It has oft been noted that the world can be divided into two separate, but equal groups: those who have heard of the Republic of Transnistria, and those who have not. Being a proud, geography-degree-bearing member of the latter group, visiting this thin strip of land wedged between the Dniester River and Ukrainian border—de jure Moldova, de facto Russia—has been a life dream of mine ever since I discovered its adorable Wikipedia page. In fact, much of my life at this point revolved around visiting Transnistria. I could barely sit still in Odessa (and Odessa was, by all accounts, the bomb) just thinking about what lay before me in Tiraspol, telltale foreshadowing of what would turn out to be an insatiable and arguably unhealthy addiction to visiting breakaway, unrecognised states.
My target lay to the southeast of Chișinău, a short or marshrutka ride that cost in the neighbourhood of $10. Of course, I had been spending all too much time living lavishly in Chișinău, a surprisingly chic and cosmopolitan island in the poorest country in Europe. Most of this high-rolling time was spending embassy-hopping, as I was hoping to inquire with the local Azerbaijani attaché about the possibility of obtaining a visa. When I knocked on the door, a young lady opened it and informed me in perfect English that the embassy had moved and this was now a private residence. She was clearly a scion of the Chișinău elite, studied law, and was destined for great things. We chatted about life and Moldova and she gave me her email address and told me to contact her, which I did, but in retrospect the sight of her boyfriend in the other room glaring at me and grinding his teeth is probably the reason she never responded. Oh well. There are plenty of successful young Moldovan girls out there for everyone.
Anyway, all this social-climbing and hobnobbing had me realise that I was ripe for some adventure. And because simply going to a breakaway republic under the “protection” of a Russian army detachment wasn’t adventure enough for me, I thought I would have a better chance at the internal border by walking. By my logic, going solo was preferable to holding up a bunch of people in a marshrutka with my paperwork. I marshrutka’d south to a town called Anenii Noi and then walked to the tiny village of Balboa where I met my Peace Corps Couchsurfing host, Casey. Casey, a lawyer/archaeologist/English teacher (all at 26, which believe you me accentuated the many failures of my 24 years), lived in a beautiful old farmhouse up the hill from the valley. We sat on the porch sharing a large plastic bottle of Moldovan beer and basked in the sheer calmness and serenity of the village. So calm, and so serene. Nothing happens there. It is probably the least eventful place in the world. As you may have guessed, I was his first CS guest and probably his last. From Balboa to Bender, Transnistria’s main border crossing, was about 20km. I rose at 7am, drank a tea, and started my walk through the early morning mist with the school children, old people, and cattle. This was me, walking to Transnistria.
The walk was quite pleasant. It was early spring, the trees were budding, and there was a surprising amount of activity along the way. I stopped for a nice breakfast of gas station cappuccino, caviar-favoured croutons, and an apple, and made it to the border before noon. Three men were sitting at a school desk on the side of the road and looked at my passport. They waved me through. After all the hype, I couldn’t believe how disappointing and easy this was—the republic of Transnistria was easier to get into than Washington state. But then I realised those were the Moldovan guards, who did not recognise it as a real border. The Transnistrian guards were up ahead, which I reached after passing several unfriendly-looking soldiers hiding in sandbag dugouts, ill-concealed tanks behind thread-bare camouflage netting, and lots of Russian signs. I was then ushered into a building and given a Russian form to fill out.
Outside the guards lethargically inquired about the contents of my bag, my standard reply of “dirty underwear” quashed any curiosity for good and they waved me through, making the usual jokes about why I was going by foot. They told me it was imperative that I register, and that I was only allowed to be in the country for as long as I was registered, lest heavy fines rain down upon me. Aside from this, stern, motherly warning, entering was a piece of cake and I was on a M-Fin’ bender.
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