Into The Unknown

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September 15th 2016

Published: October 16th 2016

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Delek Delek

Orheuil Vechi

Perhaps Moldova's most archaeologically and religiously important site, it is also arguably the country's biggest tourist draw.

"Why are you going to Moldova?" asked the Romanian border officer.
"Why are you going where?" you might ask.

The average European may have heard of this country wedged between Romania and the Ukraine, but the average person from outside of Europe very likely has not. Certainly before I set out travelling, I had only heard of Moldova because the country's football team occasionally popped up on fixture list for European qualification campaigns - I believe England played them home and away in qualification for the 2014 World Cup - and because I saw it on a map. It is very much Europe's final frontier of sorts - its last unknown state.
So to answer the Romanian border officer's question, I was going to Moldova because no-one has heard of it and therefore I was intrigued. I wanted to take an adventure into the unknown.

Moldova is Europe's poorest country - and it looks it. After crossing the border, the roads became bumpier, the colourful rural houses more run-down and the first toilet was literally just a hole in the ground at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
In Chisinau, the country's capital, Mel - the Aussie-Spaniard

Grand Dining Hall

The biggest and classiest of all of Cricova's on-site dining halls for private functions.

I hung out with in Brasov - and I were dropped off at the southern bus station at about 9.30pm and at this time, the bus station looked ropey-as. A local offers to take us to our hostel for 5€ but we weren't having any of it. We couldn't spot any buses going into town so we decided to catch the only official taxi that was there. We figured that a taxi between us can't cost that much. And it didn't. It was just 2€. Suddenly, I felt like I had drawn way too many Moldovan lei from the ATM.

Arriving at our hostel, we are then told that it was overbooked and that one of us could sleep on the couch for free. Given how tired I was and the fact we were only paying 7€ a night, we weren't having any of that either. It was eventually sorted out but none of the other guests at the hostel seemed too friendly, we had two snorers in our dorm (which was cramped and had hardly enough room for our backpacks) and there were only two bathrooms for the whole hostel - and the upstairs one was terribly tiny.

Moldovan Parliament Building

Does it just not scream Communist?

And I also came across a first - toilet rolls with no hole in the middle! Just big solid, cylindrical blocks of toilet paper. Why waste some of the roll on an actual roll when you can put in more paper? Weird.

The unfriendly vibe extended to the locals we had met so far; the taxi driver and the waiter at the 24hr restaurant we went to for a feed, who was incredibly defensive (like many Balkan / Eastern European people that I have met) when I mistakenly called him up on a mistake. Walking eerily quiet streets at night, in the capital of Europe's poorest country which is next to a country known for petty crime, I was suddenly a little apprehensive. My first impressions if Moldova were not good and with seemingly little to do here, there was little prospect of things improving. Suddenly the Romanian border officer's question seemed much more pertinent.

I had a big sleep-in the next day although it is hard trying to sleep-in at hostels thanks to everyone else around you waking up. At about 2pm, Mel and I went for a walking tour around the city.
With people out and

Inside The Cathedral Of Christ's Nativity

Impressive. Lots of gold.

about during the day, the city is really like any other and is largely non-descript. And Chisinau is not the shithole that I had imagined it to be. There are lots of trees everywhere giving the city a relaxed feel to it and there are plenty of green spaces. The city's main landmarks include the parliament building, the city cathedral (which was really impressive on the inside, with lots of gold and colourful frescoes and icons), the triumphal arch and the city's bell tower. What was also nice was not having people staring at me like I had in Brasov - people here are only as friendly as they need to be (if at all) but at least they just let you get on with your own business. It was also nice not being asked for stuff here too, unlike in Romania, which had an air of dodginess about it. Smiling however, isn't a done thing here and no-one speaks English.
Chisinau certainly didn't feel like it was in Europe's poorest country, from where 100 people a day are apparently emigrating (according to an Aussie guy at the hostel). The only thing that might make you think you were in

National Archaeology & History Museum

One of the grand-looking rooms inside the very well set up National Archaeology & History Museum.

Europe's poorest country was the state of some of the footpaths. Mostly uneven and with parts of the pavements pretty much destroyed with bricks splayed about all and sundry, the footpaths here are in atrocious condition and are absolute minefields.

I then visited The National Archaeological & History Museum which was pretty good. Perhaps not the actual artefacts on display which included weapons from throughout the ages, buried treasures of coins and jewellery unearthed from different parts of the country and objects formerly owned by executed Jews, but the objects very neatly took you through Moldova's history.
Historically a region of Romania, the Russian Empire annexed the region in 1812 after which the Russians attempted to 'Russianise' what was then known as Bessarabia. After WWI, the region known today as Transnistria remained part of the Soviet Union and Bessarabia briefly 'joined' Romania. Bessarabia and Transnistria were then occupied briefly by Romania and then Nazi Germany, resulting in thousands of Bessarabian Jews to be sent to their deaths at Auschwitz; this coming after pogroms under Russian rule in 1903 and 1905. In 1944, the Soviet Union took back Transnistria and most of Bessarabia and created the Moldavian SSR. This territory

Wine Tunnel

One of the many underground roads in Cricova's underground wine city.

is is present-day Moldova, which declared its independence in 1991 from the Soviet Union. Transnistria however, with its mainly Russian population, refused to become part of the newly-independent Moldova and declared its own independence from Moldova although this is not recognised by any UN member state - a state of affairs that has continued into present day. The official language in Moldova is Moldovan (pretty much Romanian) and the currency is the Moldavian leu.

