Hangovers in Hungary, trains across Ukraine, and trotting through Transnistria

Joined
Jan 20, 2019
Posts
98
Virgin
Gold
This is a trip I took in mid- to late-Jan. Hadn’t originally wanted to write a report since I was a little frustrated that many parts of the trip had not gone to plan – like going to the trouble of obtaining a Donetsk entry pass only to forget to check the expiry, or missing the train wheel change at the Moldovan-Romanian border because of the Transnistrian entry stamp issue – but since we’re mostly all stuck at home it’d be nice to revisit my memories and hopefully you learn something from it, too.

The route:
MEL-AUH-ATH-VIE
Bus to Budapest, trains to Eger, Miskolc, Tokaj, Nyiregyhaza
Trains to Lviv, Kiev, Mariupol, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa
Train to Tiraspol, bus to Chisinau
Train to Bucharest, then OTP-ATH-AUH-MEL

I’ll try to provide some tips/recommendations along the way, but please feel free to ask about anything else. Tried my best with the photos as well, but my phone’s ageing and a lot of the time I just plain forgot to take pictures.
 
Hungary pt 1

Transport options:
There are some regional buses but your main go-to for intercity travel would likely be the train system, MÁV. Tickets can be booked online, but only ones that have special offers. You will receive a code that you use to print off the actual ticket at a vending machine at some train stations. For tickets that don’t have special offers (usually for travel between smaller cities, like my Tokaj-Nyíregyháza -Záhony legs) you’ll have to buy at the station office. The clerks don’t speak English.

Language: Most people in the tourism industry speak English. In many shops, restaurants, services, however, they don’t, and in general compared to the rest of the EU, Hungary has a lower proportion of natives who can speak foreign languages, so rudimentary Hungarian might be helpful. Though it has a reputation as a devilishly hard language due to its affix system and lack of relation to other languages, I found it easier than expected to get by. It seemed to me that most Hungarians clearly enunciated their speech, and the fact that the stress is always on the first syllable gives it a pleasant, rhythmic quality. As long as you memorise some set phrases and their pronunciation and speak clearly, you should be understood. And if you speak a Slavic or Turkic language, there are some interesting and potentially useful loanwords and similarities.

Currency: In the past year or two the banknotes have changed and older banknotes are no longer accepted by vendors. I got caught out by this trying to spend some old 500 forint notes the exchange bureau in Vienna gave me. So it might be best to double-check your notes or exchange in Hungary.



Ukraine was actually meant to be the main destination for this trip, but I wanted to drop by Hungary to visit a friend and thought it’d be nice to travel eastward to Ukraine by land.

I took Flixbus from Vienna to Budapest. The bus was mostly empty; the passengers were all Hungarian as was the bus driver (I’d imagine it’d be easier to find a Hungarian bus driver who could speak German than an Austrian one who could speak Hungarian…).

As I’d arrived at night there wasn’t much to do except hit the bars with my friend. We went to Red Ruin, the famed communist-themed bar, first. They have a variety of drinks, including pálinka, unicum, and local Hungarian beers. Some have called it a bit kitschy and tourist-oriented, but there are references to history and culture that you’ll need a native to interpret for you.

For example, on one of the walls:
93870661_223558518909797_5297386777118507008_n.jpg
The text translates to “Not a bit, but much.” It’s from the 2006 speech then-PM Ference Gyurcsány delivered to the Hungarian Socialist Party, acknowledging the lack of productivity (to put it mildly) and abundance of lies the party had lived off the preceding several years. The full quote is: “There aren't many choices. That is because we have f--- it up. Not just a bit, but much.” When the speech was leaked it caused a wave of protests, the first major protests since 1989, and contributed to a rise in the popularity of Viktor Orbán’s party and to his election in 2010.

A few bars and hours later we ended up stumbling across Liberty Bridge as I walked her back to her student accommodation. (Right now those buildings are being used to quarantine Covid patients and house healthcare workers.) In the daytime it’s hard to squeeze past all the tourists on the bridge, but it’s truly lovely at night, especially with fog accentuating the shadows of the towers and girders and the lights on the Danube. I’d highly recommend for a late-night stroll.


