Tour du Tiraspol

1. The fortress built by Suvurov.  SUVUROV.  Do you know who he is?  I didn’t until I went to Transnistria. If ever there was an ethnogenesis that can be pinpointed exactly, it’s the Russian population of Transnistria.  As a subordinate of Potemkin, Suvurov actually oversaw the creation of the Potemkin villages, and I think Tiraspol was/is one of them.  There were patriotic old pensioners outside of it drinking (surprise) and the walls had recently (1930s-40s) been redone by stuffing them with the bodies of political troublemakers (surprise!).
2. The bridge over the River Dniester.  This is of note because no cars are allowed on this particular bridge but ours’ was.  My driver rolled down the window, mentioned to the guard that he knew his boss.   The guard didn’t believe him and said, “Oh?  Call him.  Let’s see what he says.”   So Stas called the boss, handed the phone over to the guard and said smugly, “He’d like to talk to you” and we were promptly waved through.  Snap.
3. The Belarusian Olympic Rowing Team.  Yes, you better believe they were here.  OF COURSE they were here.  Where else would they be?  Everyone knows that the Belarusian Olympic rowing team practises on one of the slough/oxbow arms of the Dniestr.  Everyone knows this. 
4. The tallest church tower in Transnistria.  I know what you’re thinking—okay… that’s not that tall, but bitch, please, do you know how flat Transnistria is?  It looks tall.  And the priest was so delighted to have a foreign dignitary that he insisted we go up the belltower to have a view of the ENTIRE COUNTRY.  We could see clean across from Moldova to the Ukraine and then some.  I also had a good bird’s eye view of the monastery, which was extensive and full of industrious monks, presumably scribing, brewing beer, and storing tubers.  The monastery was also at the junction of the 45 and 36 lines, which has some sort of historical importance.  I didn’t press for more information on that one. 
5. The largest church bell in Transnistria, cast by Nicholas II himself (o.  As legend/proven fact goes, when Nicholasha was on his 300^th Anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty Tour of All the Russias, he was dismayed to learn that Tiraspol’s church did not have a bell so he had one cast and send there.  It was massive and they had to bring in dirt from somewhere else to build a ramp to get the bell up on top.  It weighed like a million tonnes or something.  Like, at least one million.  Or something.   And the walls were two metres thick to support the weight.
6. The Great Patriotic War Monument up on the hill that overlooks the other hill that the Soviets stormed up to push the Germans out of Moldova for once and for all.  Evidently they did not have guns or something but what they lacked in guns, they made up for in sheer numbers and spirit(s).  Communism over Fascism prevailed, and now there is a large monument to remind us of it.  Some workers—Moldovan speakers (hello, underclass) and who worked for one of Stas’s friend’s company—were fixing it up for the 65^th Anniversary of the end of the war and the FSU’s favourite day to parade tanks around the street, May 9.
7. The Opera.  Something by Pushkin was playing (okay, I’m assuming something by Pushkin was playing, but it doesn’t matter because I am right.  Something by Pushkin is always playing.)
8. A large fighter plan on a pillar.  It was the first Soviet plane with the engine inside, so it was either a rocket, or a fighter plane, or both.  It was either made in Tiraspol, or someone from Tiraspol flew it.  It was dark and I was really tired and cold by the time we got here. 
9. A real estate development that my host’s friend was involved in. 
10. A statue of Suvurov.  If you’re about to make a comment about I have already mentioned Suvurov and who he is, stop.  Just stop.  There is a whole lot more Suvurov coming up, and if you have ever had the dream of leading a group of people to settle an area and form an isolated community and ultimately become immortalised by the descendants by sheer virtue of their ethnogenesis having such a limited pool of historically relevant figures to draw from, then please soak up as many lessons from Suvurov as your spongy gray matter can.  Also, to be fair, this statue of Suvurov is really big because he’s on a horse and there is little else puncturing the immediate landscape.
11. A church in Tiraspol.  Get out your camera, it’s an Orthodox cathedral!  You only get to see one of these every two blocks in the Russo-Christian-dominated areas of the FSU, so you better believe I soaked this up.  While I appreciate how much gold went into the church’s roof, I was hard pressed to come up with new and original adjectives to discern it from the 47 others I had recently seen.
12. The Heroes of the Soviet Union display in front of the town hall.  Oh, and what’s that?  My host’s grandmother was up there?  Yeah, no big deal.  She only managed the hospital during the Great Patriotic War.  She’s only the greatest person ever.