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...