93803055_519696375586154_9034194305312358400_n.jpg
The radio station that played a key role in the 1956 revolution. The initial student demonstrations had ended up here, where they intended to broadcast their message to the rest of the country. The ÁVH (secret police) had fired upon the building.


93375883_559279481387076_3885395731434962944_n.jpg
Matthias Church in the Castle District of Pest. This was where Franz Josef was coronated. As with a lot of buildings in this district, it suffered damage during the city’s tumultuous history and has been renovated. It’s possible to see the reconstruction works going on in other parts of the district.

The church is named after King Matthias (reined 1458-90), one of the most popular kings in Hungarian history. Although he frequently waged war and consequently taxed the people highly, he was called ‘Matthias the Just’ and was something of a Robin Hood to the people. He was also strongly influenced by the Italian Renaissance and brought it to his country. He established educational institutes and supported the development of the arts. Hungary prospered under his rule and became a key Renaissance centre of Europe; there was a saying during his reign that went, “Szerte Európának három a kincse: Velence a vízen, Firenze a síkon, Buda a hegyen.” I can’t find an official English translation, but it’s more or less: “Across Europe there are three treasures: Venice on the water, Florence on the plains, Buda in the hills.”

Hungary’s prestige and power declined after Matthias’s death. Then a few decades later, in 1526, there occurred the Battle of Mohács which, along with Trianon, is one of the darkest ‘traumas’ in Hungarian history. At Mohács the country fell under Ottoman control and never fully regained independence until after WWI. (The establishment of the dual monarchy in 1867 did give them some sovereignty, but they were still tethered to Austria.)

82604526_202268837573627_6852135088247799808_n.jpg
Obligatory parliament picture. It was foggy the whole time I was there, which did rather accentuate the Gothic tone of the city's architecture.

Budapest can be seen as a very touristy city, but by spending time in the museums and with Hungarians, and by just walking the streets and noticing the emblems and history embedded everywhere, you can get a sense of a fierce Magyar pride and individuality.

Sadly, I was not able to spend much time there. After another night of drinks and waking up feeling a bit crook, I crammed in a parliament tour and then went to Keleti station.

83069263_549195852342056_4481464396719063040_n.jpg
Keleti ('east', rather imaginatively) station. The four statues here represent mining, industry, agriculture, and trade. In 2015 it was the centrepiece of Hungary’s migrant crisis, where a few thousand migrants were barred from boarding trains and heading further into the EU.


Eger

The main attractions in Eger are the castle and the wines. The castle was closed when I visited, but it was still possible to go up the rampart walkway and get a good view of the town, including of the Eger minaret, which according to Wikipedia is the northernmost remaining minaret from Ottoman occupation in Europe. No photos because it was too foggy.

The town centre is a very small and compact area with several wine bars and restaurants. The prices at the wine bar I went to were excellent and so was the quality, I felt, though I can’t provide more information on what the wines were. One can also go to the supermarket and peruse the aisles of wine.

Although also a major tourist destination, there were understandably fewer English-speakers than Budapest. Interestingly enough, even though I’m visibly not ethnic Hungarian I noticed that people seemed to accept my presence. My interlocutors never so much as flinched as I assaulted their ears with my Hungarian, and strangers even asked me the time. Sadly, they seemed to treat their own Roma residents with more suspicion.

The day ended with several delicious glasses of wine (for energy, you see – the next day was going to be very busy).
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I saw your TR @RooFlyer and remember thinking I was lucky to have been able to go to Transnistria in January since it's truly a fascinating place and it's a bit unfortunate to have an anticipated trip like that postponed. Hopefully all is open and well next year!

I didn't take a tour since I was on tight time and monetary budgets, but I feel like it's a multi-layered place that would definitely need some tours, time, and interactions with locals to understand. I don't know what your planned itinerary is but hopefully you'll have some opportunities to just wander/drive around and soak in their culture and way of life.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I saw your TR @RooFlyer and remember thinking I was lucky to have been able to go to Transnistria in January since it's truly a fascinating place and it's a bit unfortunate to have an anticipated trip like that postponed. Hopefully all is open and well next year!

I didn't take a tour since I was on tight time and monetary budgets, but I feel like it's a multi-layered place that would definitely need some tours, time, and interactions with locals to understand. I don't know what your planned itinerary is but hopefully you'll have some opportunities to just wander/drive around and soak in their culture and way of life.

