| October 19 - Marauding Moldova
"You must leave Moldova by midnight on Oct 14," the Moldavian consulate
official told me in French.
"And if I don't?" I wondered aloud.
"You will have big problems," she assured me with a
smile.
I wondered if Moldovans learned from their Romanian
vampire neighbors and practiced impaling tourists who overstay their
welcome.
My $30 transit visa gave me 3 days to get through
Moldova and into Ukraine. The consulate is conveniently located at the
border so they process the visa in minutes. EU citizens pay almost half
the price as Americans so I whipped out my French passport to snag the
discount.
BORDER CROSSING PARADOX
Why is it that the less desirable the country, the
more difficult it is to get in it?
When I entered into Finland, Czech Republic, and
Austria I could time the border crossing in seconds. However, when I
entered Belarus, Kosovo, and Moldova I had to measure the process in
hours.
You'd think that elite countries would be highly
selective about who comes in and that undesirable countries would let
any jackass in. Not so.
ANOTHER DIVIDED COUNTRY
Another cramped bus, another little known country,
another worthless currency, and another unpopular language. After 20
countries in 5 months, I'm used to this and still loving it! :-) I am
also getting used to encountering divided countries:
- Finland (co-existing with Swedes)
- Estonia (with Russians)
- Various Balkan nations (with Albanians)
Moldova is one of the 23,473 little countries that
came out of the former Soviet Union.
I could tell Americans that
Moldova is located between Romania and Ukraine, but I might as well
tell them it's between Togo and Mali, because most Americans have no
clue where Romania and Ukraine are.
Moldova is yet another Eastern European nation that
struggles to make its ethnic majority (Moldovans) get along with a
significant ethnic minority (Russians). The Russians weren't always so
significant in this country.
MOLDOVAN FOOTBALL
Romania and Russian have been playing political
football with Moldova for the last few centuries. Control of the region
has traded back and forth more times than a stock on the New York Stock
Exchange floor.
Most Moldovans hate the Russians. Why? Because they're
bored and have nothing better to do.
But also because:
- After WWII the Russians imposed their
Cyrillic alphabet on the Moldovan language (which is a dialect of
Romanian, sounds like a Romance language, and uses Roman
characters).
- Russian became the official language.
- In 1949, Russians deported 25,000 Moldova
to Siberia and Kazakhstan, which is never fun.
- During the next couple of years Leonid
Brezhnev, then first secretary of the central committee of the
Moldovan Communist Party (and later leader of the USSR), deported
250,000 Moldovans.
- To dilute the Moldovan population further,
they gave incentives for Russians to settle there.
Yes, this ethnic cleansing at its finest.
Homo sapiens did it when we were hunting down the last
Neanderthals.
Humans, like all living things, seek to reproduce
themselves while stamping out the competition. The more different
someone is, the more we seek to obliterate them. Which brings me to
the...
EASY FOUR STEP ETHNIC CLEANSING PLAN!
In case you want to do some ethnic cleansing in your
neighborhood, here are the four steps for you budding despots:
1. Conquer a territory.
2. Expel or kill the rebellious indigenous population.
3. Have your nation overwhelm the land through massive
immigration.
4. Take away their contraceptives so your people
reproduce fast.
If you do it right, in a couple of generations you
will have transformed the language and ethnicity in the region! Voila!
Instant empire expansion!
Alas, it almost never works. Those feisty indigenous
people are just too hard to stamp out. The Serbs tried to follow the
Four Step Ethnic Cleansing Plan, but NATO crashed their party.
Israel is doing its best to take over Palestine by
following the Four Step Plan, but has been consistently a bit weak on
executing Step 2. The Israelis need to more ruthless if they want to
pave the way for a Greater Israel. Constructing a few concentration
camps for the Palestinians might do the trick.
The Palestinians would love to do some of their own
ethnic cleansing and get rid of the Jews, but they need a lot of work to
fulfill their fantasy. But at least they have Step 4 down pat.
Sadly, as long as we have bigoted and unforgiving
people, we'll have idiots trying to cleanse each other. Fortunately,
it's hard to execute the Four Step Ethnic Cleansing Plan. Off the top of
my head, the only examples of "successful" ethnic cleansing are:
- Nazi Germany's cleansing of the Jews (a few
thousand are left in Eastern Europe compared to the original six
million).
- The Spanish and Portuguese cleansing of
South and Central America.
- The American cleansing of the Native
Americans.
