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  1. #1

    Tu conosci la "Transnistria"?

    Ecco una storia appena arrivata sulla ML dell'associazione europea di cui faccio parte...
    Roba da far accapponare la pelle... ...e il bello è che io non sapevo nemmeno l'esistenza di questo pseudo-stato... Enjoy:

    --------- Forwarded message ----------
    From: Octav Zlatior <oektaw@gmail.com>
    Date: 2009/11/7
    Subject: Transnistria - things you should know
    To: Travellers of BEST <travel@best.eu.org>


    Hello travellers

    The following message contains my genuine experience on Transnistrian
    land, and I'm writing it as a warning for anybody who thinks of
    crossing this "land of hope" in the near future.

    First of all, I am not surprised that 80-90% of euro travelers never
    heard of this Transnistria. Especially if you are not a citizen of
    Romania, Moldova, Ukraine or, maybe, Russia, the chances you have
    heard of this strip of land are very small. Second, I don't want to
    offend anybody with this e-mail, I am fully aware there are citizens
    of Transnistria among us and possibly on this mailing list. It's just
    that some particular aspects of this land were disturbing for me, and
    I think it's better that everybody is informed about the issues they
    might encounter.

    What is Transnistria?
    Called Pridnyestrovie (I know, there's a soft sound somewhere there
    ) in Russian, meaning "by the Nister". If you are going to look on the
    map for it, you will not find it, because it is a country that
    declared independence in 1990 but no country in the world (UN members
    at least) recognize it. I'm not going to get into the political stuff
    too much. The idea is that the country forcibly keeps it's borders.

    You can find more stuff about it on this page:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

    It's situated between Moldova and Ukraine. The capital city is
    Tiraspol. They claim to have three official languages there, but the
    authorities speak mostly Russian.

    How did I get there?
    I was on my way from ZiPi to Chisinau. The good news is this is pretty
    much the only way you can get to cross Transnistria - going from
    Ukraine to Moldova or viceversa. A friend told me before leaving:
    "avoid Transnistria!"
    Unfortuantely, I had other things to think of when I got in Odessa by
    train. I arrived there at 4 in the morning, and the bus station was in
    the other end of this pretty big city (seriously, it's a beatiful
    place ). When I eventually got to the bus station, I went to the
    office to buy a ticket, and forgot to ask if the bus will cross
    Transnistria or not (yep... ). Only when the mini-bus arrived, I
    noticed it said Tiraspol on the route board. I freaked out a little,
    and went to ask the driver if there will be any problem because I am
    Romanian and I cross Transnistria (naturally, the driver was an
    excellent Russian and Ukrainian speaker... and that was all )) )...
    The very little Russian I speak (kind of) was enough for me to find
    out that everything is OK, and that he'll wait for me if I have any
    problems at the border (that's reassuring) and that my backpack will
    cost me an extra 5 grivnia (that's less than half a euro - I actually
    found the concept fascinating ) )

    So there I was, on my way to Transnistria

    What happened next?
    Well... I filled in some immigration forms while approaching the
    border. We crossed the Ukrainian side of the border with no incidents.

    A few hundred meters before the Transnistrian border, we were stopped
    by some border guards, policemen and soldiers (with Kalashnikovs ).
    There was a proper filter, with concrete barriers and barbed wire and
    everything... Oh well

    They just looked at our faces and at our passports... Everything
    seemed to be OK for now. I crossed a lot of borders in my life, some
    of them were easier to cross, some more difficult. Not a few times
    have I been stopped by the guards, have I had my luggage checked to
    the last piece of clothing and a lot of other things that seemed to be
    a little overreactive on the borderguards' side. So I was kind of used
    to a lot of strange stuff. In my opinnion, everything seemed to be OK
    so far

    But what followed was not OK anymore.

    Our bus moved forward through the filter, and we reached the actual
    border... With fences, barbed wire again, soldiers, officers, border
    guards, Kalashnikovs and... the best part... a tank under some
    camouflage net
    The Transnistrian flag was waving above the whole thingie, with the
    communist sign (yes - the one with the hammer and the sickle).

    Everything seemend to be OK still... I was a little scared, but still
    - I thought "dude, I'm still in Europe - what could go wrong "

    They took our passports for checking. Then they told us to get out of
    the bus so they could check our luggage. I was amazed to see they had
    an X-ray scanner to check the luggage! Never saw one at a border...
    When I was about to get out from the luggage office, the officer there
    asked me in a very offensive way: "Rumunsky, da?" (it's pretty
    straight forward what it means )... I said "da". He asked if I
    speak Russian. I told him I speak very little, but I speak Romanian
    and English. He told me "Good luck then..." in a very ironic way.
    That's the moment I freaked out a little, and started to feel that
    somewhere in their customs house a big dick was being prepared for
    me...

