I read a book a long time ago by Tony Hawks called “Playing the Moldovans at Tennis”. A man who likes challenges goes to Moldova to persuade members of the country’s football team to play him at tennis and he ends up having a lot of adventures. When I read that book about nineteen years ago, I never imagined myself going there. So, when a friend suggests we go to Moldova for New Year, I’m not quite sure how to answer. What’s there? Where is it exactly? She assures me that it will be interesting but as there is not that much to do, especially in wintertime, we only need to go for a couple of days. As it’s a three-hour flight and the only budget airline going there at the time we want to go, seems to be Wizz Air flying from Luton, I agree as long as we can go for a bit longer. Partly due to the availability of flights, we decide on four nights, which will include New Year’s Eve. I research what we can do on that evening and come up with an event in the New York Restaurant and Bar, which promises food, drinks and a DJ Live Set. “Let’s welcome 2026 surrounded by good energy, beautiful moments and the people who matter most. Because some nights aren’t just celebrated- they’re remembered.” This is what they say on their Facebook page about the event! We will have to see whether that lives up to its promise. Then I have a look to see exactly where Moldova is. Ah, right next to Ukraine. Hmmmm. I do a bit more research and talk to the one person I know who has been to Moldova. He suggests we should also make a visit to Transnistria while we’re there. More of that later.
Moldova is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, formerly part of the Soviet Union. It is next to Romania on the west and bordered to the north, east and south by Ukraine. It is allegedly one of Europe’s poorest nations but is very well known for its wineries. The capital is Chișinău, which takes me a while to learn how to pronounce. It promises to be fairly cold and we only have hand luggage but I have a big coat and a furry hat so all will be fine. We arrive in Chișinău around 9 pm and my phone won’t work, even though I checked with EE that I will have data. This means I can’t organise a taxi so we get charged more than we should be by an airport taxi driver, even though we try to negotiate with a few others. It’s not too far to the hotel but it doesn’t look as if we are located near the city centre and it has started to snow. It is also about ten o’clock in the evening by now and we need to eat. Fortunately, there is one restaurant just opposite the hotel, which is actually very pleasant and offers a good range of food. We are quite excited to see the snow falling a little more heavily as we come out of the restaurant and we stop to take some photos. I manage to drop the hotel key from my pocket and find it covered with snow, after a bit of digging with my boot to unearth it.
It’s been a long day so we head to bed. The room is comfortable but a little chilly until my friend works out how to adjust the heating. In the morning, breakfast is served downstairs in an odd room with a variety of local artefacts for sale in glass cabinets, including hand-knitted socks, which might come in useful. There are some very gaudy framed pictures on display and a TV is mounted on the wall, blasting out hits from the eighties. There is very little in the way of bread but I have never seen so many dishes containing eggs, from plain hard-boiled ones to quiche, pancakes and extravagantly decorated cold eggs with flowers on top. There is also plenty of cake! I would usually be excited about cake for breakfast but this is all a bit overwhelming and I am not sure what to choose. I settle for a boiled egg and a small piece of bread, followed by cake.
I have phoned EE and we now have data so can use Google Maps on my phone. We have identified several must-see landmarks and head into the city, first locating the unremarkable Triumphal Arch and the nearby cathedral in the Stefan cel Mare Park. Everything is covered in a layer of snow from the night before and the park is decorated for Christmas with sparkly Christmas trees and lights all around, so it looks pretty. There are obviously preparations being made for New Year, as there is a large stage in the park and the vestiges of what looks to have been a Christmas Market. Maybe they plan to open it up again on New Year’s Eve.