The last two examples "succeeded" mainly because the
Old World inadvertently used biological warfare (through small pox and
other diseases). That's hard to do today especially since we can't find
the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
It also helped that the Old World had overwhelming
technological superiority over the indigenous peoples. This helped
finish off the few that didn't succumb to the bio-weapons.
Nazi Germany "succeeded" partly because of
technological superiority, but mostly because they're just organized
Germans. They're just good at getting things done.
OK, BACK TO MOLDOVA
Believe or not, that diatribe is relevant to Moldova
today. The Russians aren't efficient like the Germans. They left way too
many stragglers behind and managed to only overtake one dinky region in
Moldova.
Russians only make up 27% of the country overall. So
like the Albanians who dominate small regions of Macedonia and Serbia,
these Russians don't want to be marginalized into second class citizens.
Today Russians and Ukrainians make up over 50% of
population east of the Nistru River. This
tiny region in this tiny country is called Transdniestr.
Ethnic Ukrainians and Russians are concentrated in that region.
Like the Estonians, the Moldovans have reinstated
their language, while the Russians still cling onto theirs. The bitter
hate between them erupted in 1992 when a bloody civil war started along
the river that divides them.
CROSSING THE RIVER
Like Montenegro, Transdniestr is a tiny nation within
a nation. Montenegro is within Serbia, but they use the Euro instead of
the Serbian Dinar. Montenegro is nearly completely autonomous.
Transdniestr is similar. The Russians living there
have their own currency, police force army, and its own (unofficial)
borders. It was relatively painless to cross these borders, although I
had to pay a tax for a one day visa and register with the military in
two different places. The border is heavily policed. With the Lenin's
face still ubiquitous it's clear that, like Belarus, Transdniestr is one
of the last bastions of the silly Soviet system.
Inflation is rampant and the local currency is next to
worthless. It all started in 1994 when the separatist government
introduced the Transdnistran Rouble so they could be free of the
Moldovan Lei. Inflation exploded and the rouble quickly added more zeros
than Bill Gates's bank account.
Eventually a million roubles could barely get you a
cup of coffee. So they slashed six zeros in 2001 and today inflation has
cooled, but the economy is still in the toilet.
For the average person economic conditions are
abysmal. Wages are low and poverty is rife. About two-thirds are elderly
and impoverished. They long for the good old Soviet days when the
government gave them money just for being old farts.
TRANSDNIESTRAN TRAIL MAGIC
The signs at the 1992 War Memorial in Tiraspol, the
capital of the Transniestr region, are only in Russian. It was late and
the memorial was deserted due to the cold temperatures. But then I
spotted two women and I asked them to help translate. I had little hope
that they could speak English, but to my surprise one could! Barely.
Moldovans, like Belarusian, usually have one of two
extreme reactions when I open my American mouth...
1) They break a wide smile: They are curious why a
lone Californian is trotting through their unpopular country.
2) They act like I just told them that their mother is
a whore: They glare at me, slowly squint their eyes, turn their head,
and walk away. They don't even try answering my question. They're so
rude it's comical.
It's rare that I get a ho-hum reaction.
Luckily, these ladies fit category #1. Within minutes
they asked me if I wanted to join them for coffee. They offered to help
me find a hotel and negotiate hard. They weren't satisfied with what the
hotel was charging me (inflated "tourist prices"). Then they surprised
me.
Alyssa, who is married and has two daughters, invited
me to stay with her family. I was thrilled with another opportunity to
stay with a local family. Such encounters are always highlights of any
journey.
Alyssa served up a delicious late night
noodle/potato/vegetable soup. The apartment in a 10 story building was
humble, but functional. They have no hot water, but they do have gas. So
I just heated up a pot of water, mixed it in a bigger bowl of cold
water, and had a overdue sponge bath.
DON'T CALL ME DOSTOEVSKY YET
Nobody in Alyssa's entourage could speak English well,
which forced me to continue improving my Russian. Considering I've never
taken a class in Russian, I've come a long way. I'm surprised how well I
can communicate with Russians.
So how good is my Russian now?
I'm confident that I no longer speak like the
Frankenstein monster. I'm much better. Nowadays I speak like Tarzan.
THE RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
The Moldovans look at Russians like the Macedonians
look at the Albanians: they're tainting the "purity" of their country.
Moldovans dislike the Russians because they refuse to learn the Moldovan
language and integrate with the rest of the population.