Moldova and the weirdness of Transnistria is one of my favourite places I've visited. Thankful I snuck in a second visit to both last October for the annual wine festival after first visiting in 2015.

If anyone loves wine and cognac it's a special place. I was surprised to see how quickly Transnistria has changed in 4 years - I spent some time at a brand new burger and beer bar that was run by entrepreneurial locals very excited to have us in town. New apartments and development in the main drag much more money and modernisation from my first visit where it was stuck in the 60s. The highlight is purchasing Kvint cognac at ridiculously low prices (then it costs in Moldova and abroad). Absolutely love that stuff it's amazing!

Aside from that the dining scene in Chisinau had also improved dramatically with Gastrobar and restaurant jeraffe being the highlight. Oh and did I mention the wines?

Hope this all ends soon Rooflyer so you can get over and enjoy this wonderful part of the world!
 
Australia's highest-earning Velocity Frequent Flyer credit card: Offer expires: 21 Jan 2025
- Earn 60,000 bonus Velocity Points
- Get unlimited Virgin Australia Lounge access
- Enjoy a complimentary return Virgin Australia domestic flight each year

AFF Supporters can remove this and all advertisements

Do you have a TR for that trip, @Dudditz?

Sometimes I feel like I was born too late and now that I can finally travel, a lot of the more interesting atmospheres and remnants of the 20th C are gone. That's one of the reasons I wanted to see Transnistria, before the 'last Soviet outpost' changed further. Of course some things are better left in the past and I don't mean to glorify them, but there is something surreal and powerful in seeing reminders of the past in urban landscapes.

Someone I met in Tiraspol remarked that the Transnistrian president was trying to hang on to Soviet sentimentality whilst trying to modernise/capitalism-ise the region to bring in tourists and business and enrich himself and other oligarchs. Not sure about the veracity of his statements, though - he seemed just a tad vehement.

I saw that burger place actually - must give it a try next time! I often forgot to eat during this trip so can't add any insight into Tiraspol's food scene. But agree 100% on the alcohol.

It was in a bathroom stall at OTP, ready to return home, surrounded by half a dozen half-finished bottles of Transnistrian brandy and Ukrainian horilka, that I started to deeply regret taking only a backpack with me. I drank as much as I dared and poured the rest down ☹

93683503_2701401159983000_6461488094481743872_n.jpg
This is one of the bottles. The brand is called 'White Stork' and it's the Moldovan national cognac brand, although since it can't be called cognac they give it the name 'divin' (just as Armenian cognac is called armenyak, Georgian is gruzinyak etc.). The white stork is a reference to a legend of the Moldavian-Turkish wars where the besieged and starving Moldavian warriors were rescued by white storks with grapes in their beaks. Now it's a symbol of Moldova and of Moldovan wine-making and alcohol heritage.

White Stork cognac was first produced in 1978. Prior to then, the different Soviet republics, especially the southern ones, had been producing many different brands, but the cognac was all rather homogeneous/undifferentiated and the republics relied on skulduggery to have their brands grace the dining tables of the Soviet leaders. After Moldova complained about this, the Soviet ministry of agriculture and food told the republics to create a cognac that would be their specialty/national brand. Moldvinprom came up with White Stork. Its Transnistrian production today is effected by Kvint.
 
Do you have a TR for that trip, @Dudditz?

Sometimes I feel like I was born too late and now that I can finally travel, a lot of the more interesting atmospheres and remnants of the 20th C are gone. That's one of the reasons I wanted to see Transnistria, before the 'last Soviet outpost' changed further. Of course some things are better left in the past and I don't mean to glorify them, but there is something surreal and powerful in seeing reminders of the past in urban landscapes.

Someone I met in Tiraspol remarked that the Transnistrian president was trying to hang on to Soviet sentimentality whilst trying to modernise/capitalism-ise the region to bring in tourists and business and enrich himself and other oligarchs. Not sure about the veracity of his statements, though - he seemed just a tad vehement.

I saw that burger place actually - must give it a try next time! I often forgot to eat during this trip so can't add any insight into Tiraspol's food scene. But agree 100% on the alcohol.

