The Road Less Traveled

Lily Ong takes us on a tour of little-known Tiraspol, the capital city of the unrecognized state of Transnistria.

An unrecognized breakaway state, Transnistria lies on a contested sliver of land between the Dniester River and the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. The Transnistria War, which unfolded from 1990 to 1992, witnessed a bloody battle between the Transnistrian separatists on one hand and Moldova on the other. The land today, however, serves up a serene landscape with its own government, currency, military, police, and Russian as its primary language.

Like the many mother-daughter trips that surface for Tess and me at the eleventh hour, our journey this past Christmas to Tiraspol, the capital city of Transnistria, was unanticipated. However, after five days in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, we were grateful for the change. In one and a half swift hours, our hired driver transported us to the border.

Unlike the experience of visitors who have complained of the long and cumbersome immigration process, ours was blessedly smooth. At the checkpoint, a Russian-speaking lady adorned with thick eyelashes gazed upon us with curious eyes. She took our passports and flashed them to her colleague as both agents exclaimed to their first sight of Singapore passports. We didn’t really know what to say when she asked - with the most baffled look - about our choice to visit Transnistria. I casually responded with, “It’s a nice place, is it not?” To which the agent contentedly smiled before inquiring of our nights of stay and granting us the green light to proceed.

The equidistant trees that lined the curbs of Tiraspol reminded us of Singapore for how orderly the configuration looked. Absent of litter, the clean streets complemented the glistening snow with their concrete sparkle. As we passed a government building, a giant statue of Lenin, looking rather stern, greeted us.

In our endeavor to experience the town on a deeper level, we elected to stay at a Soviet-era apartment. These are low-rise concrete blocks of sturdy brickwork built in the Soviet days. While their older version was referred to by the derogatory nickname of Khrushchyovka, the upgraded type, equipped with modern amenities like heating systems and elevators, are known as Brezhnevkas. Regardless of their version, Anglo countries refer to them as “commieblocks,” a slang term they would also apply in mockery to any cookie-cutter apartments looking rigid in appearance regardless of their international location.

Arriving at our address, we saw a smiling lady decked in a gold jacket and a silver bobble hat. The lovely Inna led us into our apartment to render us a tour, but my eyes and ears were drawn to the familiar face and voice on TV belonging to none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin. As unplanned as our trip to Tiraspol, were the next four hours I spent cemented to his annual marathon press conference in the Soviet living room.

Dusk came early in the form of an early sunset. We ventured to the city center lying no more than 100 meters from us. Our first mission was to locate a money exchange so that we could use the only currency accepted in the territory, Transnistrian rubles. Foreign credit cards and ATM cards do not function here.

Although the Orthodox Christmas would not be for a couple more weeks, brightly garlanded Christmas trees were seen glowing on the streets and in stores. Hard to miss too was the frigid cold working to immobilize us at negative 17 degrees Celsius. Fortunately, we were adequately bundled up, so despite the icy temperature, managed reasonably with heat packs pressed tightly against our palms.

The center strip was fronted by luxurious European brands in the likes of Trussardi and Prada. We passed them with little interest but our eyes were caught by an ice cream signboard strategically placed outside a café instead. A frosty cone in the arctic cold might not be the thing we craved, but we were thankful we entered the café, for decadent snack offerings of varied kinds welcomed us.

We settled on a sausage wrapped in pancake and what resembled a crepe, but in the shape of a giant cone encasing a heavy load of banana slices, kiwi cubes, and fresh cream so fluffy we could have floated upon it. We chatted up the lovely waitress, Yulia, and inquired of sites and attractions. To our surprise, not only did she suggest some tips, but she also offered to take us around town the following day! Her kind proposal was agreed to with little resistance and much gratitude.

Exiting the store, we observed how the temperature had taken quite a dip. We walked briskly to the tram stop, boarded a tram that cost two rubles, and noted how quickly an elderly lady shifted inwards to offer us some sitting space. We didn’t really know where the tram was taking us, but we didn’t really care. We just wanted to do what most of the locals do – travel on foot and trams.

In meeting up with Yulia around noon the next day, we were delighted to meet her friend whom she had brought along. Like Yulia, Olga is a university student. The first place they took us was the local market known as the Green Market.