We head into one of the main streets and locate the Tourist Information Bureau, where there is a helpful young lady who speaks perfect English. She discourages us from taking a “tour” to Transnistria, as she says it is expensive and we should just make our way there on the bus. Adventurous as we are by nature, we think this could be fun. We meander around and realise that there is not a lot to see in the main street, just countless currency exchange kiosks. A bit later, after a frustrating time trying to locate the bus station, which is hidden somewhere in the back of the market, we decide to take a bus to the Botanical Gardens. Traffic is heavy in the city and it takes a long time to get there. I can see nothing much through the filthy bus window. When we arrive, an old man on the gate lets us in for the price of a few leu and looks puzzled. It is not a popular place to visit in mid-winter and we only see a handful of other people and not many plants. It begins to get dark at around 4pm and we fear we may get locked in if the man on the gate goes home. We could freeze to death out here so we trudge back to the entrance and locate the bus back to the city. Another long bus journey in the traffic returns us to the main street, where it is another chilly half hour walk to the hotel. We decide that the restaurant next door is again the best bet for the evening. It is quite treacherous to walk, as the temperature drops when the sun goes down and the snow on the pavement ices over.
Before I go any further, I have to say something about the people here. An Estonian once told us something about the people in Estonia and it seems to resonate with what we are experiencing here in Moldova. He told us that people have the same expression on their faces, whether they are happy, sad or angry. I rarely see people smiling here either and they seem to have one expression. They appear dour. They push you out of the way and shout at you. I try smiling a lot and occasionally get a smile back. The younger residents of the city seem happier to help if we ask the way somewhere and they have a few words of English or resort to using Google Translate on their phones. There is one particularly helpful girl at the bus stop, who goes out of her way to get us on the right bus to the Botanical Gardens. I think that smiling at strangers just isn’t part of their social code and maybe they are just cautious about outsiders. Or perhaps it is just due to what they have endured generally. All in all, it doesn’t add up to a great experience in the country. It makes me feel on edge. Sorry, Moldova.
We make plans the next day to visit Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. For those who have never heard of it, Transnistria is a region between Moldova and Ukraine that declared independence in the early 1990s, although that fact isn’t internationally recognised. It is described as a “Soviet enclave.” The majority of people speak Russian. I find some information online ready for our exploration of the city, which says: “It is definitely worth it to stay the night and take the time to slowly wander around.” I locate pictures of Soviet architecture, a “Memorial of Glory” and the Christmas Cathedral, which seem to be the main landmarks. It is suggested that you should walk into the “eerily quiet neighbourhoods to look at the Soviet flats and abandoned factories.” It also mentions that you are likely to be the only tourist around. There is a Russian army base but the words on my information page entreat you to “be aware that it is not a good idea to make pictures of the Russian army base.” Given that the warning on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which I didn’t read until afterwards, advises against all travel to Transnistria, I am not sure why we are going but it will give us something to do for the day.
So off we go on our adventure. We struggle again to find the bus station but eventually locate it and manage to get tickets, despite a very rude man pushing between us with a large wad of notes and insisting on being served first. I suggest we just get a single ticket as the helpful girl in the Tourist Information Bureau suggested we should go on from Tiraspol to a place called Bender, which is twenty minutes from Tiraspol and has a fortress. She has assured us that we can easily get a number 19 bus to take us there. It is tricky to find the correct minibus to Tiraspol, but we eventually manage it and climb aboard. Luckily, we get a seat. As the bus moves out of the city, more people get on and have to stand. We were told it would take about an hour and a half to get to Tiraspol but it takes longer than that. At the border we get out and go into a ramshackle building to show our passports and are given a small piece of paper as we are only day visitors. Again, no smiling here but then that is common at border controls anywhere in the world.
