Tbilisi, Georgia

Everie and His Mother

I started the day thinking I would catch a taxi to Tbilisi — some 400 kilometers away, instead I ended up in the Caucasus Mountains, with a new friend, Everie, Georgia’s eight hundred meter champion in 2000. “I speak little English. I drive you to Tbilisi. 200 lari ($125).” That’s how we met after I had talked to a number of drivers each quoting higher prices with far less English. “We visit my village on the way. It’s only three kilometers off road.” I thought, “weird,” but okay. Turns out the road was better likened to an enlarged cow path — lots of bumps and mud holes with cows, pigs, and geese competing for the right-of-way. On a couple of occasions, I had to get out to open and close rusty gates. When we reached his home, his mother was fetching water from the family well. His wife with their four-month old daughter rushed out to greet us. Everie proudly showed me his cow and pig, the rabbits that they would slaughter for food, the chickens and ducks, and his father’s prized rusted out tractor. Then it was time to eat. His mother and wife had prepared a meal from their home produced ingredients: cheese, fresh fruit and vegetables, home-made bread, fish from the Black Sea, apple sauce, and a delicious home brewed white wine. It was a banquet and the morning had just begun.

On the Way

Turns out, this was but the first of three stops that Everie talked me into making, all relatives whom he insisted we visit, and who, in turn, served up traditional Georgian meals under extremely sparse circumstances. As we left the second place, Everie suggested, “You want to see Mountains — take photos. We take another route to Tbilisi. Find hotel and go to Tbilisi tomorrow.” My trust in Everie had grown, so I agreed. As we drove, he told me: “I was in the Georgian army for eight years and fought in the 2008 war against the Russians. I lost three of my friends to Russian sniper fire. Russian people okay, but we don’t like Putin. The Russians don’t even like Putin. Ossetia belongs to Georgia. We have a good president who wants to get Ossetia back. For me it’s been difficult to make a living in Georgia. I would like to find a job. I studied economics, but can’t find any work. Now I work two months out of the year as a taxi driver. That’s all that I can find. I tried working in Turkey, ironing trousers, but they don’t pay anything and they work you to death. The Turks are very bad bosses.

Cows

When Everie wasn’t playing chicken with on-coming vehicles, he was dodging obstacles: huge boulders appearing out of nowhere, construction debris with no warning signs, bottomless potholes, and farm animals of every stripe. Cows in particular seemed to be everywhere. “Who pays if you hit one of these cows?” I asked. “My friend, one month ago, ran into a cow. The lady who owned cow told my friend to pay 1,000 lari. My friend said no, your cow shouldn’t be on the highway. The lady insisted and so my friend called the police. The police told the lady that her cow shouldn’t be on the highway and that she must pay for the damages to his car. The police officer’s logic was reassuring, although it left me still wondering why there were so many cows on the road.

Everie and Home Owner

As evening approached and the area became more inhospitable, we started looking for a hotel, but I hadn’t seen one since we began up the Mountains. “No hotel, not a problem. We stay in someone’s home. I ask at this fruit stand.” Two ladies directed Everie to check with the restaurant ahead, where we found a lady who told him she would rent us a room for 60 lari [$37.50]. The room had no bathroom, power outlet, or air conditioning, and breakfast was not included, but we were out of options. Everie told the lady that we were going to Tbilisi, which resulted in a discussion with a lot of arm waving. “We can’t get through with this car,” Everie reported back to me. “We need jeep to make it through. We stay here tonight and go back tomorrow.” The word soon got out that an American was here and neighbors started gathering, probably out of curiosity. One was an English teacher at the local high school. “I love San Francisco. It’s my dream place to live. We are a small country. America doesn’t care about us.” While I stayed up and talked to the neighbors through the English teacher, Everie went to bed.