  2. #2
    The interrogation
    I got back into the bus, and they brought back our passports...
    Everybody got their passports back, except for me. As the officer was
    preparing to get down of the bus, I shouted: "Tavarish! Moi
    passport?!" I don't know why I thought it's very natural and common
    for people to call each other "tavarish" (comrade) in this particular
    strip of land

    He looked angrily at me, and told me to wait. Another guy came in the
    bus and called my name (in a very Russian way ) ) and I followed him
    to the "Interrogation Room"...

    There I was, in a room - me and three Russian officers, with the
    hammer and sickle on their forehead, dressed in uniforms, with guns
    and everything. They were asking questions, I was answering. In
    Russian! When they saw I was getting very lost, they started asking in
    English. But it was mostly Russian... The questions were mostly common
    stuff like what am I doing in Transnistria, what I do in Cluj, what
    was my bussiness in Ukraine. What am I doing in Moldova.

    I eventually told them I'm member of a student organization, although
    I was aware this is not the kind of stuff they want to hear. Then,
    they checked my pockets (remember, all this conversation was happening
    in Russian... ). I had a flyier in my pocket - a random one I got in
    Kyiv, I took it to learn some more words and stuff like that
    Unfortunately for me, the flyier was about Work and Travel in USA.
    That was it! They started asking me: What's this? Are you working with
    americans? Do you have any business with the USA? Do they give you
    money? You are sending people in the USA, right?

    And stuff like that... I tried to convince him that I have nothing to
    do with the americans, that our organisation is not "amerikansky" and
    stuff like that. Things were getting really really fucked up!

    The most interesting part was that during all this interrogation, they
    were talking to each other, saying jokes and laughing... I didn't
    understand much, so I was a little unconfortable about this...

    Eventually, they started to ask me for bribe to let me go. Two of the
    guys went away, and the third one started asking me for "dvatzat evro"
    (20 euros). Besides being a lot of money that they had no reason to
    make me pay, it was a very dangerous situation. I've heard of cases of
    such guards asking for bribe just to have a reason to arrest
    unsuspecting travelers :|
    I told them I don't see a reason and I refuse to give them 20 euros.
    He opened the drawer, and said - just throw them here before somebody
    sees it. He also told me that otherwise, I'll have to take my bag and
    go back to Ukraine. Honestly, I was happier with this option )

    In all this time, I was getting fully aware of the extremely bad
    situation I was in. I was on a piece of land no country recognizes.
    They can do whatever they want - nobody can get involved here. There
    are no embassies, no UN, no international laws, no nothing. They can
    throw me in prison, deport me or worse... And nobody will ever find
    out what happened to me. I was already imagining myself sticking the
    Mongolian flag in the permafrost in Siberia... LBG Novosibirsk yey )

    I needed a solution fast...

    The escape
    I said to myself: right now I am in one of the worst situations I
    could ever be in... If I just wait, it will only get worse. I have to
    use my balls - it's my turn to slam the dick on the table

    I told them it's obvious that we don't agree too well anymore, and
    this is because of the language barrier, so I asked for a translator.
    He pretended not to understand what I want... It's true, I don't know
    the Russian word for translator

    I told them I'll just go to the bus to take my luggage and I'll go
    back to Ukraine (I was already imagining myself hitchhiking near the
    soldiers on the Transnistrian border )) )

    I went back to the bus, and asked the driver about this situation...
    He was very confused by my Russian and told me there is little I or he
    could do about it. Then I remembered there was a very very nice lady I
    talked with all the way. She was speaking both Romanian and Russian.
    She offered to help me with my very bad situation, and she entered the
    interrogation room with me, and started talking with the officers in
    Russian. From their conversation, I understood she was asking them to
    bring me a translator and she asked them if they asked me for bribe to
    cross the border. The officers denied everything, and told her I got
    something wrong )

    Then she left, and the translator came, and I could finally speak
    Romanian and everything was OK. But I was still freaked out. They gave
    my passport back and I could get on the bus again. We entered
    Transnistria. Our bus was stopped by police and military a few more
    times for "routine checks".