I peer out of the window as we reach the outskirts of the city and it looks a bit bleak. Eventually we arrive at what we assume to be the bus station. We can’t see many buses and as I consult my phone to look at Google Maps, I find it isn’t working, probably because this area is not covered by my EE plan. That means we are not going to find it easy to navigate our way around the city. I had ascertained that the Tourist Information Centre was temporarily closed, maybe because it is the depths of winter and there are no tourists. It is early afternoon by now. As most bus stations tend to be, it is not near the centre of the city. We walk aimlessly around in the cold, trying to find our way to the centre and eventually decide we could do with a coffee. We see a small coffee shop and go inside. The menu is in Russian but we can work out what we want and point. However, the woman behind the counter shakes her head and speaks to us in Russian. It seems that she only takes cash. We don’t have any of their currency and she can’t take a credit card so we are unable to buy anything. She points across the road to a supermarket. We think maybe we can get some food in there at least but no luck, we can’t use a card here either. I spot a cashpoint and try to use it but the man standing next to it shouts “No!” at me loudly several times. We suddenly see that there is a currency exchange desk in the corner. Luckily my friend has a few leu in her purse. She exchanges some notes and we go back into the café and buy a hot drink and a croissant to share. We don’t have much idea how much money we have but think we need to be frugal. We are now beginning to wonder whether we will have enough for a bus ticket back to Chișinău. Worse still, what if we can’t find the bus? Are there hotels which may take our cards? It doesn’t look like it. Are there even any hotels?
We feel miserable and cold but decide to attempt to find the landmarks. We find the Christmas Cathedral and move on to a park where the memorial is located but we fail to find it. We need to try to find our way back to the bus station and it is going to get dark soon. It takes a while but we find it and manage to buy two tickets back to Chișinău. Then we can’t locate the bus because there are no numbers and the destination signs at the front of the bus are in Russian. I show the ticket to someone and she virtually pushes me onto a minibus, as the driver is beginning to drive off. My friend, who has been looking on the front of the other buses to find the right one, hears me shout and just manages to jump on and moves to the back where there is a seat. I am squashed in next to two large people near the front. A few more people get on before we reach the border and a young Ukrainian man tries to talk to me. Firstly, he tries German, then a little French and then he types into Google Translate. It seems he has had an accident and tells me that his leg is hurting. He urges me to feel his leg with my hand. I do but am not sure what I am looking for. I think maybe he is in pain and needs to sit down, so I offer him my seat. At first, he refuses and then agrees, thanking me profusely. He attempts to continue the conversation and tells me that he is trying to get his girlfriend into the country and needs some money. I tell him that unfortunately I have no currency of any description, which is in fact true. We reach the border, where this time we don’t get out, but we give up our passports to a stern looking man in a furry coat who disappears. We wait for about ten minutes and the door to the bus is open. Snow is swirling around outside and it is freezing cold. A few people get out to stand outside. I feel a bit anxious and then all the passports are returned to me for distribution, as I am nearest to the door. A bit further on, the Ukrainian leaves the bus and doesn’t come back. Where did he go? Eventually we crawl through traffic back into the city. This hasn’t been the best day out but we head back to our hotel and decide on the way to eat in Il Forno, an Italian chain restaurant. We reflect on the day and how to spend the next day as we seem to have seen most of the landmarks in the city already.
The next day after breakfast, my friend studies the map we have been given in the Tourist Information Bureau. It turns out later that it is not very accurate. I have given up trying to look at it as the text is too small for me to decipher. We realise that our hotel is near to The Cascades Staircase so we head there first. This is located in a park with a lake nearby and was built in the 1950s as a pleasant place to stroll in the city. After the collapse of the USSR, the staircase fell into disrepair but was reconstructed in 2016. It is a beautiful staircase and looks pretty in the snow. We then walk by the lake to look for a statue my friend has seen on the map. We search for a while and then locate the place where the statue must once have been but it is no longer there. My friend curses the stupid map. There are places to have coffee, which are just kiosks with no indoor seating and no outdoor heating. We decide to walk into the city to find the Statue of Lovers. We find the statues but they are a bit underwhelming but it was something to do at least. My friend wants to look for another landmark, which she believes is a statue and we seem to walk miles in the cold before finding the Komsomol monument. This is a Soviet memorial dedicated to young members of the Leninist Communist Union of Youth, who were celebrated as patriotic heroes during the Soviet period. It is a bronze statue of a young woman holding a torch aloft which symbolises victory and youthful courage. My friend wants to walk further in search of something else she can see on the map and there isn’t much else to do so we set off. To get there at one point we have to scramble down onto a dual carriageway, underneath a bridge and back up again. A bit further on we realise this had been unnecessary and there is an underpass underneath the busy road. We approach the landmark and wonder what it is. It turns out to be the Chișinău State Circus building. It looks a bit like a UFO and doesn’t look as if it has been used recently as a venue. I look it up later and discover it was built in 1981 and was one of the USSR’s most impressive circus venues, The concrete steps in front of it are broken and it looks in a state of disrepair although there is a Christmas poster attached the side advertising who knows what? We are both a bit fed up and cold by now so we retrace our steps. We walk past a monument dedicated to the victims of the Jewish ghetto. The memorial marks the site of the main entrance to the ghetto, where over 11,000 Jewish men, women and children were imprisoned after the city was occupied by German and Rumanian troops in 1941. It makes sombre reading.