It was in a bathroom stall at OTP, ready to return home, surrounded by half a dozen half-finished bottles of Transnistrian brandy and Ukrainian horilka, that I started to deeply regret taking only a backpack with me. I drank as much as I dared and poured the rest down ☹

View attachment 215549
This is one of the bottles. The brand is called 'White Stork' and it's the Moldovan national cognac brand, although since it can't be called cognac they give it the name 'divin' (just as Armenian cognac is called armenyak, Georgian is gruzinyak etc.). The white stork is a reference to a legend of the Moldavian-Turkish wars where the besieged and starving Moldavian warriors were rescued by white storks with grapes in their beaks. Now it's a symbol of Moldova and of Moldovan wine-making and alcohol heritage.

White Stork cognac was first produced in 1978. Prior to then, the different Soviet republics, especially the southern ones, had been producing many different brands, but the cognac was all rather homogeneous/undifferentiated and the republics relied on skulduggery to have their brands grace the dining tables of the Soviet leaders. After Moldova complained about this, the Soviet ministry of agriculture and food told the republics to create a cognac that would be their specialty/national brand. Moldvinprom came up with White Stork. Its Transnistrian production today is effected by Kvint.

Sadly for both trips I never did a TR however I do have some photos. The centre of town to me had changed the most and it was where the most construction and money seemed to be on show (except for the Sheriff stores, stadium and other enterprises). That said if you wander some of the outskirts of town I can confidently say you will see some very archaic open markets, housing and faces adorned with the classic stoic Soviet look.

I would normally not indulge in burgers however, the memories of a bland meal on my first trip led me to punt on it. The reward was meeting some lovely young locals who told me of their wishes to bring something cool to Transnistria. Apart from the odd trip across the border or to Russia for University or work they felt quite limited in culture being Transnistrian. Regardless it's a must visit place and indeed something unique in a world that is becoming ever so more homogeneous.

Thank you for telling me about white stork and some cognac history. I'm quite a fan of Kvint and also Calarasi especially the higher end varieties. They are incredibly complex and push the envelope with rancidity which is a great contrast to the softer elegant french types.
 
Hungary pt 2

Miskolc


A short train ride away from Eger is Miskolc, a city that lies at the foot of the Bükk Mountains. I’ve heard that those mountains, which are some of the highest in Hungary, are great for skiing and hiking, and they’re quite accessible from the Miskolc town centre. If you ever come this way, consider getting a Miskolc tourist card as it covers public transport and all kinds of activities.

IMG_20200119_091018.jpg

There's a cave bath here that's been used since the 17th C by the Turks when they occupied Hungary, though I wasn't able to go because it's closed during January. I did take a tour of another cave though, St Stephen’s, which was used in WWII as a shelter and whose acoustics are so good a concert was even performed there once.

The Diosgyőr Castle is also worth a visit, as it used to be a base for Hungarian kings before Budapest. After the kings started relocating to the capital, the Diosgyőr Castle was given to the queens as wedding gifts, hence the moniker ‘Castle of Queens’.

IMG_20200119_123150.jpg

IMG_20200119_115343.jpg
The view from the castle. Those Soviet-style 10-storey apartment buildings make up the Avas microdistrict and is Hungary's most well-known block of such buildings. One-third of the city's population lives there, but it has poorer living conditions and higher crime rate than the rest of the city.

This city is also where the Miskolc Pogrom took place. In 1945-6 a famine swept through the country and people had to trade on the black market for wheat. A lot of the black marketeers were Jewish. The general secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party gave a speech in Miskolc saying that “whoever wants to undermine the economic base of our democracy has to be hanged”. The slogan ‘death to the black marketeers’ arose from this, and local communist ‘Forint-defender committees’ were established. A mob of workers at the Diosgyőr forge, the most important factory in Miskolc at that time, marched from the forge to the town centre market square, and one Jewish resident was killed and another beaten, an event that still bears significance for Hungarian Jews. The forge is open to visitors.


Tokaj

One of the key wine-producing regions of the country, the train trip to Tokaj delights the traveller with some truly gorgeous views of rolling hills and vineyards. The dusting of snow when I visited added to the effect.

83184013_125120185343836_6828534827071832064_n.jpg

IMG_20200119_144916.jpg
The town itself is cosy, bucolic, colourful, accessible for tourists yet unapologetically Hungarian. One can see the whole town and the main historical and natural attractions with a 1-2 hr stroll, and then settle into one of the numerous wine establishments and sample the variety the region has to offer, foremost of which is aszú, "king of wines and wine of kings".

