Drinking Wine With a Monk in a Country That Doesn't Exist
Going Underground in Transnistria
Getting to go and drink wine a country that doesn’t really exist has long been up there on my travel to-do list. This summer I got the chance to make that a reality, and the resulting adventure was both surreal and incredibly quotidian.
The not-so-much-a-country in question was Transnistria, a breakaway republic that is, under international law, a part of Moldova. The country runs the length of the Dniester river between Moldova and Ukraine, sitting in a strategically important position.
What you call this strip of land depends on your political persuasion, the Transnistrians have made using the term Transnistria a crime, preferring the Prednistrovian Moldavian Republic or Prednistrovie. Moldovans see it as a part of Moldova on the left bank of the Dniester, with illegally stationed Russian troops bent on destabilising Moldova and preventing further integration with the EU. For ease I will refer to the region as Transnistria, as that is how most people in the English speaking world refer to it.
What is Transnitria?
When Moldova ceded from the USSR in 1991 it sought closer relations with its neighbour to the west, Romania, with whom it shares a common language and cultural ties. Transnistria on the other hand, with an ethnically and linguistically Russian population, looked towards Moscow and even sought to remain part of the USSR by establishing the short lived Pridniestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. This was never recognised by any other state, and the desire for Transnistrian independence led to war with Moldova, who did not want to surrender the territory to the east.
The two year war between Moldova (supported by Romania) and Transnistria killed several hundred civilians and remains a frozen conflict, occasionally thawing, as different powers have sought to destabilise the region for their own political means.
Today Transnistria is relatively stable, though there has been spill-over from the war in Ukraine - the centre of Tiraspol is only 9 kilometres from the Ukrainian border - and the war has led to tensions but very little direct action.
Despite the cool relations with Moldova, and a shrinking support for Russia (the 2024 Presidential elections saw the lowest turnout in Transnistrian history), visiting Tiraspol is possible. The people are friendly, if not slightly bemused, and the country operates smoothly, and it feels much like any other eastern European city.
Getting to Transistria, however, isn’t that easy. Since the early days of the war the border between the republic and Ukraine has been closed, to prevent Russian troops from entering Ukraine from Transnistria, leaving entry from Moldova the only option. Moldova itself is the least visited country in Europe with only 43,000 visitors in 2023 and it is also one of the poorest, and as a result flights from the west are not frequent, and the airspace of the country has been repeatedly closed due to spillover from the conflict. Flights are generally very expensive into Chisinau, so the cheapest, and most fun, way to to get to Moldova is to fly into Bucharest and take the Soviet era train over the border on an overnight journey.
Bucharest isn’t the city that most tourists head to Romania to see, it was devastated by an earthquake in 1977, and brutalist concrete replaced the destroyed buildings with the resulting cityscape being fairly bleak. Some of the more magnificent sights, such as the People’s Palace built by dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu (and inspired by North Korean Juche ideology to really be a Person’s Palace) is an awe-inspiring sight, but ultimately, once you’ve walked around there is only so much you can be impressed by a massive building.
The old town of Bucharest is somewhat of a misnomer too. The buildings themselves are historical, but until recently they lay derelict and many are still awaiting repair. The old town doesn’t offer much to do, beyond some beautiful book shops, instead it’s a warren of tourist-trap bars where waiters have remarkably long spiels to try and lure you in. This is a district that actively wants to attract stag weekends, and for most other tourists that’s a good reason to head elsewhere.
Luckily there are some excellent breweries in Bucharest, with Ground Zero brewing providing some much needed refreshment from the beating sun. They also serve serviceable burgers and nachos.
The Prietenia (friendship) train runs daily from both cities. Stopping at the border for passport checks as well as the gauge change, from the Standard Gauge of European tracks to the Russian Wide Gauge in the east. The train is jerky, old and noisy, but it is an excellent experience and a highlight of visiting the region. Once in Chisinau you must either drive or get a bus to the border, as the train to Tiraspol has not run since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but shared taxis run hourly between the two cities and are the most affordable option. The border is fairly easy, with guards giving you a paper entry visa showing how long you can stay for. Since I was visiting with a tour group we got a 3 day visa, and you can stay for up to 40 days, but most visitors come as a day trip from Chisinau.