Thrashing Beans

The next morning, we returned down the mountain and on our way to Tbilisi stopped in Gori, Stalin’s birthplace. Everie didn’t want to have anything to do with Stalin. “He’s done. No more. Don’t even want to talk about him.” But Gori was also where the Russians had inflicted serious damage during the 2008 war, so we stopped by one of the resettlement areas where the EU had built a hundred or so homes for families displaced by the war. Surprisingly, Everie was not shy about talking to the people. A man with a small daughter conveyed to him the grim details of what had happened. A woman invited us into her house to show us how small it was. Outside another home, women took turns thrashing bean stocks. One of the women told Everie: “I lost everything. I lost my husband. The Russians killed him. We lived in a big house. We now have only this 200 square meter lot and this cramped two-bedroom cottage. Like our neighbors, we use every inch of the yard to plant our gardens. We have to. Nobody can find work. Yet we have to pay for the utilities here.

Batumi, Georgia

Maria

No Internet connection in my room at the Bakuri Hotel, so I sat in the lobby as guests came and went. Maria, the hotel manager, asked me where I was from and we started talking. “I don’t really like Americans,” she said. “They only think of themselves. We don’t mean anything to them. How many Americans even know where Georgia is? I manage two hotels; this one with 28 rooms and another one with 48 rooms. I make 600 Lari (about $375) per month. My assistant makes 250 Lari (about $156) I’m single so it’s enough for me to live on. Everyone in my family has a job so we’re doing okay. But we don’t have any money, or time, to travel anywhere. Our president, Saakashvili, is doing a good job. I plan to vote for him in a couple of months. You see a lot of construction in Batumi, some very interesting buildings, right? Saakashvili is very smart. He’s working hard try to make Georgia more attractive, but his presidency is really about reclaiming South Ossetia region for Georgia. The 2008 war was devastating for a lot of people in Gori [Stalin’s birthplace] but not here the war didn’t really affect us. Saakashvili is right, South Ossetia belongs to Georgia. There are only three million people in Georgia, but we have our own language that is completely unique from any other language in the world. Some say it’s the most difficult language in the world to learn. We were interrupted by a group of guests (four men and four women) who seemed anxious to join the conversation. Although they all contributed, I’ll summarize as though one person was speaking. “We’re from Iran — on vacation here. We can drink in Georgia, which we can’t do in Iran. In Iran, we must wear the hijab, but here we don’t have to. If we had a choice we wouldn’t wear the hijab in Iran either. People should be free to dress as they like. When we’re abroad the government doesn’t care if we drink or if we dress like westerners, but it’s dangerous for us to talk about politics. My effort to engage them on the nuclear standoff was futile. They then left to enjoy the freedom they don’t have in Iran.

Ukraine Today

Lenin

Can’t go back, can’t go forward, stuck forever in a wasteland of crumbling monuments to an ambitious bygone dream where soldiers marched across those broken coble stones under Lenin’s ubiquitous gaze, where heroes were ceremoniously laid to rest in those forgotten weedy cemeteries, where athletes competed for the glory of the USSR in those boarded up gyms, where comrades sang out with pride the Internationale in those deserted stadiums, where industry buzzed with energy in those dilapidated factories, where the iron rule of law prevailed where now a bribe will do, where the collective socialist spirit rang out under the five-year plan across those desolate feral fields, where a five-square meter apartment came free to all in those shabby run down block houses, where young women worked hand in hand with their men but now search the internet for just a sober one, where signs and posters promoted the communist spirit graffiti has laid its mark, where children laughed and played on those rusty merry-go-arounds impervious to the broken promises of their future. This is Ukraine today.

Simferopol, Ukraine

Hitchhiking in Ukraine works like this: those who hold their hands out, their palms down, want to pay for a ride, those who stick their thumbs out as we do in America want a free ride. A young man with his thumb out catches my eye. Okay, why not, what can I lose? I roll down the window. “Hello,” I say. “Do you speak English?” “Yes, a little,” the young man says excitedly. “I’m going to Simferopol,” I say. “Good, good, we go there too.” Then I notice the woman and the dog. “My wife and dog — is okay?” Oh my god, what am I getting myself into? “No problem. Kevin a good dog.” I hesitate, quickly trying to size them up. They look harmless enough. “I tell you about this country,” the young man says, smiling beseechingly through the window. I relent, “Okay, get in.” The young woman, the dog, and their two big bags go in the back seat. The young man jumps in the front seat.