IMG_20200119_150431.jpg

My photography does not do the town justice. It would make for a comfortable, contemplative one-day trip, but I had to move on to make it to the border by evening.



Nyíregyháza and onwards to Ukraine

Nyíregyháza is surprisingly modern-looking for Hungary’s 9th-largest city. There really wasn’t much to the place, except for the 30 ha zoo which would take at least one whole day to visit. Its identity seems to, at least from my brief surface impression, revolve around its zoo and status as a transit destination for both domestic and international journeys (to Slovakia, Ukraine, and Russia). The train station is large and bright, and the tunnels to the platforms are painted with pictures of animals.

To get from Nyíregyháza to Ukraine involves a ticket to Záhony and then another one to Csap (the Ukrainian border town Chop). It is not possible to buy one directly from Budapest or any other city to Chop as there needs to be a stop in Záhony to get on a different train. The border police check passports prior to boarding the Záhony train. Then it is about a 20 minute slow trundle to Chop.

I find borders, and the ethnic and cultural borders that underlie physical ones, fascinating. It was interesting to note that whilst Záhony station had signs and information in Ukrainian, Chop station made no acknowledgement of Hungarian. Maybe that suggests there are more Ukrainians travelling to Hungary than the other way round, though my friend said they sometimes go to Ukraine to smuggle back cheap petrol.

As for the descendants of the Hungarians who found themselves in Ukraine post-Trianon, they still have a very strong sense of Hungarian self-identity, with many of them in the past few years having taken up Hungarian passports issued by the Orbán government, against Ukrainian law, setting off tensions between the two countries. A Ukrainian development worker I met in Lviv a few days later told me she had once had an assignment in a town near the border, but when she had tried to check into the inn, she was told she was an hour early, as the town ran on Budapest time, not Kiev time. Oh, and by the way, those new passports have been used to vote predominantly for Orbán. Now, that's next level gerrymandering.


In summary: Hungary was meant to be more of a prologue to my trip, with Ukraine the main section and Moldova the epilogue. But the uniqueness of their culture, the depth of their history, the politeness of the people wormed their way into my heart. Looking back, it was the prologue and the epilogue that were the highlights of the trip.

Side-note on the wines: Although Bull's Blood and Tokaj's sweet wines are the most well-known types of Hungarian wine that we hear of, some Hungarians will also tell you that Californian zinfandel is Hungarian, too, as the grapes were brought over by immigrant from Pest who basically pioneered California's wine industry. All three are available at Dan Murphy's, and they're going to have to tide me through until I can go back.
 
Ukraine pt 1

Transport options:
There is an extensive rail network (with an easy-to-use booking site) and between that and minibuses (marshrutkas) it’s possible to get pretty much anywhere worth visiting as a tourist. Overnight rail has the added benefit of sometimes being cheaper than accommodation, so it’s a real 2-for-1 deal. Domestic air travel is much less developed, with really only two airlines providing domestic flights, Ukraine International and the low-coster SkyUp.

Language: From what I’ve heard and my general impression, in western cities like Lviv it is better to assume that someone speaks English than to assume they would be willing to speak Russian. Outside of Lviv or Kiev, I would recommend knowing a few Russian phrases as there aren’t many English speakers.

I briefly studied Slavic languages in uni and know a bit of both, though my Russian is a lot better. I had a mixed bag of experiences. In Lviv a few people reacted hostilely when I accidentally spoke Russian, though there were others who noticed that I kept dropping Russian words into my Ukrainian and readily switched languages for me. In Kiev speakers of one will talk to speakers of the other without batting an eyelid. As I headed south-east, a large majority seemed to speak Russian (or mild Surzhyk, a mix of the two); my Ukrainian was understood but was met with amusement.

Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that speaking Russian as a first/preferred language does not necessarily make a person less Ukrainian. Although there are certainly some who look back to the Soviet times and some who have very positive views on Russia, I have met equally many Russian-speakers who are fiercely Ukrainian.

Currency: UkrSibbank is part of the Global ATM Alliance and being a major bank, their ATMs can be found decently frequently.