Once in Transnistria you come to the town of Bendery, the only Transnistrian city on the right bank of the Dniester. The city is small, with a familiar soviet grid system and a handsome town centre which boasts Bauhaus and Stalinist architecture, as well as a vast green market and a soviet style cafe where you can eat solyanka underneath a portrait of Lenin.
Inside the Country
Transnistria is very normal, until something jams the signal of the ordinary, jarring your thoughts. In town Kvas vendors line the streets, families go to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster at the multiplex, babushki sell watermelons and homemade pickles, and the paranoid security forces follow you down the street checking your camera for evidence of espionage.
This latter point is what most people expect the region to be like, a soviet throwback, and Transnistria is well known in the west for still having the hammer and sickle in a prominent place on the national flag. The flag is in fact just that of the old Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, the name for the part of Bessarabia that was annexed from Romania in 1940. Although both countries were socialist, Romania remained in the sphere of influence of the USSR, whereas Moldova was fully subsumed, becoming one of the 15 republics that made up the vast empire of Communism.
The red and green flag bears the hammer and sickle, as well as a red star. Both the most recognisable symbols of communism, showing unity and solidarity between the agricultural and industrial proletariat. Transnistria today, however, is far from communist. Moldova itself had a communist government under president Vladimir Voronin between 2001-2009, and although the party has all but disappeared from the political landscape of the country, it is sometimes surprising to discover that Moldova was more recently governed by communists than hammer and sickle wielding Transnistria.
Soviet Disneyland
Transnistria is often described by western visitors as Soviet Disneyland or a Communist open air museum. This is not accurate, and it positions the region as a fateless province, hopelessly beholden to an irreproachable past that the rest of the world has rejected as a failed experiment.
Transnistria is certainly not lacking in determinism, and even the first president of Transnistria, Igor Smirnov, has declared Transnistrian independence to be the focus of his life’s work. The people there do not seemingly look upon the Soviet past with more affection than other people of a certain age look at it, with many former soviet citizens in Moldova, Estonia, Armenia and Russia still feeling that life was better under communism, where everyone had a job, even if they had nothing to do. I say people of a certain age as anyone under the age of 35 has no recollection of the USSR, knowing only the turbulent years following independence, when newly formed countries were left to forge a national identity and learn to function without central control from thousands of miles away. Young people do not see the USSR as a rosy time, instead they see the truthful cruelty, dishonesty, and cronyism that led to poverty and persecution for millions. Young people, if they can, leave Transnistria for education and work, where they can earn more processing berries in the west than working as an engineer at home.
They leave if they can get a passport that is. Transnistria issues passports for citizens, but since the country is only recognised by the equally as dubiously real South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Artsakh or Nagorno-Karabakh also recognised Transnistria before its dissolution following a bloody war that displaced over 100,000 ethnic Armenians) this passport will not get the holder very far. The border with Ukraine has been closed since the days after the invasion as there are 1,500 or so Russian troops stationed in Transnistria, and Ukraine was understandably keen to not allow Moscow to launch a second front from the west. Most of these soldiers are not from the Russian Federation, instead they are local lads who have been promised Russian citizenship in exchange for service, this conveys greater pension rights, and crucially, a passport.
Transnistrians can have dual nationality though, meaning they can have passports from several other countries, usually Ukraine, Russia or Moldova and, increasingly, Romania. About 1/3 of the population is ethnically Ukrainian, and until the war closed the route many Transnistians would travel to Odessa on the weekend to visit the larger city and relax at the Black Sea beaches a mere 90km away. About 1/3 are Russian, and in a 2006 referendum a huge 97% of voters expressed a desire to draw closer ties with Russia. The remaining 1/3 are of Moldovan descent, and thus hold Moldovan passports. There are also small numbers of Bulgarians, Gagauz and Jews in the region, and according to people I spoke to in Tiraspol, the different groups are well integrated.
Romania has also extended citizenship to those who have a grandparent who was born on the historical territory of Romania, and this includes Moldova and parts of Ukraine, Hungary and Bulgaria. This gives people in Transnistria far greater options, as Romanian citizenship confers free movement rights within the EU. Moldova is also moving further towards the west, and as either a sign of confidence in a future more closely aligned to the EU (or just hedging their bets) some 39,000 Transnistrianshave attained Moldovan citizenship since 2020, and out of a population of just under 400,000 about 340,000 of those have a Moldovan passport. The only airport now easily available to Transnistrians is Chisinau, with all other routes to leave the territory closed.
