Ceaucescu walking tour

I've spent most the day with a friendly Australian guy called Dave doing a walking of the city highlighting the best and worst of what Bucharest has to offer, and to see the giant mark that Ceausescu put on it. Most of the city is in a bad state of disrepair but the biggest tragedy is what the hated dictator forced upon it. Old churches that escaped the bulldozers during the construction of thousands of high rise concrete tower blocks lie nestled in betweenm somehow lost amongst all the concrete, but many historical buildings amd monuments were simply destroyed. We stumbled across a small but impressive church that wasn't part of our tour that used to be situated under the tower block next to it, it was forcibly shifted 200 metres to allow for the construction of the tower block.
Next on our route was the Palace of the People, it's old pre '89 name but still used by the locals, or the Parliament Palace to use it's contemporary name. It's hard to describe the sheer size of this building but suffice to say it's the biggest building in mainland Europe and the 2nd biggest building in the whole world behind the Pentagon. Biggest tragedy is the 20,000 families that were forcibly evicted from their homes along with many churches and synagogues which were demolished in order to create the room needed for it's construction.
It's been a good day but very tiring, we must've walked 4 miles in 32c+ heat. I love doing walking tours independently, I emphasise the word independently, the day you find me following a guide on a tour who's holding up an umbrella or a flag on a stick is the day to take me quietly to one side and tell me to give up this travelling lark!

Ceausescu's Bucharest

This psychopathic leader's vision of what Bucharest should look like is the reason it's in the state it's in today. Guess we should be grateful that this is where he and his equally despotic wife are today after being executed by firing squad in 1989. Apparently the firing squad ( who's volunteers ran into the 100's) didn't wait for the usual formalities, such as blindfolds, hands behind the back and ready,aim, fire as is traditional. As soon as Nicholae and Elena entered the room the assembled group of solders just opened fire there and then. Can't blame them really...

Surely this shouldn't be legal?

Young kittens on sale, plastic basket, no water. Bloody cruel.

Orheiul Vechi

I went to Orheiul Vechi today, an cave complex carved into the limstone of a huge cliff way out in the Moldovam wilderness. If the cafe complex which is a chapel originaly dug out by monks in the 13th century is an an impressive sight then the the syrounding views simply takes your breath away, the photos I've posted just don't do it any justice. The clif is a high ridge rising up out of flat plains and surrounded by very high hills and cliffs all around, almost giving a basin type effect.. Just standing on this high ridge looking down onto what had to be a 1000 foot drop was incredible. I got a bit too near the edge for comfort but the photos should be pretty impressive.

Transdiestra

Today wasn't really the day I expected but it was good. I went to the bizarre breakaway Communist and Russian backed breakaway state within Moldova called Transdiestra. It was always part of Moldova and still is as no one apart from Russia recognises their declaration of Independence. I had all the tales from Lonely Planet about corrupt 'border' guards hassling westerners and locking them up for non existent crimes and extorting money from tourists but w had none of that. I did have to pay a bribe of 20 euro to get in but our guide just took our passports at the border along with our money and took care of the transaction in private. That annoyed me, if I'm gonna pay a bribe to some dodge guard I at least want the satisfaction of doing it myself!

Once over the ' border' it wasn't quite the stepping back in time' I expected, more like crossing the border into a poor part of Russia. All the signs and shops became Cyrillic obviously and Moldovan wasn't heard any more, just Russian. But the paranoia and sense of being watched all the time just didn't happen and i was very disappointed, I was looking forward to it! I wanted to know what it might have felt like to have lived in Soviet times and this surely couldn't have been it. Policemen barely gave us a passing glance, nor did the Army who were dotted around and shop keepers were more than happy to serve us. We had to be very careful not to take any photos of public buildings or army/police personal, our guide kept mentioning this. I did sneak a few shots at a few buildings, namely the Presidents Place and House of The Soviets but it was a risk, even with my little camera phone. The Japanese woman with us had no such fears, she took lot of photos with a professional SLR digital camera!
Trandsniesta operates itself as in independent country and basically ignore the fact that no one else recognises them. They have their own money and postage stamps which are worthless outside the region. I changed up some Moldovan cash for Trandnistrian roubles, what I didn't spend will be a nice souvenir. I also sent one postcard although with the stamps being worthless and unrecognised outside Transdiestra it's debatable whether it'll ever get to it's destination.
So overall it was a little disappointing that it felt so relaxed, it's not often you want to feel paranoid and feeling like you're being watched or followed or to have people wary of you just because you're a foreigner but today was one of them, I paid good money for that privilege and they let me down!