But I just like I went into Kosovo and Albania, I
figured I'd hear the minority view. Russians aren't used to being second
class citizens. But the Moldovans want to squeeze them out. The Russians
believe that Moldova wants to unite with Romania (they share a similar
language and culture). Meanwhile, the Russians have a natural affinity
toward Russia. Today it's a stalemate with no end in sight.
The root cause of all this turmoil is the Russian's
half-ass ethnic cleansing a half a century ago.
So the lesson folks is that if you're going to cleanse
somebody's ass, make sure it's a deep cleaning.
VISITING CHISINAU
I briefly visited Chisinau ("Kish-i-now"), the capital
of Moldova. It's nothing special, but it's not terrible either. The
crowds in the streets astounded me.
Why is it that no matter how shitty the economy,
there's always people buying stuff on the streets, yapping on cell
phones, wasting discretionary income on cigarettes, dyeing their
gel-filled hair, and frequenting overpriced cafes?
THE THREE LANE HIGHWAY TO HELL
With my visa soon set to expire, I set off to Ukraine
on hell's highway. Moldova has a curious highway design: a three lane
highway.
The two outer lanes go in opposite directions. The
middle lane is a free for all. Use it for passing, but nobody has right
of way. It's a constant game of chicken. When you're blasting down the
middle lane, there's nothing stopping anyone going the opposite
direction to challenge your position.
It's times like these that I just sit in the back of
the bus and find God.
THE LANGUAGE THAT TEASES
When I entered the Russian-controlled territory of
Moldova I saw Russian written everywhere. This will prepare me for
Ukraine and reminds me that it's a language that teases me.
Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, and
Serbians use the Cyrillic alphabet, which tortures those of us who have
grown up on the Roman alphabet.
Part of me is happy that I can recognize some
characters, but other times I just wish it was gibberish like Arabic and
Chinese characters. At least when I go to Japan, I don't even try to
read the signs. There is no hope.
But when I walk through a country that uses the
Cyrillic alphabet I feel a glimmer of hope. Like when I travel through
Italy or Brazil, I try to read the signs that have my trusty roman
characters. This works in Italy, Brazil, France, and Spain because
nearly all the letters sound like the English version.
For example, when you see "farmacia" you can say the
word out loud and realize that it sounds like "pharmacy."
You'll naturally do the same when you come to Ukraine.
Unfortunately, you'll be completely lost because many characters may
look the same, but the pronunciation is completely different. As a
result, you will go clinically insane.
Here's a crash course. I'll show you a letter in
Cyrillic and then show you the equivalent sound in English.
(For you smarty pants who know how the Cyrillic
characters really look, forgive me that I'm not using them. But most
people who are on this list are unable to display the true Cyrillic
letters, so I'm approximating how they look to the untrained eye.)
Cyrillic Alphabet = English Alphabet
B = V
r = g
j = y
H = N
H (with a slanted connecting dash) = i
n = p
p = r
c = s
x = kh (like "ch" in loch)
U = ts
W = sh
3 = z
Perhaps it still hasn't hit you as to why these slight
changes can drive you bananas, let's play a game. I'll write the word as
you might see walking through the street, and you try to guess what it
means. Then I'll show you how it sounds if you were to pronounce it, and
then what it means.
Let's start with my favorite. It's the one you see
everywhere: PECTOPAH.
What the hell is a PECTOPAH? Use my handy cheat sheet
above, and you'll realize that the P sounds like an R. The C is like an
S. So instead of "PEC" say "RES". For the last 3 letters: remember the P
is an R, and the H is an N. So: RES-TO-RAN. Restoran. That's right,
restaurant.
The Bulgarians make it a bit easier on you, they write
PECTOPAHT; hence, RESTORANT.
Whew!
Here's a few more:
bAHK = "baank" = bank
bAP = "bar"
nAPK = "paark" = park
TAKCH (slanted connector on H) = "Taxi"
Cnopt = "Sport"
KOMnyTEP = "Compooter" = Computer
Cynep = "Sooper" = Super
So "cynep mapket" is "super market"
3y = "Zoo"
nACnopt = "passport"
nPECCA = "Pressa" = Press (i.e., newspaper stand)
And one of my favorites...
rA3 = "Gaz" = Gas
Isn't this fun! So my greatest pastime when I'm in
countries that have Cyrillic alphabet is slowly reading their signs. I
mouth it out and then realize what it means. It's a tedious but fun
process, especially when you get it!
Once I cross the Ukrainian border I'll have plenty of
time to practice and I'm sure it'll get old quick.
OK, I gotta go, it's getting late, and I'm running out
of rA3.
NEXTALE: UNCANNY UKRAINE |