Sheriff Filling the Stalin-Shaped Hole of Communism
Transnistria is decidedly not communist, and nothing about it really feels communist. If you’re travelling to Tiraspol you’re unlikely to be on your first trip to Eastern Europe, but ask any traveller if they’ve seen a sports complex and football stadium as impressive as the one FC Sheriff play at (and the population can use) in another former Soviet or Warsaw Pact country, and the answer will be no. These facilities are not provided by the Transnistrian or Russian governments, but instead by a company.
Sheriff is only the second biggest company in Transnistria, but it is incredibly pervasive. Sheriff run the supermarkets, gas stations, phone networks, the Kvint brandy distillery, the football team, publishing houses, construction firms, and a luxury car dealership. If Transnistria wasn't already in the Mir payment system I’m fairly certain Sheriff would have found a way to control the movement of money too. If you want to do almost anything in Transnistria you must deal with Sheriff.
This monopoly begins almost as soon as you cross the border. Transnistria operates using the Ruble, a currency that cannot be exchanged anywhere outside the country. Handily, Sheriff has a foreign exchange in each of its stores; allowing the few visitors who come to exchange valuable foreign notes for Transnistrian money. Until recently the country issued composite plastic coins, brightly coloured board game pieces that bear the visages of the great and good of Transnistrian and Russian history. These are now sold in collectible wallets as souvenirs rather than regular circulation. Each euro will get you about 17 rubles, which is enough to buy a can of coke or something similar from any number of western brands whose presence abound in Transnistria.
The Sheriff supermarkets are well stocked, pleasant, and well staffed with workers wearing stylish blue and red uniforms that are a cross between the Soviet youth organisation the Young Pioneers and the Jetson’s. Sheriff is the biggest employer in the territory, and was established in 1993 by Viktor Gushan, a former KGB agent and businessman who now has sole control of the company, and its chair. The company also directly influences the only political party in the Transnistrian parliament, Obnovlenie, and so it seems almost inadequate to describe Gushan as merely an Oligarch, he is truly the power behind the throne.
Sheriff has handily stepped into any gaping hole that communism left behind, a Stalin shaped shadow that operates with equal ruthlessness and autarchy as the Georgian despot. Gushan is now one of the richest men in the former USSR, and holds incredible power in the region.
Another character who holds considerable political sway in Transnistria is, of course, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Russia supports, in fact holds up, Transnistria and the meddling of the Kremlin in Moldovan affairs is a source of great concern to the west. Many thought that Moldova would be the next domino to fall if Russia won in Ukraine, stoking even greater fears about the troops stationed in Transnistria. The impact of the war has been keenly felt here, with locals calling it what is it, a war, not a special operation. This is a war on their doorstep, one that has killed family and one that they can hear at night; when the traffic dies down and silence descends, the quiet is frequently broken by the sound of explosions from a downpour of missiles on Odessa.
The war has also come to Transnistrian soil, with explosions rocking the Ministry of State Security building, Tiraspol airport, a television transmitter, and a military facility. Drones carrying explosives have also been shot down over the territory, and for that reason the British FCDO recommends against all travel to Transnistria, citing the high likelihood of cross border fire occurring in the tense region. No one knows who caused the attacks in Transnistria, if they were friendly fire, a false flag operation, or ordinance from Ukraine. The security services are thus incredibly nervous, and my visit coincided with the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region of Russia, which fuelled the national paranoia.
The security services in Transnistria don’t bother much trying to look like regular citizens. The police and army wear their identifiable uniforms, but so do the undercover officers, these uniforms consist of polo shirts and leather messenger bags, and tight jeans with handgun shaped bulges in the pockets that the wearers hand never strays too far from. Tourists are few and far between in Transnistria, and the security services need to walk a fine line between performing their paranoid duties, as only one loyal to a rogue state can truly bring to pass, and not scaring off the small number of visitors and foreign currency mules. These totally normal fellas will ask you if you’re a journalist or a CIA agent, though I suspect they don’t actually get too many of these, and a true CIA agent would be more sagacious than to walk around slack-jawededly snapping inadvertent pictures of government buildings, unlike me.
If You Like Russia So Much Why Don’t You Marry It?
