Excursia mea la Chișinău (cu o excursie de o zi în Transnistria) / Моя поездка в Кишинев (с однодневным туром в Приднестровье)

So… I got a message from the hostel owner about an hour after I replied and I was booked on the Transnistria tour for today. It turned out to be quite a small tour. There was myself and 3 others – a guy from Turkey and a couple from Belgium.

We left the hostel about 08:45 and headed out towards Transnistria.

R said that the name is The Prednistrovian Republic of Moldova or Prednistoriva. The people living here don’t like it being called Transnistria.

We made a stop for fuel and R (the hostel owner) got us some pastries and some water and coffee and we sat in for about 20 minutes before we got back in the car and made our way to the border.

He said that when we get to the border we are not allowed to take any pictures. We were also told we couldn’t bring professional camera equipment or drones or other types of electronics. It gives the impression that we aren’t tourists but journalists and this doesn’t sit well with them.

Good job my drone is at home and my MacBook was left at the hostel.

It was about an hour’s drive to the border. It was about 52km in all from Chișinău to the border.

We got to the border and had to get out to go to the office to show our passports and get our landing cards. They don’t stamp passports so they use these landing cards to allow you into and out of the country.

We then got back in the car and had to go to the border window to have them checked and then we were sent on our way.

Our first stop was Bender (I know, what a name and what an apt place for me to be).

R said that we would pass a Russian military base and a police kiosk and not to take pictures.

Our first stop in Bender was the Bender memorial. The memorial is for those that died in the wars. It was a really nice memorial. The grass was well kept – as were the gravestones.

Some graves have multiple names on them and these are to symbolise the number of people who died in the wars.

Outside of the memorial, I saw some old trolley buses and they looked like they were in use from the Soviet era.

We left here and then headed to the fortress.

On the way to the fortress, I absolutely had to get a picture with the I <3 Bender sign.

The fortress was really cool. The bit that wasn’t so cool was the torture chamber exhibit. It detailed all the ways torturous executions were performed. Not nice at all.

We then headed up the tower (it was a little bit of a climb). Thankfully, the stairs were sturdy.

The views from atop were really cool. We were told not to take pictures of the Transnistria military base there.

The views really were cool. The grass you can see in them is the no-mans-land and then the trees are where Moldova starts again.

We then went into the church on site. It was a really nice church. So ornate, as they always are when they are Orthodox.

We left here and then went to the train station. It was so eerie and quiet through most of the city. The last train here was in 2022. The station is in disrepair outside, but still looks intact inside.

We also saw a monument to the railway workers and a locomotive

After this, our next stop was at a monument to the Romanian and Russian fighters. It was in a renovated park. The park had a lot of new white stuff in it, as there is a wedding reception hall right across the street.

Anyway, back to the monument. The Romanian soldiers on it are depicted going away from the river and to the city. The Russian soldiers are depicted victorious and heading to the river.

We then headed to where there is a monument to the Defenders of Bender. The monument had a tank and then a memorial to them.

We then hopped back in the car and the next stop was Tiraspol. The drive there was about 15 minutes. It was a nice scenic drive too. This area is so fertile and has a lot of green land.

We parked up and then got out and saw the memorial to those from Tiraspol who died in the various wars – WW2, Afghanistan, Chernobyl, the civil war. The monuments are in keeping with Soviet style – HUGE.

We then crossed the road and headed to the Pridnestrovian building. There was a huge statue of Lenin outside of it – this is a theme here. They LOVE Lenin. R said this was the biggest statue of Lenin in the territory.

We carried on walking down the street and we got to some sort of park that had the flag of Transnistria and of Russia. It also had the flags of the 8 cities of the territory.

There were a lot of flags and statues in this area. It was cool to see.

We headed across the road and to a souvenir store. R provided 1 magnet free. I chose one that said Pridnestrovia, then got some that said Tiraspol and got a country flag also. I was happy that I was able to find them. I don’t know anyone else in my friends/acquaintances who has ever been here.

After we got the souvenirs, we headed back to the car and to a Soviet style canteen for lunch.

We walked through a park with a statue of Queen Ekaterina. Apparently she was a highly sexed woman and had a lot of children!

We got to the canteen and I was going to take a picture of the street name, but R stopped me as it was on the side of a police station.

I ended up having some potatoes and chicken with rice soup. It wasn’t too bad. I felt it later though. The canteen was in love with the USSR.

Once we were done with the food, we headed out to the bureau de change so ( could exchange some Moldovan Leu for some Transnistrian Rubles. It was all notes, sadly and no plastic coins. I really wanted some. R said that tourists had taken a lot of them, so there weren’t many left to be found. Such a shame.

R took us to another Lenin statue outside a government building. The building is pretty cool.

We left here and found a bookstore for one of the people in the group. It was nice because they had AC running and it was lovely.

We left here and headed to the ferry to cross the river. We ended up waiting about 20 minutes for the guy. I was desperate for the toilet. It was nearly dire.

The “ferry” across was pretty cool, though. It was more of a platform than a ferry. The momentum of the water is what got us across. Halfway across, the guy put a stick in the rope to slow it down so it would line up with the pontoon.

We left here and then headed to a monastery (mostly so we could find a toilet). The monastery was pretty cool. We went into one of the chapels and then went upstairs to see some drawings on the wall. It depicted heaven and hell and in hell was Hitler. So weird.

The rest of the chapel was pretty cool too.

R then took us to the tower here and we climbed the tower. I was not impressed with the stairs though. They are crazy. Well worth the views from the top though.

The yellow fields that you see are fields in Ukraine. We were close enough that my network provider sent me a message saying, “Welcome to Ukraine”

We headed back down and then looked in one of the chapels that was being renovated and then headed to another monument.

This was a huge monument and it gave some good views across the area.

We left here and went to see another Lenin monument. The head of this one was huge. You definitely wouldn’t want it falling on you.

It was in front of a community centre, too. Nothing like keeping the community focused!

Once we were done here, we headed back to Bender to see the biggest hammer and sickle monument.

Our last stop was to see the memorial to those who died in WW2.

It was time to head back to Chișinău and we were all happy for this. It was a long day. The drive back seemed to take longer for some reason.

It was nice to be back at the hostel, though.

Today was a really good day and it was so nice to see Transnistria.

Total steps: 12,098

Total miles: 5.36

Total kilometers: 8.63

Below are some pics from today