My Hippy Friends

“Don’t speak very good English just what I learned in school. My wife doesn’t speak any English. Her name is Olga. I’m Demitri. This is our dog, Kevin — You know, like Kevin Costner, the movie star. We’re going to the Rainbow Gathering. It’s in western Ukraine this year. People from Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Moldova will be there. It’s about peace, love, and freedom. It started in the U.S. with the hippies. I guess we’re hippies. It’s an opportunity to meet others like us, be with nature, and learn new things. I want to learn pottery making and yoga. I will teach people how to play the drums and Olga teach them how to make jewelry. We come from a big smelly city in Russia. Since March, we live in Ukraine. It’s a better country than Russia. It’s freer here. It’s neither Russian nor European — something in between. Russia is a totalitarian state. Putin is a dictator. Most people in Russia don’t like him. He has lots of money to throw around and that’s how he wins elections. You know, the head of the Orthodox Church, the patriarch, he also very rich, very powerful — tells people what to do. It’s bad the way they treat homosexuals. I don’t like any of it. I’m an atheist and a naturalist and that’s why we want to live here in Ukraine. We love nature, peace, friendship, and adventure too. When we’re not doing something like this, I work as a tour guide for Russians visiting the Crimea. Olga and I don’t need much to live on.”

Sevastopol, Ukraine

There are traffic cops everywhere in Ukraine — along some highways every two to three miles. It was only a matter of time before I was going to get pulled over. According to my GPS, I was to take the second exit off the turnaround. Oops, there it was a red shield with an X through it. I was going up a wrong way — not the first time my GPS had given me the wrong directions. Two police officers in a patrol car were waiting and signaled me to pull over. The officer who approached me didn’t speak English, but let me know: driver’s license, passport, and car registration. He talked to me in Russian, but I didn’t understand a word of it except that I was going the wrong way on a one way street. With a smile bordering on a grin, he motioned me to get out of my car and into the police car with the other officer whose English was non-existent and who appeared to be writing up a ticket. From the two, their gestures and conversation told me they wanted to take me to the police station, but were afraid of leaving my car behind. “Strafe,” the officer in the car next to me said, a word I recognized from German as meaning “fine,” but I pretended not to understand. The officer wrote on a sheet of paper $50. I looked at his note and feigned dismay, shaking my head, and pointing at my driver’s license. “Send the bill to my address here,” I said, something that Taras had told me to say in situations like this. However, the officer persisted, pointing to the amount on the ticket. I smiled and told him again, “Send the ticket to my home address.” This went on for a while. Finally, he returned the smile and said something to the officer outside, who promptly opened the door and motioned me to leave. And, that was it! For the first time in my life, I had just talked my way out of a traffic ticket. “Nice guys,” I thought.

An hour later, as I was passing a slow moving tractor-trailer, I ran into another traffic control point. “Now what could I possibly have done wrong?” This officer didn’t speak English either. Motioning me to produce my driver’s license and passport, he pointed to the faded center white line on the road, indicating that I had driven over it. Due to the rutted and frequently patched road conditions, I hadn’t noticed the white line, sometimes solid and other times broken. Certainly the other traffic seemed impervious to its purpose. The officer motioned for me to get out of my car and come with him to his car. The routine I had experienced an hour earlier repeated itself. Again he used the word “strafe,” but in a hushed up way, clearly suggesting this was a bribe and that he would write up a ticket if I didn’t give him $50. It’s amazing how well people can communicate when they don’t speak the same language. Again, I pleaded ignorance, telling him, “Send the bill to my home address.” However, the officer outside didn’t seem too pleased with the situation. “Maybe, I had pushed the limits with these guys?” I fumbled through my wallet and pulled out a hundred-grivna bill (about $12.50). The officer snatched it from my hand, tucked it into his shirt pocket, and motioned to me to quickly leave. “Shit,” I thought, “I should have held out a little longer. They’re clearly in a hurry to make their quota.” 