One couldn’t help but take in the fragrance of real Christmas trees as we entered the compound. Vendors were selling a plethora of food, notably dried fruits, nuts, fresh fruits, and vegetables. I didn’t think I’d ever encountered this many varieties of raisins in my life! A seller held up a bowl of prunes to my nose and beckoned for me to smell it. I didn’t have to get too near to get a whiff of the strong alcohol. Prunes soaked in whiskey! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

We then headed to the butchery section where cheese and honeycombs were peddled alongside chicken, mutton, and beef. We took up Yulia’s suggestion to try the local cheese and found it to be distinctively different, intriguingly mushy. Unlike some of the tasting experience back home, we sensed that the vendor was not at all disgruntled about us savoring her cheese even though we didn’t end up purchasing any.

After our trek through the Green Market, we wandered towards Victory Park, where the statue of a proud and victorious Alexander Suvorov, the founder of Tiraspol credited for his triumphs in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1781-1792, could be seen perched at an extraordinary height upon his horse. The statue was so lifelike one could almost imagine his horse neighing.

As we strolled across the park, rows of soldiers, looking young, proud, and patriotic, marched us by. Yulia explained these were teenagers who had elected to drop out of school and opted for a lifelong career in the army instead. What we saw and heard rendered a distinct contrast to media reports on the forceful recruitments of these teens.

We next came upon the Memorial of Glory complex, where immaculately arranged graves of those who perished in earlier wars laid beneath a thick layer of snow. A fire, known as the Eternal Flame, was kept burning as a tribute to them. Tess gently brushed the snow off a plaque to see whose grave it belonged to, only to see on the cold slab of stone a nameless, carved face. Yulia shared that while the soldier’s bodies were discovered after the war, their identities were never known, hence the lack of names. Gazing at the flame and the graves about, it was impossible not to feel a tinge of sadness, but above all, a deep sense of regret for the perpetual wars we humans can’t seem to detach ourselves from.

Yulia and Olga could not have ended our tour better by taking us to a local restaurant. The servers there were dressed in folk costumes and everything on the menu was homegrown fare. Being huge fans of fish, we ordered locally caught seabream fried to a crisp, but which challenged us with bothersome bones at every bite. The local version of our bao (bun) was a bit too starchy for our liking, but more important than liking everything, was appreciating everything that was served before us.

We didn’t have the company of Yulia and Olga the following day, but since it was a Sunday, we went in search of a church. It wasn’t difficult to find one as we caught sight of a towering Orthodox church with gleaming golden domes from a distance. Entering its front gate, we spotted an old lady busily raking up snow and pushing it into a pile for whom we assumed to be her grandson. Tess asked to help with raking and proceeded to do so after I gave my approving nod. The boy, who looked to be around Tess’ age, gestured for her to help him with building his snow castle instead. Intuitively, I took over the raking duty and there we were, raking snow and building castles methodically as a four-person team.

Unbeknownst to us, the elderly woman and the young boy belonged to a family of church workers. Seeing us, the father of the young boy invited us to have lunch with them, but not before apologizing for the lack of meat as they were fasting. Tess and I were overjoyed at the invitation as we had been hoping to visit a local home. The kind man led us into a building next to the chapel and down through a warm basement. Two culinary staff could be seen chopping and cooking away as we walked past the kitchen. If we weren’t hungry before, we were now as the aroma of freshly cooked food traveled liberally through the air. We sat at a very long table meant for 20 where a picture of Jesus and His disciples at the Last Supper hung above us. I don’t think we had ever felt more at home in a foreign land.

The cooks soon brought us hot soup, soft bread, and scrumptious nuggets that tasted nothing like the ones we have had at fast food chains. I assumed they were plant based since the family was fasting, but found out afterwards they were fish nuggets. I suppose the cold-blooded fish did not factor among their foods of abstinence. We sat, talked, and laughed heartily through the simple, but delightful, meal as the children quizzed each other giddily and inquisitively on their respective countries.

Bidding Tiraspol farewell the next morning was a bittersweet moment. For this holiday season, our Christmas clearly did not come wrapped in ribbon-laced presents under a glittery tree. Instead, we found in the people of Tiraspol the spirit of everyday Christmas. Years of wars have mercifully failed in hardening their hearts, for whom we had the fortuity of meeting, were the kindest souls who spontaneously abandoned all reservations to welcome us into their conversations and around their family meals.

Transnistria may have on a dust jacket as old as her Soviet-era low-rise blocks of traditional masonry, but her people emit an unmistakable sense of peace, joy, and contentment that leaves her foreign visitors departing with envy and hope.