The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘A rich seam of surreal incongruity’
Paul Bloomfield visits the sliver of land in the east of Moldova where the hammer and sickle still flies high
Amid the silence of Noul Neamt Monastery, a whisper ruffled the silence; a murmur, a hum. Then – bearded chin a-jut, eyes clamped shut – the black-robed monk let his song soar.
“Smat hadou, smat hadou, smat hadou… Ja zadaju vam smat hadou,” he crooned: “Many years, many years, many years – I wish you many years.” I raised my glass in a heartfelt toast, eyes swimming, only partly from the Biblical servings of blessed wine poured by Abbot Paisie. It’s not every day you are serenaded over dinner in Belarusian (and Japanese, and Hebrew, and Hindi) by a Romanian-speaking abbot in an Orthodox monastery in a breakaway Soviet-style republic. But then Trans-Dniester isn’t an everyday kind of place.
Indeed, many observe that it’s not really a place at all. This slender sliver flanking the Dniester river has an army, a constitution, postage stamps, currency (albeit plastic coins as convincing as Monopoly money), an anthem and a flag – strikingly, the only
one in the world still sporting a hammer and sickle. But despite functioning as a de facto nation since declaring independence in 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic is almost entirely unrecognised internationally. In the eyes of the world, Trans-Dniester is merely the easternmost region of Moldova – an intriguing corner between Ukraine and Romania – which I was visiting on a new short-break tour.
My journey from the airport into Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, revealed two key characteristics. First, it is verdant. Moldova is an overwhelmingly agrarian country, the “garden of the Soviet Union” during its tenure in the USSR between 1944 and 1991, and Chisinau is the third-greenest capital in Europe, leafy with parks and gardens. Second, you don’t come for the architecture. Pockets of prettiness dot the capital, most dating from the post-1812 period when the Ottomans ceded this land, dubbed Bessarabia, to the Russian empire. However, bar a handful of appealing 19th and early 20th-century edifices – the cathedral, the National Art Museum and, notably, the neo-Moorish National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History – communist-era behemoths predominate. Hit by a triple whammy of earthquake and bombings during the Second World War, followed by Soviet assaults on churches and monasteries, today Chisinau trades more on charisma than beauty.
Oh, and wine. Spot the recurring theme? Viticulture is woven into the DNA of Moldova which, straddling the 47th parallel, is on the same latitude as Burgundy; wine has been produced and imbibed here since at least the third millennium BC. The Dacians glugged it, then the Romans; the Russians expanded production, and half of the wine consumed in the Soviet Union came from Moldova. Today, the country boasts the world’s two largest wine cellars, and around 25 per cent of the population are involved in the wine business.
My first encounter with Moldovan tipple came before I’d even checked into my hotel, over dinner at Carpe Diem wine bar. Here, chirpy sommelier Mihail introduced reds – familiar pinot noirs and cabernets, local feteasca neagra, all rich cherry and berry aromas – and crisp, dry whites, clocking in from a modest €5 (£4.50) or €6 for quality drops.
Orange wine, with its bouquet of pine-fresh Harpic and lingering finish of Lockets, appealed less. Unlike the food, blending Balkan, Turkish and Russian influences: fresh salads with sheep’s cheese, tomato, rocket and radish; meat-stuffed sarmale cabbage rolls; and placinta, Moldovan-style borek, cheese-filled flaky pastries.
A self-deprecating national sense of humour became apparent here, too. “Moldova is beautiful,” smiled Mihail – “but only after wine.” Yet our drive towards Trans-Dniester next morning undermined his quip. True, there’s little scenic drama; for that, head west to the Carpathians. But it’s bucolic: walnut-lined roads skirting rolling pastures, vineyards and orchards. And between thrice-daily wine-samplings – at the labyrinthine subterranean Cricova Winery, at Anjelica’s delightful agriturismo near Tiraspol, at Abbot Paisie’s monastery – there are several historic highlights to aim for.
After a brief interlude at the Trans-Dniester “border” (minus passport stamp, since technically you’re not leaving Moldova), and having passed Russian “peacekeeper” troops and tanks, we arrived at Bendery to explore the fortress built under Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538. Perched on the banks of the Dniester, the fort guarded a trade superhighway between Asia and Europe; recently restored, it provides a noteworthy aesthetic and cultural contrast to Bendery’s Sovietera factories and silos.
That seam of surreal incongruity runs through Trans-Dniester, most evidently in its capital, Tiraspol. Here, statues of Catherine the Great (who also graces the 10-ruble coin) and her imperial General Alexander Suvorov – celebrated for founding the city in 1792 – are as prominent as Lenin. And while rusty Ladas and trolley-buses cough beneath hammer-and-sickle banners, and Cyrillic Russian script replaces Latin Romanian, your plastic rubles can buy American bourbon as well as budget Russian vodka in well-stocked supermarkets.
If you’re feeling flush, there’s wallet-busting beluga caviar from the local Aquatir sturgeon-breeding complex, a snip at €182 for 100g. And if you’ve a spare €1,500, pick up a bottle of Prince Wittgenstein XO divin (cognac-style brandy). Mobile phones buzz, cafés bustle; there may be nostalgia for rule from Moscow, but not communist austerity, despite ubiquitous symbolism.
Such paradoxes were writ large next morning, May 9, as we mingled with citizens celebrating Victory Day, commemorating Germany’s surrender in 1945. Though not on the epic scale of Moscow’s parade, Tiraspol’s tourist attraction. On a hillside above the Raut (“bad”) river 20 miles (32km) north of Chisinau, we explored remains of a 14th-century stone fortress built by Tartar warriors; monks fearing further invaders later bored cave-churches into limestone cliffs across the gorge. But though the gilded icons of Pestera Monastery, now inhabited by one elderly monk, represent the historic centrepiece, there’s more to Moldova’s only national park: nature thrives here. Swallows and a hoopoe swooped overhead as we tramped up to the monastery and nearby Ascension of St Mary Church, while a cuckoo sighed from the woods.
A wander through the hamlets of Butuceni and Trebujeni, past bluewashed cottages and carved gateposts, brought us to the garden restaurant of Casa Verde. Here we feasted on fluffy mamaliga (polenta), beef and zeama, Moldova’s essential chicken noodle soup-come-hangover-cure. Just as well – jugfuls of local Lidia red wine were sloshed liberally into glasses and quaffed as enthusiastically.
As I lolled in a hammock waiting for the zeama to kick in, I recalled a comment from a wry Moldovan. “They say we ‘gained’ our independence in 1991,” he sighed. “I think the Russians just gave it to us – and still we don’t know what to do with it.” Moldova faces political, social and economic challenges. But as I saw, there’s a generosity of spirit – and spirits – that encourages hope for the future.
Half the wine consumed in the Soviet Union came from Moldova