If Moldova is famous for anything then perhaps quite surprisingly, it is for its wine.
Cricova is the country's most famous brand but arguably the winery is more famous for its wine cellar. I've never seen a commercial winery inside a cave before but it wasn't just any cave; there are 120km of tunnels in this underground "wine city". As we jumped on a golf cart and drove into the bowels of this former limestone mine, the experience reminded me of the iron ore mine I visited in Kiruna including the cold, constant temperature of 12-16 degrees (perfect for wine apparently) and the 95%!h(MISSING)umidity.
The winery is apparently named after the monk who started making wine in the area; we learnt this from the

Ocean Themed Dining Room

Cricova's underground wine city has loads of dining halls for patrons to hold private functions with some wine - this one was probably the coolest one.

rather corny video that we watched that told us a bit more about the whole operation and the winery's history. We were also guided through the wine making process, walked through the infinite rows of sparkling wine that the winery produces (including a unique sparkling red) and shown collections of wine that have been given to celebrity visitors including John Kerry, Angela Merkel and, er...Sepp Blatter. Perhaps the highlight of the tour was being shown the impressively grand dining halls in which rich folk (Vladimir Putin apparently celebrated his 50th birthday down here) are treated to expensive, wine-fuelled banquets. Rich folk we are not however and we were the only people on the tour not to have signed up for wine tastings and thus we were ushered out like an unknowingly banished member of SPECTRE to his death from a Bond villain lair. The tour probably wasn't worth the 22€ we paid which didn't even include any tastings.

Now I have met some interesting people on my travels - Shireen in Mostar comes to mind - and Aussie-Spaniard Mel was no exception.
Born in Spain but bred in Australia, she speaks both Spanish and English, has almost completed a law degree,

Path To Orheuil Vechi

Kat, a German girl we met on the way to Orheuil Vechi, and Mel, about to set off for the monastery complex.

has been to more countries than I have (only just), writes an income-earning blog, has exhibited photography at exhibitions and has already been travelling for a year. But get this; she's only 19. So she's a smart cookie, that's for sure; she started university when she was just 15.
Throughout our time together, I found myself struggling to work out how she has managed fit so much in to such a short life so far - not to mention how she has managed to fund it all on not so much as a part-time supermarket checkout job. She didn't give much away however and her Slavic-like, poker face and deadpan demeanour only added to her intrigue as some International Woman Of Mystery.
I'll admit that I found myself envious - but at the same time I found myself full of admiration; Mel certainly has a bright future ahead of her.

We got to the most chaotic part of Chisinau the next day - the bus station.
It also happened to be where the city's main market is and the whole place was completely overrun with stalls and people selling all manner of shit; it was indeed a mission to

Cave Church

Church in a cave at Orheuil Vechi.

even find the bus station itself, which rather than a bus station, was simply a long row of mini-vans lined up along a street. The whole scene reminded me of South America.
We wanted to go to Orheuil Vechi - Moldova's premier sight. Like Meteora and Ivanovo in Bulgaria, there are cave churches at this archaeologically important sight - one of which is still functioning. It was pretty cool and pretty awkward as the monks were still going about their business in the church while tourists came into a space the size of a house in Hobbiton, snapping away on their cameras (myself included). There was a side room that had several capsule-shaped niches where I assumed the original hermits slept. The rock churches I saw in Turkey however, I think has ruined all rock churches for me now.
Further on from the rock church is the Orthodox church of the Ascension Of St Mary, the most eye catching landmark in the monastery complex. While its setting is spectacular, I wouldn't rate it as one of the best Orthodox churches I have ever seen. Right next to it is a boarding school of some sort where children were enjoying a lunch inside

Inside The Cave Church In Orheul Vechi...

...is a monk just continuing to do his thing despite the small space and the tourists milling around.

while nuns were literally on the run organising everything. There are quite a few other significant landmarks in the complex including the ruins of a mosque, bath houses, churches, more caves and defensive walls, but it would have been a bit of mission to get to all of them and I've seen my fair share of ruins! Plus it was hot under the sun, where I was unnecessarily wearing trousers under the belief that I needed to in order to enter the monastery. If I'm honest, the natural settings and the caves carved into the cliffs were pretty cool - but otherwise as a sight, coming an hour out here and having to wait around for the infrequent public transport probably wasn't worth what we saw...which I think generally sums up Moldova as a tourist destination - nice, but perhaps not worth coming all the way out here to see.

In saying that, I have found Moldova so far to be fairly unique; Chisinau is a little like Bucharest without the people, the size and the big city vibe; and there is this unique mix of Romanian and Russian unlike anywhere else in the world. For a country that

Town Hall

Right by the Parcul Catedralei on what is quite possibly the busiest street in Chisinau.

was a former SSR, it is unsurprising that there is more of a Russian influence here, from architecture, to food and to the occasional Cyrillic on signage.
The place has a weird feel to it; Russian but not, Romanian but not, poor but not, Communist but not - I just can't quite put my finger on it. It's odd - certainly like no place I have been before. Perhaps you could call it Moldovan.

Speaking of which, weird and odd would be good words to describe my next destination; Transdniestr, which contains the last vestiges of the USSR. It promises to be even weirder and odder - and I am quite excited about it.

Pe curind,
Derek

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