The question that most western visitors have when they come to Transnistria is why, if the population are pro-Russia, The Russian flag flies alongside the Transnistrian one, Putin holds sway, Russian troops are stationed there, and the banking system is Russian, then why doesn’t Russia recognise Transnistria as an independent country? Why doesn’t Russia absorb Transnistria like it seems to be so keen to do with other places that are decidedly Not Russia?
The answer seems to be a combination of geography, politics, and apathy. Geographically, unlike the Caucus states, Russia does not physically border Transnistria. There is a whole lot of Ukraine between Russia and Transnistria, and annexing Transnistria would destabilise the region even further and Russia has little interest in repairing or dealing with this.
Russia also likes to play in the shadows, exerting control, coercion, and chaos through cyber attacks and other nefarious means. Being able to sew discord within Moldova, via Transnistria, without having to officially get its hands dirty is a far more advantageous than direct action.
Russia also fears Moldova and Romania unifying, Romania is a member of NATO and a buffer zone between Russia and NATO is preferable for Putin. By having a rogue state destabilising Moldova, this unification can be prevented and delayed. The lack of Transnistrian integration presents a great political problem for Moldova, and Russia benefits from this status quo.
Finally, support for Russia seems to be waning slightly in the region. As seen with the recent uptake in Moldovan citizenship, some people seem to be if not directly looking westward, at least internally considering the possibility. The 2024 presidential elections in Russia saw polling booths being set up in Transnistia to allow Russian citizens to vote. This was obviously received with great disdain by Chisinau, who see Transnistia as Moldovan territory, and thus to host Russian election apparatus is an affront to Moldovan democracy. The Transnistrian public did not turn out in droves to vote, with about 30,000 fewer voting compared to 2018. The tide of public opinion does seem to be turning, in part accelerated by the war in Ukraine.
Moldova is also officially a candidate for EU membership, and accession talks are beginning. Russia is, of course, seeking to slow this process. The Moldovan presidential election in October 2024 will also be portentous with the pro-western Maia Sandu hoping to retain her presidency, but reports of Russian agents infiltrating Moldova to incite protest and cause chaos have already been surfacing.
Transnistria and the EU presents an intriguing issue. Some people believe that Moldova can join the bloc without Transnistria, and others think that it should come along for the ride. The truth is, with Moldova seeking closer relations with the west the direction of trade of goods from Transnistria has changed with it, 70% of exports from the region now go to the EU. Heavy industry, such as metalworking, and textiles have long been associated with Transnistria, and the majority of Moldovan industry is located on the left bank of the Dniester, so Transnistria is already well integrated with the western markets, thus joining the EU would not require large changes to the export structure. The Moldovan economy minister believes that Transnistria will come with Moldova into the EU, in spite of Russian meddling.
The majority of electricity in Moldova is also produced in Transnistria, and in 2023 in response to Gazprom reducing supply to Transnistria the breakaway state cut exports of electricity to Moldova by nearly 75%. This plunged Chisinau into crisis, with protests against the pro-western government, widely seen as a Russian ploy to sew dissent. The EU stepped in to financially support Moldova and restore power.
Currently Gazprom supplies gas to Transnistria for free, though it expects Moldova to eventually pay this bill with a debt of millions building up, one that Chisinau is unlikely to ever even consider paying. With Russian imports, free gas, and almost free electricity some people in Transnistria feel that life is good and the future lies with Moscow, but this is the poorest region of the poorest country in Europe, and there is a huge divide in wealth between those who benefit and those who live in abject poverty. Jobs are limited, and young people are leaving, there is little to keep them in Transnistria, unless they cannot go elsewhere.
One perhaps unexpected avenue of revenue potential is cryptocurrency mining. By taking advantage of the low electricity prices, servers which use huge amounts of energy can be run cheaply in Transnistria, allowing a significant advantage for enterprising young Transnistrians over their western peers.
So It’s Not Soviet Disneyland?
I don’t fully know why I take such umbrage at westerners coming to Transnistria and making videos about how empty and soviet it is, contributing to the myth that the region is a relic of communism where the population kiss Lenin goodnight before turning in. This is dangerous, it portrays Transnistria as an archaic and innocuous anomaly whose leaders are focused on the past rather than the volatile, cabalistic, and manipulatable oligarchy that it is.