    In and out again
    Although I was happy that everything was over, I was horrified by the
    thought that a lot of worse things could happen. During the
    interrogation, I was at least on the "safe side", and I could get back
    to safety in Ukraine at any moment. Now I am inside - what if they
    don't let me out? What if the guards I just had this long incident
    with called the other border, or the police, or the military to stop
    me?

    Everything was like in a strange movie - that kind of films with
    american tourists in Columbia or stuff like that

    All this experience didn't stop me to enjoy my presence there - I went
    to buy some Transnistrian money as souvenirs - the coins have the
    hammer and sickle sign

    Fortunately, the exit was much easier, nobody interrogated me anymore
    and I entered Moldova.

    Last scare
    Just as we crossed the Moldovan checkpoint, everything was OK, they
    took our passports and gave them back to us after a while... The
    driver started the bus, and when we were at a few kilometers away from
    the checkpoint, I finally got my passport (the stack of passports was
    moving through the bus for each of us to pick his own). I checked to
    see the Moldovan stamp, and I realised I don't have one!!!

    I asked the lady that helped me with the border, and she told me that
    she has no idea if I should or should not have a stamp, because she
    has Moldovan passport and they don't put a stamp in it by default.

    I went to ask the driver, and showed him the passport. He looked at it
    and told me "harasho" (like - it's OK)... I had some problems
    understanding which part of this story is "harasho" because I heard a
    lot of stories of people that got deported, arrested, interrogated,
    banned to cross borders because of mistakes of the border officers :|

    But what could I do... He didn't want to stop and turn of course, so I
    had to get used to my situation of illegal imigrant in Moldova :|

    Eventually, I found out what's the thing: because the Moldovan state
    does not recognize Transnistria, they can't have a border, because
    having a border with stamps and everything would mean recognizing the
    Transnistrian state. Therefore, they just check your passports and
    sometimes luggage, but they don't stamp your passport. It's just a
    customs checkpoint, not a border

    All the authorities know this, so when they check for entry stamp,
    they see the exit from Ukraine to Transnistria, and know you don't
    need an entry stamp. If you ask me about it, it is very very strange


    What can I say...
    It was a very interesting experience. Until today, I'm not sure how
    close I was to serious problems (LBG Novosibirsk kind of problems )
    ). One thing is for sure - I will never cross Transnistria again. I
    strongly recommend all travelers to avoid it!

    Still, if you are forced to cross Transnistria, take these into accout:
    * don't take anything strange with you, don't give the guards a reason
    to hold you
    * don't bribe the guards - seriously, you could get in jail!
    * avoid taking any alcohol and cigarettes with you
    * keep your cool when talking to the guards
    * they will use Russian as a weapon of intimidation against you... try
    to be as communicative as possible
    * find somebody in the bus that speaks your language, or that speaks a
    language you also speak
    * don't be afraid that you don't have entry stamp for Moldova - it's normal
    * maybe learn some Russian before
    * drivers and travellers in that part of the world are used to this
    kind of shit... don't be afraid that they will get upset or leave
    without you; them waiting for hours until they release you is included
    in the ticket price - I was held in for one hour, but they would
    have waited for more...

    I am still amazed such a place exists at only 200 kilometers from the
    border of the European Union (Evropevsky Soyuz ) ...

    So... Take care and good luck travelers

    See you around (hopefully),

    Octav
    BEST Cluj-Napoca
    RA of Mongolia

  3. #3
    Utente di HTML.it
    Registrato dal
    Sep 2006
    Messaggi
    796
    Che storia

    Comunque sembra essere uno stato comodo per far sparire personaggi scomodi

  4. #4
    Questo è il Dialectik dell'est
    [...Ubi iacet dimidium, iacet pectus meum...]

  5. #5

  6. #6
    io volevo dire che conosco la transnistria.
    mi ci sono imbattuto proprio qualche giorno fa cercando il TLD dell'ukraina (volevo registrare $utentessa.ua )


  7. #7
    Qualche tempo fa, se non erro, quelli delle Iene ci sono andati a fare un servizio.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN5G5fbCjzc

  8. #8
    Utente di HTML.it
    Registrato dal
    Sep 2006
    Messaggi
    796
    Originariamente inviato da Domenix
    Qualche tempo fa, se non erro, quelli delle Iene ci sono andati a fare un servizio.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN5G5fbCjzc
    Interessante, ci sono molte parti che confermano il racconto. C'e` anche il carroarmato

  9. #9
    Con i soldi e il potere si possono anche creare stati nuovi
    :mafia_rulez:

    Una regione che vive di commercio e/o contrabbando di armi...

    FAGIAN GAME
    _ | _ | | _ _ | ... ...

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