We have seen enough for the day and make the long walk back to the other side of the city to where our hotel is located. We get ready for the evening’s entertainment to welcome in the New Year and have booked a cab to take us there. Our spirits rise a little as the bar and restaurant look inviting and we are welcomed into the event effusively by the staff and shown to the table which is ours for the evening. We can eat and drink more or less what we like and we are told there will be some Latin American dancing for our entertainment and then a DJ later. There will be sparklers and champagne at midnight.
We look around at our fellow revellers. There is a man who stands alone for most of the night in the bar. Maybe he is just staying at the hotel. There is a big table of young people, most of whom are glued to their phones all night. We watch a middle -aged couple and their teenage daughter celebrating together and actually talking to each other. The mum is wearing sparkly clothes and is smiling! Mum and daughter do a lot of dancing later and eventually persuade Dad onto the dance floor. We smile and clap and give them the thumbs up. Such is the universal language of communication. An old man who looks extremely ill and has his arm in a sling is escorted to his table near to us. About ten minutes later, he is joined by a woman, heavily made up, with sleek jet-black hair and a short skirt. They seem oddly matched and then we realise that she is probably an escort. She ignores the man and spends time looking at her phone. They disappear together for about fifty minutes and then he reappears alone and sits at his table for a while longer before leaving.
The dancing is about to begin and two couples, the women extremely toned and scantily-clad and the men in tight black trousers and black sparkly tops, slashed to their waists, appear on the dance floor. They are amazing to watch.
When they have finished, the dance is a free for all and we join the locals in some energetic dancing. The DJ plays “Low” by Flo Rida, and we discover we can squat right down to the floor and up again with the best of them, hip-hop style. My friend tells me we are slut dropping, which I assure you is a dance move. Midnight arrives and we don’t actually kiss anyone but there is some back slapping and maybe a hug. We see the fireworks in the square on the TV and sparklers are lit. After a bit more dancing, it’s time to try to get a cab. Halfway back to the hotel, I think I have left my phone behind and insist that the driver stops. He is very unhappy but after much rummaging in my bag, I find it. Who would have thought that this New Year I would be strutting my dance moves in Moldova? Last year it was on a beach in the Gili Islands. Where next year I wonder?
New Year’s Day dawns bright and clear and we are required to check out of our hotel. Our flight is not until the evening. How to fill the day? We find our way to The Alexander Pushkin House-Museum, which claims to be open every day but when we get there is closed. In fact, we realise that all museums will be closed on New Year’s Day, as it seems, are coffee shops and restaurants. Trying to keep warm we find ourselves in the only place which appears to be open. McDonald’s. We spend an hour using their Wi-Fi and I eat a disgusting burger and cold chips. Needs must. There is nothing else on offer. We head to the airport to while away a few hours as at least it is warm there. Will we return to Moldova? Probably not. Happy New Year!