People often make a great point about the architecture in Tiraspol, and this comes from all eras of the USSR. The Stalinist social realism style is present throughout the country, with grand columns and colonnades adorning the abandoned train stations and cinemas showing the latest Deadpool film. The Bauhaus bus station in Bendery now houses a department store where the communal canteen once sat, and Khrushchevkas from the 1960’s dominate the outskirts of the cities. It’s Soviet, but no more so than Warsaw, Chisinau or Tbilisi. The former House of the Soviets now houses the Tiraspol city administration, although it does still bear its original name in large Cyrillic letters on the facade of the building.
Most notably there are statues of Lenin in several locations around the city, and a monument to the Great Patriotic War that features a T-34 tank. This is unusual to see, most former Soviet republics have gone through a process of decommunisation removing murals and statues that represent Moscow, replacing them with national symbols or simply leaving empty plinths in the middle of roundabouts. The Lenin statues are well cared for here, but they don’t represent modern Transnistria.
These monuments are kept as a reminder of the past, not as a source or inspiration nor as a warning, but simple reverence for what once was. The Transnistrian public also know that tourists will come to see Lenin and to eat at a soviet style cafe, such as Back In The USSR restaurant where you can eat Herring Under a Fur Coat (herring salad with mayonnaise and vegetables) as well as Navy Pasta and Shashlik. This is the closest it gets to Disneyland, a themed restaurant where you can listen to soviet bangers and drink shots of vodka surrounded by characters with their own mythologies.
And Onto The Booze!
That was quite a long introduction to the actual point of this, a story about drinking in Transnistria.
Booze is really cheap there, there is no VAT in Transnistria, so prices are 20% lower than in Moldova. To take advantage of this we went on a party boat down the Dniester river, organised by our delightful Transnistrian guide Maria. It was everything you could ever hope a Russian party boat to be, loud, with brightly coloured flashing lights, and very cheap Baltika in plastic bottles.
I developed a taste for Baltika when living in Estonia, it is a bang average lager that was made by Carlsberg (who withdrew from the Russian market in 2022) but they sold it in 2 litre plastic bottles at the local basement shop, and that was quite enough to keep me happy.
A happy hour was spent cruising the river, dancing to frantic Russian pop and dance music and feeling truly astounded to be in such a reviled and contested part of the world.
The Noul Neamț Monastery near Tiraspol was built in 1864. It belongs to the Moldovan Orthodox Church, and unusually for Transnistria conducts services in both Russian and Romanian, although the Patriarch is based in Moscow.
We visited the pastel painted Monastery on a swelteringly hot afternoon, fresh from drinking homemade wine and brandy with a Moldovan grandmother just outside of Tiraspol. On the way we saw European Bee Eaters sitting on electricity wires and gently undulating through the sky, a very rare sight at home that it was a treat to spot when away. We were all a little bit pissed, dehydrated and sleepy.
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition women are expected to cover their hair when in religious buildings, and most now have scarves to borrow at the entrance, and despite having travelled to the area many times, I always forget to bring a scarf from home. I am a bit afraid of getting nits from the communal headwear, but I’ve managed to swerve them thus far.
The complex itself was fascinating, with chapels decorated in both Romanian and Russian style, filled with incense and reliquaries containing the finger bones of saints and a section of the cross, gifted from Jerusalem.
The monks pray, eat, work and live on site. The monastery has its own bakery as well as vines and a wine cellar. Homemade wine is not unusual in Moldova, the climate is warm and sunny so grapes cascade down from vines pretty much everywhere you look. People are well practiced at fermenting the grapes, and Moldovan homes are always kept well stocked with plenty of home made hooch.
The cellar itself was deep underground, damp and cool with that evocative smell of cold, wet earth and aromatic wood. The wine we tried was made with Cabernet grapes, dry and tannic and deeply purple which stained your lips and anything you managed to spill it on. Aged in oak barrels for about a year before drinking, and tapped directly from the wood, the wine was strongly alcoholic and quite heavy hitting when you’re already a little bit drunk and more than a little dehydrated.
A traditional slavic greeting is to present guests with bread and salt, so we stood underground, dipping our bread into a bowl of salt and drinking wine made by monks in a country that is not recognised. A country that is on the precipice of change, but no one knows which direction it will take, nor who will be at the steering wheel.
Despite the dangers, Transnistria is a welcoming, warm, fascinating and delicious place. If you can make it there soon then you should go, and see culture jamming in real time with a glass of wine made by some monks in your hand.