Shaken down for $3.30
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2007
1
104
144
Trip End
Oct 01, 2007
Chisinau,
Moldova
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The guy went through on his word and I got into Chisinau at about 7:30 last night. For some reason, the minibus went to a different bus station than usual and, despite my forewarning on a text message to her, the Russian girl that was supposed to meet me and show me to the flat where I'm staying wound up waiting at the other station. So after about 20 minutes of wondering why on earth there was no one to greet me, I strapped on my pack, hunted down an ATM, bought a phone card and figured out what exactly had gone wrong. Well, transport to and from Balti is apparently done via the north station, so Natasha didn't see how I could possibly end up needing to meet her at the central station! Fortunately, a short taxi ride remedied the mix-up and, though I had to shell out a little extra money as a result, I was soon at the flat where I'll be spending the next few nights.
I'm actually a pretty long haul outside the center by bus, in a Communist-era residential district that's about as visually inspiring as you might expect. The apartment itself is pretty comfortable, with me getting a room to myself for only ^15 a night. The unreliable water and ultra-weak showerhead are something I'll just have to ignore, I suppose. In any case, it's certainly cheaper than the overpriced, soulless behemoths that lurk in the city center.
Moldova is widely considered to be both the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe currently, and the former at least can be fairly easily gauged. Just across the border from Romania - which itself isn't exactly Monaco - the roads get a lot worse, the significant settlements get more infrequent and the villages turn a lot blander and more ramshackle. In fact though, the corruption doesn't take long to rear its head either, and the conspicuous frequency of "traffic police" manning the roads and pulling people over for dubious infractions seems a bit suspicious to say the least. This is not a great place for foreigners to rent a car. I do say that it was rather humorous the way my driver on the way in kept getting out of his car to hand cans of beer to policemen and then shake their hands. Keep those wheels greased, buddy.
I had my own little taste of knock-back system today. I made it a point during my wanderings to keep a fair distance from any policemen in town, making sure to keep my eyes widely peeled for any officers loitering about on street corners. But I let my guard down at one point, and quickly got myself into a situation I knew would attract the unwanted attention of the authorities. While out on the southern fringe of Chisinau's downtown, I walked past a particularly large Soviet war memorial - the predictably overdone kind that looms over all around it. As I rounded the front of it, I noticed the guardsmen standing beyond the eternal flame kept within, and a few others gathered about a further distance out. Despite a strong hunch that I'd soon have one sniffing around for my passport and - in quick succession - my wallet, I decided to have a closer look.
Sure enough, within a couple minutes of my entering the park and looking at the individual soldiers' memorials, I had a policeman and his plainclothes henchman walking over to prey on me. They started up in Russian, but I immediately tried to steer it into Romanian, having spent the last few weeks using it almost exclusively (outside of English, of course). The standard routine progressed. "Documents?" I pulled out my passport and handed it over. The cop flipped through the pages and acted like he couldn't find my entry stamp. I directed him back to it so he could note that I just arrived yesterday. Then the invented "problem" came up. Where was my registration? Where was I staying? All tourists must register within 24 hours of entering Moldova! Big problem!
Funny . . . my hosts (that is, the family of the famous "Marisha" who runs homestays locally) never mentioned any such thing.
In fact, registration in Moldova has gone the way of the dodo, as the government dropped all visa requirements for EU citizens, plus those of Canada, the U.S., Japan and a few other countries. But the police aren't going to let facts get in the way of their shakedown game, and they have the old "rulebook" to back up their accusations (a conveniently outdated pamphlet of regulations). The process went on for a while, with the policeman switching into English on me after I started to struggle some in communicating (the henchman speaking 100mph and all). Once he'd let that slip, I didn't utter a single word more in Romanian. Time to put the advantage back on my side. The cop didn't help his cause either by laughing after his buddy told me I had to pay 96lei for registration.
I continued to play dumb and stall everything for a while. At one point the plainclothes guy told me that we'd have to go to their car - as if we were going to drive to the police station - but all we ended up doing was edge over under the trees where we were less visible. The guy starts asking me for smokes, then whisky, making it clear they just wanted a payout. Finally he asks me if I have any lei, so that way they can get everything over with. Carefully reaching into my pocket and avoiding the 500lei bill I have stashed separately from the wad of smaller bills, I pull out a whopping 46lei. The guy looks at it and asks "that's all the lei you have?" in Romanian. I answer him in English "hey, like I said, I'm a teacher." He opens his little rulebook and says "here, 40lei then." Fair enough . . . I stick it in there and get my passport back.
The two bozos just spent all that time shaking me down for $3.30. Knock yerself out, boys.
Of course, they still reitirate that registration is obligatory and I must stop by the police station later to do it. With that though, I was on my way, less the money for a really cheap lunch. Since my lunch today was free, I couldn't really care less!
Which brings me to my other story for the day. Before the whole crooked police incident, I went for a wander in what was formerly Chisinau's Jewish ghetto. While stopping for a few pics outside the one remaining synagogue in the city, I got invited in by a friendly Hassidic Jew that was watching me from the entrance. Thinking me a Jewish tourist at first, he nevertheless stuck a hat on my head (like a kippah, but flat and round - not actually a skullcap) and took me in to meet the others inside. Though most were Russian-speaking, a few of the local men inside spoke passable English, which made it easier for me to communicate (my Russian thus far failing me). The man that invited me in decided he'd have a go with my camera while the others asked me where I was from, walking up and taking close-up shots of the other Jewish men that I wouldn't have the balls to go up and do.
They ended up giving me a free kosher lunch, although it took a good 20 minutes of uncomfortably sitting there wondering what to do. But no complaints at all for sure - it was a totally unexpected display of hospitality for someone that was nothing more than a curious, non-Jewish sightseer. It would have been nice if I had been able to communicate with the Russian-speakers more effectively, but the guys I did talk with had interesting things to say, often talking about relatives of theirs that are now living in Brooklyn and such.
Apart from that, I spent the day basically wandering around Chisinau's sprawling central grid of leafy streets. This is a very green city, with just about every single street in the downtown area lined on both sides with tall trees. In the midst of all this are two significantly large parks, so the metropolis definitely has some serious lungs. Otherwise though, it's a very Soviet place, with loads of long, austere apartment blocks and tall, concrete hotels and government buildings. There are a few elegant neo-classical buildings around, but other than that there isn't very much of historical note. If you poke around some of the more mazelike old streets north of the center proper, there are some more obvious relics from the past, but none of it is of much interest or importance. In fact, I can't help shaking the impression that it's a rather boring place - not especially hard on the eye, but then not particularly engaging either. Chisinau is pleasant enough, but I think I understand why there's next to no tourism here.
Anyhow, I'm going to hop off to different points of the country across the next few days. Most of today was dominated by grey, rainy, even stormy weather, so hopefully there will be some blue skies and sun on the others. I'd prefer not to carry an umbrella everywhere while taking in Moldova's few attractions. Here's hoping I get a little luckier from tomorrow.
The Russian visa is getting to be more of a pain in the tail to procure. Chisinau's embassy requires all originals for the application, which would mean I'd have to be here well into next week to actually get one (and I'd have to pay through the nose for it all). The one in Kyiv only grants two week visas, which would basically force me to scrap most of my intended plans. That basically means I'm left with the Baltics, the Russian embassies of which I have just contacted for application details. Why all the unnecessary extra work for a bloody stamp in a passport is beyond me, but I suppose the Russians still dislike the notion of foreigners running around their country hurdle-free. In due time I should hopefully have something arranged though.
In any case, I'm moving on to Ukraine on Sunday, which means I have the rest of this week to find out if Moldova pushes my buttons at all.
