Transnistria~ A country that doesn't exist!!!!

piece of paper had given us 10 hours to stay in Transnistria). The guards and immigration officers were quite stern looking. Looking at them made you nervous. Photos or videos are not allowed at the Immigration. Since, I was unaware, I was making my blog when a very stern looking officer came and scolded me in a language I didn't know and pointed to give my camera and made us delete the video. After that he let us go. All the passengers in the bus were staring at us after this incident!!! But guess what? The officer couldn't delete the footage. I still have it with me(which can be seen in my youtube channel that will be started very soon).

The distance between the official and unofficial capital is around 70 kms and the trip took approximately an hour and a half(including the time taken for "immigration"). I'm having fun with the word "immigration", ain't I?!!! Anyways, soon we reached Tiraspol and the bus dropped us at the train station(last stop) and also the place to get a bus back to Chisinau. We and another tourist were the only ones to get down there. All the other passengers had gotten down enroute. From the train station, we walked to our first stop-the bank. To change our Moldovan Lei to Transnistrian currency, that is, the Transnistrian ruble. Along the way we wandered around a bit, watched the neighbourhood, There were hardly any people around.

And those that were there, were staring at us like they've seen an alien!!! Probably because of my brown skin and Vinay's beard)!!!! At the bank, located in the Zeleny market, there was a long queue, but it moved quickly. When our turn came we exchanged 200 MDL. the exchange rate is 1:1.

After getting our currency, we went inside the market. It was pretty small with very limited range of products. There was nothing much to see and buy there. It was a farmer's market. So, we went out and there was a church in Kirov Park that we went to see. The park itself was unimpressive other than the huge gate that was quite impressive to see. There were a couple of babushkas sitting in the park staring at us!!! The church(Russian orthodox church) was huge and impressive on the inside(we were not allowed to click photos inside). Many people tried to talk to us but we didn't know any other word in Russian other than "Privyet" and "Dasvidaniya", I think there were curious to know where we were from. We repeated "India" several times. I think they understood that we were from India. There several people who looked scared to see ;t us!!! Don't know why though!!! I mean, come on, I look cute don't you think and Vinay looks handsome, but not threatening!!!!

Anyways, enough of our self praise. After visting the church, we walked to the KVINT Wine & Cognac Distillery. Unfortunately there were no tours being conducted. So we had to see the distillery from outside only. After that we had no other option, but to visit the other places. We walked along to see The Christmas/Nativity Cathedral. It was really, truly beautiful. We went inside(again no photography allowed) and it was quite austere, but there was a authentic feel to it that can't be explained in words. It is a Russian Orthodox Church completed in 1999 to serve as the Mother Church of the Orthodox Christian Diocese of Tiraspol. We spent some time marveling at the architecture of the church. A couple of nuns tried to explain something, but we couldn't understand them. So, off they went smiling at us.

A couple of hundred meters ahead was the Monument to Pushkin. We expected something grand, but were disappointed. It was a rather small bust of Pushkin. With nothing to linger there, we went to see our next sight- Catherine Park. We had an offline downloaded map in which the name of the park was in Russian. It was only later when we were having lunch, we got access to the wifi and came to know that the name of the park was Catherine Park! Then we went to the Suvorov Square to see the Monument to Suvorov. The Square is named after