Yalta, Ukraine

Taras took me on a tour of the Swallow’s Nest and Tsar Nicholas II’s Livadia Palace on the Black Sea where Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin decided the fate of Germany and much of the rest of the world. Taras had a lot to say.

Taras

People accuse Roosevelt of selling out to Stalin, but I think he ended the bloodshed. If he had not made the concessions he did, Stalin would have continued his push west. Although the cold war was bad, at least lives were saved. We in the East suffered the consequences, but it could have been worse. We have a corrupt government now. It’s made up of millionaires and billionaires. They steal from the people. Their families live and travel abroad. They drive Bentleys and Ferraris. If they don’t like you or if they want your business, they simply trump up charges against you and throw you in jail. It’s disgusting. With Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister it was better although corruption was still a big problem.

Life expectancy for men in Ukraine is only 62 years. Men generally don’t live to retirement. The problem is cheap alcohol, which the government produces and distributes. It’s easier for the government to deal with drunken people than productive ones. Unfortunately, people would rather drink, and not think about anything, then take responsibility for their lives. For democracy to work, people must take responsibility. We are a long way from meeting that objective. Poland and the Czech Republic are countries we need to emulate. They’re doing it on their own. They immediately tore up their past relationship with Russia, tore down their statues of Lenin and Stalin. We need to do the same here. Western Ukraine has become more like them, but here, we still have our statues of Lenin. It’s the same in Russia. The majority of people there voted for Putin. Yes, hundreds of thousands protested, but millions more sat at home, watching television, drinking beer, and waiting to be told what to do. In 1932 and 1933 when Stalin destabilized Ukraine’s nationalist movement through forced starvation, maybe as many as ten million people died, he relocated thousands of Russians to Ukraine, resulting in Ukraine becoming more like Russia in its culture and language. Everybody now speaks Russian and the majority of us long to return to the days when Ukraine was a part of the United Soviet Republic.

Economic conditions here are tough. A teacher makes about $300/month. They must work second/third jobs to make ends meet. I make $2,000 per month, running my own service business, which is at the low end of the average income scale. My girl friend is a lawyer and makes only $500 per month. Retirees get about $200/month. I’m hoping the Internet and the global economy will force changes as more people are exposed to a wider range of ideas and opportunities, but I’m afraid we have to wait on the younger generation to make it happen. I’m 29 and spent two years in Florida, where I learned things work pretty much the same no matter who’s in charge — you still have the same laws, same services, and same opportunities. That’s the way it should work here, so that it’s up to you what you make of yourself. Here I have two apartments, one I live in and the other I rent out. I’m doing okay, but I’d like to make more so that I can travel abroad more than just occasionally.

Feodosia, Ukraine

Vladimir & Igor

It looked like a great chance to get the inside street scoop on Ukraine and Russian politics, but Vladimir and Igor, my drinking buddies, didn’t have any interest in politics – they say they don’t even vote. Vladimir owns a trucking company, a total of seven trucks, running between Moscow and Yekaterinburg, and Igor, a retired Russian army doctor, owns the hotel/spa where I’m staying. Their English was virtually non-existent so what I learned about them, between drinking wine and downing vodka shots, was through Veronica, my trusty eleven-year old translator, who you met in my last blog. Igor who’s originally from Vilnius, Lithuania, has lived for extended periods in Russia and Poland. He bought the hotel five years ago because taxes here are ten times less than what they are in Lithuania. That is about the extent of the information I could glean from the two of them, not all that interesting, but then I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying as they chatted amongst themselves and the other guests and relatives as they came and went. What I did learn was how to drink Russian style, where before every sip you clink your glasses and toast to whatever: love, good health, long life, happiness, etc. And I learned to eat a piece of cucumber after every shot of vodka. Not sure what the purpose of that was, but it didn’t taste that bad, so what the heck. I also learned a few words in Russian: thank you, hello, goodbye, yes, no, and water without gas. “Water without gas” has become a very useful phrase, as people here prefer water with gas – ugh! The one phrase I have not been able to master is “good morning.” Whenever I try saying it, I get a puzzled look or a head shaking, “No speak English.”

