Markets are among the attractions of Chișinău (Photo: Getty)
In a similar vein but much, much cheaper is the Lokomotiv Flea Market. I arrived late in the day, so many of the stall owners had packed up and headed home. But a few remained, each selling items as different to the next. There were old clothes stands with pieces akin to those you see in vintage shops around the UK though charging a third of the price. I impulsively bought a great big Soviet-era sherpa jacket for £7, but soon passed it on given the 37°C temperature. There were old men selling old money, old badges and old postcards reminiscent of a world whose existence is only proven by these useless things – but this didn’t stop me coming away with a bag full of the stuff.
The heat was oppressive and shade was needed. Cathedral Park, in the city centre, is similar to green spaces across the UK, although without the noise and the hefty coffee price tags. I spent the rest of the afternoon hiding beneath the trees and sipping £1 organic espressos, watching the city’s people idly walk by, lost in daydreams, conversation or simply in awe of the nearby Metropolitan Cathedral and Arc de Triomphe, the latter of which looks exactly how you think it does.
To describe Moldova as a place with an exclusively Soviet history is wrong. The country, and especially Chișinău, has a past that transcends the USSR, and there’s no better way to learn about this than in the National History Museum of Moldova. Entrance is 43p and, wandering the vast halls, I couldn’t take my eyes off the dense collection of artefacts: intricately-decorated Golden Horde coins that found their way to Moldova and were used as legal tender, ceramics dating to the 14th century, and an exquisite, 2,000-year-old Sarmatian (an Iranian people who settled in southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans) clay urn forged into a thick-coated ram. It is a place where you most certainly get a bang for your buck.
Ten miles south of Chișinău sits Milestii Mici winery, home to the world’s largest underground wine cellar. It was 35°C when I arrived, but our guides were curiously clad in heavy-duty winter gear.
“Trust me,” one told me, “It’s going to get cold in there.” He wasn’t wrong. Descending into only one segment of the 120 miles of cellar, the crisp wind cut through me as the temperature dropped rapidly. I wrapped the complimentary blanket around my legs.
Read Next
Two million bottles are kept down here – a Guinness World Record – in addition to many private collections held for owners around the world. Rumour even has it that includes Putin. “That isn’t true,” our guide clarified, with a wink.
The vast limestone network of caverns was fascinating, from the ancient sea that once passed through these rocks to the workers who built a secret room to save 50,000 of the most important wines of the collection during Mikhail Gorbachev’s much-hated policy of prohibition.
After an hour and a half of exploring, we were taken to sample some wines with a meal in a grand dining room, and serenaded by a raucous medley of traditional Moldovan tunes played by two accordion musicians in a distant corner.
Following a long lunch, the sommelier offered us something “special”: a Golden Collection 1969 bottle of Negru De Milestii Mici, the year that wine production started here.
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” he said with a smile.
I asked what was our sommelier’s favourite variety. His response sparked a frenzy of laughter: “I’m more of a Guinness man.”
Later that week, I took a marshrutka (shared taxi) to the autonomous region of Gagauzia to visit its capital, Comrat. It is still Moldova, but its largely blue-eyed people are Turkic, speak a Turkic language, eat Turkic food like cig kofte and kebab, and dress in attire you would ordinarily see in the Turkic world: floral head scarves and shawls.
It is an odd place. Severely underdeveloped, but with budding potential. People walked along unpaved roads carrying bags weighed down with fruit and vegetables. Occasionally, I saw children picking their way around exposed drains and broken roads. Some held bin liners filled with raw meat.
Although I was there for just a few hours, I got a taste of what the city has to offer. Much of that is to do with the Soviet Union. There is the monument to the soldiers who fell during the 1979–89 war with Afghanistan, the Monument to the Victims of Political Repression and the Comrat Regional History Museum, which charts not only Moldova’s time in the USSR, warts and all, but also the special way in which a Turkic culture flourished in lands surrounded by Latin and Slavic peoples.
Food and drink is even cheaper here, and an old woman selling beer by the plastic bottle asked for just £1 when passing me a litre of the nectar. It tasted surprisingly good. A kebab set me back £2 and came with the offer of a free can of coke.
Gagauzia never achieved full separate status to Moldova. When territorial units inside the country began vying for new powers after the dissolution of the USSR, it came up short. But, just an hour’s drive from Chișinău sits Transnistria, the breakaway state that lies up against the border with Ukraine and to which the Foreign Office advises against all travel.
The Russia-allied region makes up about 12 per cent of Moldova’s official landmass, and is a thorn in the side of the country’s aspirations to join the EU – it is thought to host around 1,500 of Moscow’s soldiers.
Bender was Transnistria’s first major city, a place with bloody history where Eastern and Western powers, including the Moldavian royalty, the Swedes, the Ottomans and the Russian Empire, vied for influence. Bender Fortress, built by Stephen the Great in 1538, is testament to just how important this now-sleepy city once was.
Twenty minutes east, Tiraspol, the region’s capital, made me think of Pyongyang – there was utilitarian architecture, as well as Lenin statues and memorials and fluttering Russian flags. The roads were four lanes wide and almost empty. Few people walked the spotless streets.
Where is everyone, I asked? “That I cannot answer,” said my guide. After the break-up of the USSR, tens of thousands of people left for neighbouring countries; most never returned.
Transnistria has inevitably crept onto the “dark tourist” map, but many visitors miss what is perhaps its most interesting aspect. On the outskirts of Tirasopol is Kitskany Monastery, which has the largest bell tower in Moldova. Monks were wandering its walled gardens; others were tending the sprawling vineyards or mumbling prayers.
We arrived just before the tolling of the bell and raced to the top, where we were met by a monk whose face wore a wry smile. Clutched between his time-worn hands were a pair of industrial-strength ear defenders. He gestured for us to leave, and, as we did, he began to ring the bell – deafeningly loud, but beautiful.
Inside the main church, across a discreet upstairs wall, was the most fascinating piece of art I’d seen on my trip. In vivid colours were the devil and two angels repelling him. Nestled on his shoulder were a series of red faces.
I looked closer. Among the faces were Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky. Statues championing the Soviet Union and the things these men set into motion are celebrated and commissioned every year in Transnistria. But here, in a tranquil and little-visited corner, a pocket of unlikely resistance exists.
On the road back to Chișinău, we passed endless fields of sunflowers, old men selling watermelons in ramshackle huts, crumbling Soviet mosaics and young people waiting for marshrutkas into the city.
I wondered what will become of Moldova. I’ve yet to see a corner of Europe where the past and present collide so abruptly. The country is on the precipice of something. EU membership will surely see greater changes to come, and more uncertainty in Transnistria.
Moldova is Europe’s frontier nation, a place where two kinds of the continent exist, for now, at least, harmoniously. I was glad to have come.
Getting there
Direct, return flights from Stansted to Chișinău start from £117. Alternatively, you can fly from London Stansted to Iaşi International Airport and take a four-hour train to Chișinău.
More information
Tours of Milestii Mici start from £15 per person, with bottles as old as 1986 available to buy for as little as £20. The FCDO advises against all travel to Transnistria.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=67182aff0a7449a7af636dddf164ab60&url=https%3A%2F%2Finews.co.uk%2Finews-lifestyle%2Ftravel%2Feurope-least-visited-country-moldova-3336716%3Fico%3Drelated_stories&c=7596099796769648820&mkt=de-de
Author :
Publish date : 2024-10-21 22:13:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.