There is something rather alien about arriving in a new country like Moldova, where you don’t know your way round, you don’t have any of the local currency and you don’t know anyone. 

I am sitting in a cafe in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, a tiny little European nation that is neatly tucked in between two quite large countries: Romania and Ukraine. I’m sure that most people in the west have no idea where it is. The eastern part of the country is called Transnistria; which has been a pro-Russian enclave since 1990 (Wired magazine call it “a Soviet country that doesn’t exist”).

I arrived last night and was struck how wide the streets are, with enough space on either side to have avenues of mature trees. Having trees is a wonderful thing as they give the area around them shade and also a feeling of calm and mystery. Someone told me that Chisinau has more trees than any other European city.  There were few cars or people on the road last night and the place seemed deserted.

Moldavia’s “Chill Hostel”

Reaching my hostel was easy but then things started getting strange. The “Chill Hostel” I booked into for a tenner a night had no sign on the street but I knew it was located at number 52 Strada Lev Tolstoy. I wandered into a dark courtyard, looked into a series of small homes that seemed lived-in, but nobody was around and I couldn’t find any sign of the hostel: no laid back surfer dudes; none of those California-style messages of welcome and no sign on any of the buildings. It was warm and I could hear the wind in the trees.

A disembodied voice called out in Russian. A young man appeared and pointed to the two-storeyed building at the entrance to the long courtyard. I went back, found the location, entered an open door and turned on the light. The place was deserted but there was a sign saying “if you want to speak to the receptionist please call +373 685 22029”.

But I didn’t want to speak to the receptionist, I didn’t want to speak to anyone; I just wanted to go to sleep. So I went into one of the empty dormitories, undressed, climbed into bed, started reading from an incredible novel called “number9dream” and was soon fast asleep. I was expecting a crowd of drunk or stoned travellers to rock up at 3am and creep about the place. But I was too tired to care and knew they wouldn’t steal my gear as this kind of thing just doesn’t seem to happen in hostels.

At seven thirty a young, buxom woman walked in looking like one of those blonde Germans who serve beer at the Munich Oktoberfest.

“I am Marina” she said saucily, keeping up a rather grim-Russian expression that gave away nothing.
“Who are you?” she said, “Where you from? When you arrive?”

I told her and she dropped her guard. She said I could pay whenever I felt like and didn’t need to show my passport. Then she went into the next room, climbed into a bed and fell straight to sleep (I know this because I was wondering why there was no noise coming from next door and had a sneaky peek).

It was time to get up but I felt momentarily confused. The idea of putting down the novel, which is getting increasingly compulsive, standing up, having a shower, changing and then going out all seemed incredibly complicated. Can’t I just lie here a bit longer? I edited an article last week by a psychiatrist about schizophrenia; the doctor said that a lack of drive and initiative are common symptoms for the ailment and 1% of the population tend to get it. Am I one of them? Is this what it’s like to have schizophrenia?

I snapped out of it, went to the bathroom, had a shower and noticed a sign that said “Please do not use without permission the washing machine”.

Finding Breakfast in the Capital of Moldova

On the street: scruffy, low slung buildings on one side of the road and big brash blocks at either end. Huge trees everywhere, waving in the wind as if they were trying to tell me something. The sun was shining and the temperature is a perfect 20 degrees Celsius. I suddenly understood the architecture of this strange city: the broad avenues with space for trees is a feature of Russian cities, where town-planning was done properly by the Communists; the hodge-podge of little buildings is a Romanian feature — in Romania their architectural style can only be described as “anarchic”: they have wonderful little cottages in the centre of Bucharest, cheek-by-jowl with horrendous blocks, then comes a church. Each and every building is different from the one next to it and very few streets have any kind of architectural integrity that you would see in France or Italy. But it works in a bizarre way and Bucharest is awesome.

Chisinau is a combination of Romanian and Russian architectural styles. It also has a mix of the politics from these great European countries — apparently there is a big pro-Russian “Communist Party” that’s about to win the upcoming election and put the clock back; the current government is pro-Romanian and pro-EU. People say all political parties here are corrupt. The majority is Romanian speaking and well over a third of the population is Russian.

I needed to find a bank machine and get some breakfast. A nice looking young man was walking down the street and I asked him in Romanian how I could find “Strada Bucuresti” — the nearest big road where I assumed I could find food. He replied to me in Russian, pointed and I followed his indication. When I reached the main drag (Strada Bucuresti) I asked an old couple where I could find a bank. They looked at me blankly and said “we’re not from here!”

After wandering aimlessly for a bit I saw some chairs on the street and thought I would check it out in case they served breakfast. I would then go and get some cash. The young waitress gave me a funny look when I spoke to her in Romanian, as if she didn’t understand a word I was saying, but then replied in fluent Romanian and said the breakfast only costs 5 Euro. I realised that I actually had a 5 Euro note in my moneybelt and didn’t need to find a bank after all. She brought green tea and two big plates with cheese, ham, a cold fried egg, yogurt, a tangerine, salami and quite good bread. Delicious.

Now it’s lunchtime and I need to go out again, find a bank and somewhere to eat. Sunlight is pouring in the various windows in the upstairs common room at the Chill Hostel. Outside I can hear the sounds of children playing, parents arguing (in Russian), birds singing, a circular saw cutting wood somewhere in the area and just earlier I heard a series of quite loud sirens.

Rupert Wolfe Murray
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