Feodosia, Ukraine

Sometimes you collect information from the most unlikely of sources — this time from a precocious eleven-year old girl vacationing with her mom and relatives at a small resort hotel on the Black Sea. Her father is with the Ukraine embassy in Kenya from where she had just returned after a year there, learning English, and now speaking it almost flawlessly. Here’s what she had to say.

Veronica

Veronica: I prefer to speak English and Russian, but, of course, I speak Ukraine with my grandmother, because that’s all she knows. At home we speak Russian. Like Ukraine it’s our mother tongue although my younger sister doesn’t really speak Ukraine. She speaks Russian and English with an African accent. I want to learn French next. My English teacher was from California and says I speak American English. I know San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. I know President Obama. I think he’s a good president. But I’m glad to be back in Ukraine. It’s my home and I like it here and although it’s near Russia, it’s part of Europe. I don’t think Ukraine will become part of Russia again, because we have our own president. I didn’t like Kenya. It’s a very poor country with people sleeping in the streets. There are a lot of monkeys, lizards, and insects there. It’s dangerous too. If you roll down your car window, the poor people will steal the necklace off your neck. I don’t like Mr. Mwai Kibaki, the president of Kenya. He’s a bad president because he keeps the people poor. I don’t care for the dark people there, or the Catholics, and I don’t like the Muslim women with their masks — you can only see their eyes. The Ukraine consulate in Kenya is small — the American consulate huge. When I grow up, I don’t want to work in the embassy. I want to be a translator and a designer. I want to design dresses. When I’m your age we’ll have electronic closets so all you need to do, for example, is type in “party” and the closet will return the right dress. Later, Veronica became the resident translator as I was invited to have dinner and drinks with the owner of the hotel and some other guests, all Russians, none of whom spoke English. 

Mykolaiv, Ukraine

I could have written something like this blog last year in Morocco or the year before in Turkey. The sentiments I heard in those countries were identical to the sentiments I picked up at a café in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Two men and a woman sitting at the next table, speaking in broken English, caught my ear. “Where are you from?” I asked. The men, Abraham and Mamet, said they were from Turkey. The woman, whose name I didn’t get, said she was from Ukraine. Here’s what they had to say:

Abraham: I’m here to see my girl friend. We met over the Internet. Mamet: I came along just for the fun. Don’t know if I want a woman. Just looking, you know. Woman: I don’t know, maybe I go to Turkey with Abraham. I’m Christian. He’s Muslim. I must decide. Perhaps Ukrainian women deserve a separate blog, but what interests me here, is the direction our conversation then took. Abraham: I was in New York, fabulous city, never shuts down. But, people in America look at you different when you tell them you’re from Turkey. Like, oh, you’re one of them. You know, one of those terrorist type guys. I’m Muslim, and like most Muslims, I wouldn’t hurt a flea. It’s in the Koran. It’s what we’re taught. Mamet: You know, sir, it’s not true. You know, the way they report on what happened to the twin towers. The CIA did those attacks so they could attack Middle East countries and get their oil. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were invented by the CIA. Abraham: Yes, it’s true. Bruce Willis, you know, that movie star, he agrees and there’s a lot of research that proves it. You know, why weren’t any bodies found from the planes that crashed?  Mamet: Why didn’t the U.S. fighter jets shoot the planes down? And, where are all these supposed al-Qaeda members? They don’t exist. They’ve been made up. Abraham: You know, everyone in the U.S. drives a big car and gas there costs less than $2 a gallon. The U.S. needs Middle East oil because they consume so much. As soon as I answer one question, they come back with another. 9/11 conspiracy theories, stoked by people like Bruce Willis, take on a reality of their own in the Middle East, providing a soothing explanation to the beleaguered collective Muslim psychic, which cannot, and rightly so, tolerate the implied guilt by association so many Americans would want to assign to them. Their sensitivities are not without justification as I recall the many Islamophobic statements made by the candidates during the Republican primaries: Rick Perry suggesting that Turkey is ruled by terrorists, Sarah Palin tweeting that a mosque at ground zero is an unnecessary provocation, Michelle Bachmann claiming that not all cultures are equal, meaning Islam, Herb Cain refusing to appoint Muslims to his administration, Newt Gingrich vowing that Muslims in his administration would have to take a loyalty oath, Rick Santorum’s insisting that America is at war with Islam, or Romney suggesting that not just al-Qaeda, but Shia and Sunni are the problem. So Abraham and Mamet have it right and it’s no wonder they react with bewilderment and pain and like others in the Middle East resort to insane conspiracy theories to deflect the prejudices that are hurdled at them. 

