Descent into darkness: Moldova

Thanks for explaining about concord, John – at least now I understand why I’ve seen a concord sitting on the runway at Manchester Airport.

Anyway, it looks like Moldova is on for the early part of this summer. Managed to get flights for Bucharest for 200quid – in years gone by it’s been much cheaper, but at one point it looked like it’d be above 250, so I suppose we can’t complain.

In case you didn’t know, Moldova is Europe’s poorest country, a former republic of the USSR situated between Ukraine and Romania. Until WW2 I think it was part of Romania, before Stalin annexed it onto the USSR. The people speak Russian and “Moldovan” apparently almost exactly the same as Romanian bar the odd word or two. Moldova has not had an easy time. Poor even in Soviet times, in the mid1990s after independence (and a brief war in 1992) the economy was in free-fall, living standards have fallen below the levels of most African countries and 25% of the country lives abroad mainly working illegally in Romania, Italy and the UK. Still, it nevertheless looks set to be an interesting destination and Mr A Shirres has wisely decided to join me!

There is an unofficial country called ‘Transdneistr’ which occupies a little slither of land in eastern Moldova where the clock still remain firmly in the early 1980s. Outside of North Korea, this is supposedly one of the few places in the world where Lenin and Stalin have much influence. I’d never even heard of the place until I read about it in Tony Hawk’s excellent ‘Playing the Moldovans at Tennis’ circa 2000.

Transdneistr's economy isn't the healthiest in world. Sometime in 1994 they created a new currency; the transdneistrian Rouble and it was set at 1:1 with the Russian rouble. By 1998 you were getting 400 000 TRs for every RR and Russia doesn't have the most stable currency in the world...