meal

Average meal, pork supposedly cooked in beer but I couldn't detect any hint of it! Got ripped of a little by the cabbie on the way back, 30 lei on the way there became 50 on the way back, but when I stopped and thought that 50 is less than 3 quid for a ride from one side of the city to the other late at night it wasn't too bad.

moldova day 1 2nd attempt

Because this trip is a little different to my usual jaunts I thought I'd get all technical and start a blog, feel free to laugh and accuse me of having delusions of grandeur but it's the frustrated author in me that will never be released professionally so this will have to do!

I had an afternoon in Bucharest yesterday as I flew to there, flying direct to Moldova would've cost an arm and a leg. Didn't do much but i did meet a friend from my previous trip there, Colin who runs the hostel I stayed at in 2007. I just popped into the hostel to say hi and see if he wanted to go for a drink while I'm here. I left my mark on the place, I didn't realise you had to close the lift door once I'd got to the top so I didn't and left it stranded at the top forcing all the residents in the building to use the stairs until I left. Oops.
I caught my train in the evening to Chisinau and shared my compartment with a very friendly Moldovan guy called Bumbu. he actually came in useful as he translated the interrogation I got when we hit the border with Moldova.

I was met at the station by a lady who's name I still don't know, her English was bad but she managed to explain she was the mother of the woman who owned the flat and she just takes confused people like me to it, good job too as I'd never have found it. I was surprised to see I was the only person staying at the apartment although a group of Americans are expected later. I wasn't too happy to see my 'room' was a camp bed in the living room. The other bigger room being reserved for the yanks I presume.
The woman although nice had served her purpose by this point but insisted on dragging me to the bus stop and pointing out every hotel and building on the way. As nice as she was when I finally got onto the antiquated trolley bus ( fare 1 lei, about 4pence) I was relieved.
Th bus dropped me at the central, tree lined Boulevard Stefan Cel Mare, kind of a poor mans Champs Elysee. It had an nice ambiance with the calm sedate vibe of people relaxing at street cafes contrasting with some of the worst driving I have ever seen. I ambled through the two parks and looked at Chisinau's own Arc du Triomphe, a much smaller version of the more famous Paris original then had a peek inside the very impressive orthodox Church. I just took a few moments to sit and watch the strange ritual of the locals who went to each statue and religious icon in order and crossed themselves and actually kissed each statue and icon in an identical and ritualistic manner. Quite an unusual sight.
With my planned trip to the Transniestra region tomorrow I had to go and register my presence at the British Embassy here so that was my next Port of call. The worst that has happened to westerners visiting this region recently is harassment for not paying enough in bribes or taking photos of inappropriate places, still i thought better to be safe than sorry. I may not be even going, which would be a shame as it's one of the main reasons for being here. A contact of the lady who brought me to the flat takes curious tourists like me over to Transniestra but he hasn't got back to me yet and I'm not going alone.
Chisinau isn't blessed with sights so I went to the one most rated by Lonely Planet, the Moldovan History Museum. It was disappointing to be honest but they did have the photo Nazi's on patrol to make sure people don't take illicit photos without having paid the photo tax first! I'm glad I didn't as there wasn't much worth taking a photo of anyway.
With the heat and poor nights sleep on the train taking it's toll I found my way to the trolley bus stop and came back to the apartment where I am now. Going to a restaurant called Beer House soon. Despite it's tacky name it's meant to have great authentic local food and beers, although I'll be keeping the beers to a minimum as the local corrupt police like to pick on tipsy foreigners to extract money or 'fines' from them. Don't fancy a night in a Moldovan clink so I'll watch my step!