Odessa, Ukraine

Oliga: Good day David! Unfortunately you forgot to give the keys to the rooms Hotel Jumbo. Please could you send me them back through the train. Thanks in advance and hope to understand. It wasn’t the first time I had left a hotel with my room key. In Europe, at least, some of these keys could be heirlooms. That was not the case with this very ordinary key, but the desk clerk had otherwise been very helpful and had told me she was new on the job, so I responded to her email. The email exchange that follows has been partially edited for readability.

Me: I'm sorry I forgot to give you the key. I will try sending it to you from my hotel here in Odessa tomorrow.

Oliga: I am very grateful to you if you do this. I really hope that you will send the keys to the hotel. So I will not have problems with the boss because I really need this job. Thanks again.

Me: I'll definitely have it mailed to your hotel tomorrow. Please accept my apologies and tell your boss that it was not your fault.

Oliga: Thank you very much, but it's my fault. I hope that everything will be good. Please contact me and then when the parcel arrives that I know and tell the girls at the hotel. Have a nice evening.

Post Office Address

Me: I'm sorry to report that I haven't been able to find a way to send the key to you. The hotel tells me that the post will only accept documents. It's possible that I could use Fed Ex or DHL, but their offices are nowhere near the hotel where I'm staying. You mentioned something about sending by train, but I don't understand how that works. If you can explain better, that may be a possibility. I didn’t mention to Oliga that I had spent an hour looking for a post office just in case the hotel was wrong. Whenever I asked, “Where’s the post office?” I got a puzzled look. The best I could do was find something that looked like a telephone booth although it was clearly marked on my map as a post office.

Oliga: Good day David! There are many options for how to transfer the keys. Can pass through the train to from Odessa to Chisinau to provide the key guide and when I come, or by minibus, but better by train.

Oliga: If you pass the keys to the train. They called me and I will come to train.

Oliga: I beg you please try to transfer the keys.

Me: I'm afraid I don't understand. Who do I give the key to?

Oliga: Woman who works in a train. When you go to the train, she looks the ticket (the controller). You can ask her and she will give in Chisinau, I'll give her the money for it.

Me: What train? What time?

Oliga: Today at 16.50 will train from Odessa to Chisinau. I do not know the train number, but it is the train on which you are traveling. In Chisinau, he will be 21.44. You can pass either through the passengers or the conductor with my phone number and I'll be in the evening at the station.

Me: Okay, I gave the key to the train steward. I also gave him 22 lei. Please let me know if you receive it. It's now 12 p.m. I haven't heard back from Oliga. 

