsense designed to entice a bribe! 'Finally! I'm being screwed over by some Russian border guys! How exciting and fantastic!'
My tactic was to play dumb and hope he got bored of holding up the line of people waiting. But then he stood up and walked around and opened the door and told me to come into the portacabin whilst another guy took over dealing with the queue. 'Oh boy this is really exciting, my first KGB interogation!' I thought as I entered the small office with three intimidating military men looking at me. But there was no interogation, he just repeated that I had to register in Moldova and then come back. I wasn't sure if this was the moment that I was supposed to offer the bribe, but I had no intention of doing so. He did want a bribe didn't he? I mean, I was quite sure that I didn't need to register in Moldova. I was waiting for him to say "Of course, there may be a way around this..." but instead he said "Go and register in Moldova." Was I actually sure that I didn't need to register in Moldova? I began to have my doubts. Why was he not hinting for money? Why was he telling me to leave? Why was he giving me my passport back and showing me to the door?
Back outide I saw the nice man from Chisinau across the street and so I went over to ask him if I needed to register in Moldova. He didn't know but he said he would go and ask for me. So he went to the portacabin window and spoke with the man with the moustache and they had a fairly heated exchange for a few moments and then the nice guy turned to me and said "Yes you should have registered in Moldova, it is the law of my country. He says he could let you in but it would mean a lot of trouble for him."
This was an annoying situation. I wasn't particularly bothered about not getting into Transnistria - it isn't even a real country after all, just a silly little breakaway state - but now I was particularly worried because if I really was supposed to have registered in Moldova I was going to get right royally screwed over trying to leave for Romania. I was still a little skepical about the whole situation and I decided that what I really needed to do was to ask the internet what to do. But there was nowhere with a wifi connection anywhere around, and even if there was it would be closed for Christmas. The nearest wifi connection that I knew of was at the hostel in Chisinau fifty kilometres away and I decided to go back there, reasoning that if I had to register I would need to return there anyhow to do so. It was already almost two but I knew it was all flat and the main road wouldn't be too busy because of the date, and so I sprinted as fast as I could to get there before dark. I passed by another Russian army checkpoint and another Moldovan police checkpoint without anyone, other than the pack of dogs that welcomed me back to Moldova with a heated chase, paying the slightest bit of attention to me. Safely back in Moldova proper, I ran over what had happened in my mind as I cycled. I really wasn't sure if I should have registered in Moldova or not but if the silly moustache man was telling the truth it would mean I would have to find a way to get out of Moldova without getting fined and I came up with a plan to sneak across into Romania through the woods. Once I got into Romania I would be fine because it is in the EU and I wouldn't get an entry stamp there anyway. I would be missing an exit stamp for Moldova which would be a massive problem when I wanted to return to Moldova, but that would be okay because on the day I decided that I wanted to do that the border guards would probably be distracted by the news of hell freezing over. And sneaking into Romania through the woods sounded like an action-adventure that could finally make this movie worthy of the genre.
Of course when one makes the mistake of writing such things as 'I had to leave Chisinau and never come back' and 'I'm never staying in a hostel again' on one's blog, one should inevitably expect to find oneself back at a hostel in Chisnau sooner or later. For me, it took less than 48 hours, and I was rocking up outside the Funky hostel once more. The beautiful Anna was standing outside smoking a cigarette (why do beautiful girls do that?) and I briefly explained what happened to her.
"You don't need to register in Moldova" she said decisively.
"Ffffffffffffff....uuuuuuuuu.........rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruitloops!!!!!"
Understanding my sense of despair at having come all the way back here needlessly and taking Gerry's flatulence into due consideration, Anna offered to let me stay in my own room for the same price as the dorm and I agreed to stay. Cycling back out of the city in the dark to set up camp sounded like a terrible way to end the day in any case, so to hell with the budget! I went inside and Gerry was of course still sitting in the exact same place talking with the Italian chap. I explained what had happened and he almost exploded with rage.
"I can't believe this! This is an outrage! Those bast**ds! You should complain to the consulate"
'Its a rogue state. Its kind of a law unto itself.'
"Its disgraceful. Just making up a story, making complications, just to extract money from you!"
'Well actually they didn't extract any money from me.'
"You know there is a Polish couple here now, come from Tiraspol, they got swindled out of thirty euros on the way out. Something to do with an incomplete form. Absolutely disgraceful!"
At this news I decided it was probably a good thing that I didn't get into Transnistria, probably a very good thing I hadn't carried on across that first border with no form at all, and furthermore, I decided to do my very best to avoid all rogue states in the future.
I decided to make the best of the unusual turn of events and go out and see Chisinau at night. I had actually regretted not doing this the last time, when I just stayed in the hostel all evening, and was glad that fate had given me another chance. And Chisinau did not disappoint for in the centre, near to the cathedral, was a most wonderful Christmas scene. There was a Christmas market and a big tree and a stage and ice sculptures of lots of different animals and trees and snowmen and all of it was lit up with a generous amount of lights. This lighting effect was really beautiful and this Christmas night there were lots of people out enjoying themselves. For my part I was very glad to be enjoying the wonderful, happy atmosphere in this safe and existing country.
Today's ride: 96 km (60 miles)
Total: 11,967 km (7,432 miles)
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2 years ago