Chisinau, Moldova

Mini Buses

The hotel desk clerk tells me, “To get to the city take either the mini bus 106 or 160." The mini buses are all over the place, stopping whenever someone flags them down, and then continuing on some pre-planned, route, with which only the locals seem familiar. In minutes 106 appears. I flag it down, hop aboard, and give the driver three lei, less than a quarter. It looks like the right bus as the sign next to the 106 reads Piata Centrala and although the driver makes a variety of turns, I believe we’re heading in the right direction. So far so good — but then we come to a busy intersection where another bus pulls up beside us. The two drivers roll down their windows, talking and gesturing. They reach some sort of agreement and the passengers on the bus begin transferring to the other bus. “What the heck is going on?” But no English here, so I dumbly follow the crowd. The new bus takes a turn. It’s the wrong direction! I’m sure. The other passengers show no concern and continue to get on and off as if by plan. The bus finally stops. We are in a sparsely populated area with only a few buildings around. The passengers get off. I wait to talk to the driver. I point to the sign on his window. “Centrala! centrala!” He shakes his head, gesturing and talking rapidly. I keep pointing at the sign, “Centrala!” Ah, finally he appreciates the fix I’m in and motions me to sit down. Alone we drive another fifteen minutes farther outside the city, where we arrive at a place where a number of mini buses are parked, their drivers relaxing in the shade. My driver talks to one of them, who finally nods his agreement and motions for me to get in his bus. Half-hour later we arrive at the Piata Centrala, and all this for less than two bits. I suppose from this you might guess that Chisinau is not somewhere you’d expect to run into many Americans, but that evening I did, on two separate occasions, and here’s what they had to say.

David with whom I had a beer: "I’m a bank examiner from Oklahoma on assignment here by the U.S. Treasury Department. These assignments are one to two months long and can take me just about anywhere in the world. My job is to help governments examine their banking books, establish policies to thwart corruption, and to analyze and report on the effectiveness of U.S. Treasury’s investments. A big issue is corruption, but then that’s true everywhere including America. We call it lobbying. The Treasury Department funnels money into a lot of projects. The folks back in Oklahoma might be dismayed to learn where their taxpayer dollars are going — building of a Mosque, fighting AIDs, or the distribution of birth control. Moldova is a very poor country — per capita income around $3,000. In five years it will definitely join the European Union, but it will probably have to give up Transnistria in order to do so. Might be easier if Moldova belonged to Romania. That’s where it belongs anyway. I’m sure it won’t become part of the Russian Federation again. Democracy here has developed too far, and the hard feelings toward the pre-independent days still linger."

Pat with whom I had dinner: "I’m a zoologist with a PhD from the University of Florida. I work as independent contractor conducting bio-diversity studies for the U.S. State Department. These assignments can take about a month and may be anywhere in the world. I usually do two or three a year. The rest of the time I write an article on bio diversity for my hometown newspaper in Florida. It’s kind of a nice setup that allows me to travel and do something I care about, without having to be away from home that much. I’m here to do research and write a report on a sturgeon caviar farm in Transnistria. The U.S. State Department wants to know what’s going on and whether it's meeting the obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity, to which Moldova is a signature. The State Department may use this information to determine if they want to fund certain projects here. Since Transnistria is a place like no other place, having its own currency, political system, and yet not recognized as a country by anyone, I’m going there incognito, as a tourist. No one is to know I work for the State Department. It's an odd place. The people there don't even have passports. To leave they must use another country’s passport, like Ukraine or Russia."

Moldovian Border Crossing

Changing Wheels

It’s four in the morning. Someone is tapping on my foot. The cabin light flicks on. For a moment I forget where I am. I was sound asleep. Groggy, I recognize the train’s steward. He says, “pass,” probably the only English word he knows. Okay, I need to get out my passport. The steward leaves and fifteen minutes later a Romanian border guard comes by and takes my passport. Then nothing for an hour, until the Romanian border guard comes back with my passport and the train starts to move, slowly, for just a few minutes, then stops. I had closed my cabin door, thinking we were through. There’s another knock on the door. A woman in street attire points at herself and says, “doctor.” Then points at me, “problem?” I shake my head and she moves on. Uniformed men are now patrolling the corridor. A Russian soldier, that’s what I suspect anyway from the Russian star on his cap, motions for me to give him my passport. He studies it very seriously, and says something in Russian. It seems he wants to know where I’m going. I show him the numerous visas in my passport. He says something in Russian. I think he’s asking me, how long am I staying in Moldova. I hold up two fingers. He proceeds to page through my passport several times, with a curious frown, looking for something, I don’t know what. Finally he runs my passport through his computer and hands it back to me. I say Spasiba. He nods with a smile and moves on. A moment later another uniformed official, from which country I'm not sure, asks me to open my bags. He looks the contents over, satisfied, moves on. The train starts up again, moving slowly, stops for a few minutes, then backs up, and stops. There’s a loud clang outside, lots of commotion. Workers are changing the wheels on the train. We are now on the Russian rail system, whose track gauge is different than that of the West, a system that Tsar Nicholas I in the 1840s mandated so that their enemies could not use Russia’s rail system to attack them.

After the interminable delay we finally head into Moldova. Due in part to the lengthy boarding crossing, the train from Bucharest to Chisinau takes over thirteen hours. The train is old and has zero amenities: no air conditioning, no electrical outlets, no diner car, and toilets that dump their refuge on the open tracks below. It’s not for your everyday traveler. From Marius I learned that Moldova was once part of Romania. They speak the same language and use the same currency. It turns out he wasn't correct with respect to the currency. So don't believe everything you hear. Now in theory, at least, Moldova is an independent country although the northern region, Transnistria, dominated by Russians, wants to break away and become a part of the Russia Federation. Curiously, I don’t need a visa here, but I do need one for Russia. Yet it’s the Russian officials that controlled the border, and the tracks are Russian. So is Moldova Russian, Romanian, or independent? I put this question to the two desk clerks at the hotel where I’m staying. One said Moldova is Russian the other said we’re European. I also ran into a bank examiner working for the U.S. Treasury Department and he told me most certainly Moldova will become a part of the European Union. But I’m not so certain. If I were to put money on it, I would bet in a few years, it will return to Russia — just a hunch. 

Bucharest, Romania

The most frequently asked question I get is: aren’t you lonely when you travel alone? My answer is that I’m always bumping into someone with whom I can have a conversation and that often makes me feel more alive than talking with people I’ve known all my life. Today was a good example. After tramping through much of Bucharest alone, I stopped to get some lunch. The tables were full, so I asked a young man if I might share his table. His name turned out to be Marius and five hours later, after he had given me an extensive tour of the city, disabused me of most of my original impressions of Bucharest, and shared with me his opinions on everything from the Orange Revolution to Count Dracula, we parted company, each assuring the other that we would stay in touch. Because of Marius’ difficulty with English, I won’t attempt to capture all that we talked about and that had convinced me of his rich knowledge of history, philosophy, politics, and culture; I’ll just report on a few of the things he said that now stand out in my mind.

Marius

Orange Revolution: The West doesn’t understand what’s going on here. The current president, Traian Băsescu, is very corrupt and has mismanaged the economy. He bought $2 billon worth of used F-16s that are now mostly worthless and sold out our navy as well. Next to the President of Moldova, Băsescu is the last Orange Revolution president remaining. In two weeks we will have a referendum and he will be voted out. 75% of the people want him out. We are not like Ukraine; we are a democracy and will remain a democracy regardless of who our president is. The West needs to know this.


On America: America is the model of democracy for the rest of the world, but Obama is not a strong leader. On paper, of course, he is, but he doesn’t project this power to the rest of the world. I like him and think that he’s very smart, smarter than Bush. In the end, I think the American people will choose well whether it’s Obama or not. This is how democracy works. But for me America is inaccessible. I tried to get an America visa once, but the American consulate here in Bucharest turned me down. I guess I need to know someone in America.


Personal Situation: I have a Bachelors degree in social work, but not a paying job as a social worker. I volunteer my time helping disabled children. To put food on the table, I own a small distributorship while my wife works as an English language translator. Together we make 1,000 Euro per month, hardly enough for a family of three to live on. Unfortunately, although we’re a part of the European Union, it’s impossible for us to get a job in another European country. They think we’re gypsies. I’m not, but that’s what they think, and they don’t like gypsies. Not all gypsies are bad, just as not all Romanians are good. I don’t understand why people don’t get that.