Dining: For quick, affordable, and authentic Ukrainian cuisine try Puzata Khata (Пузата Хата). It’s a chain that can be found in all major cities. They’re like an upmarket Soviet canteen with an attached café. The vareniki and syrniki are must-trys. If you have the time to learn Ukrainian Cyrillic, it might be more appropriate than pointing, especially at peak times. In the west (e.g. Lviv, Chernivtsi), you can also find restaurants with Carpathian cuisine as there are several sub-ethnic groups in the mountains with their own culture and cuisine.

A phrase that’s not generally in guidebooks but is used by everyone when ordering food and purchasing other smaller items is: “mozhna + bood laska + the item”, можна, будь ласка – lit. [is it] possible, please. In Russian-speaking areas, use the Russian word for please. In Slavic languages in general the word might/possible seems to have a broader scope than in English. "Are photos allowed?" for example, is always asked as "mozhna fotografirovat'?", lit. "possible to photograph?"

If you drop by a grocery store, try a Roshen chocolate bar. The brand name comes from the name of the company’s founder, Petro Poroshenko, who was also the 2014-19 president.


Lviv

Lviv is a culturally vibrant kind of place, quaint and with historical charm. Having been part of Poland, there remains a strong architectural and literary influence, and Polish cultural societies are active in restoring landmarks. The Old Town is simply gorgeous; you could get lost, go in circles, walk down the same streets several times and still find something new. The mostly classical architecture also provided some relief from Hungary’s castles and Gothicness.

82777557_1062992070744279_3056586666736091136_n.jpg
The Armenian Church. There is a cluster of buildings in a similar style. It felt a little monastic there.
I don't think I even noticed the person and his grocery bags, but now I find it amusing. Not much of a photographer - I keep notebooks and memories.

83158333_496172447975549_1374934037788884992_n.jpg
A street with an identity crisis

82838894_2330142497287175_4673176871930691584_n.jpg
The assembly belt at Lvivarnya, a fascinating museum where you can learn about the history of beer production in general, as well as the history of Lvivske beer. Give the beer a whirl, too – I had some hostelmates who were under the impression that Ukrainian beer was subpar but they enjoyed the Lvivske very much.

83850509_176524647057797_1205981650840715264_n (1).jpg
The House of Scientists, which looks too affluent for any real scientist to have lived in. The security guard-cough-cashier, who was a really friendly bloke, laughed when I asked him about the name and said he didn’t even know why it was called that.
There’s a virtual tour on its website but I think one really should go there for a half-hour or so, it’s magnificent. The architects also designed other buildings in Eastern Europe, like the opera houses of Cluj-Napoaca and Bratislava, if memory serves.

I met up with a Ukrainian friend of mine, and she said the feel of the city, with its history, architecture, and cafes (the person who introduced coffee to Europe was a soldier from Lviv who’d been captured by the Ottomans and escaped, returning to his army and using his knowledge to help them defeat the Turks. As a reward he asked to take 10 kg of Turkish coffee) is similar to Vienna’s, except it’s impossible to ride a bike due to the narrow streets, slippery cobblestones, and hilly terrain (and “the men are more charming in Vienna”).

I wish I had some more photos, but in an overzealous space-freeing endeavour I accidentally deleted a whole batch of photos that hadn’t been backed up and Lviv and Kiev were the biggest victims.

If I had to describe Lviv in a few words it would be “the city of poetry”. In the Old Town many walls are painted with lines of poetry, most notably ones by Lesya Ukrainka. She is one of the most respected and beloved of Ukrainian poets, along with Taras Shevchenko (the national poet) and Ivan Franko. One of the aspects of Eastern European countries and republics that appeals to me is that they have national writers/poets, and it’s fascinating and moving to see how much these writers mean to the people of that country. Lesya Ukrainka wrote often and eloquently about Ukrainian freedom and was strongly against Russian imperialism.

A lot of prominent Ukrainian writers are from the Carpathian region – like Ivan Franko, who was from the nearby city of Ivano-Frankivsk, and actually the university that bears his name had refused to give him a teaching position during his lifetime because of his political views; Lesya Ukrainka, who was from a region near Lviv; Dmytro Pavlychko, Bohdan Antonych – and it has often been a political and artistic centre for patriotic ideologies. Perhaps it says something about the strongly-Ukrainian, independent-minded Lviv that while I was at Lychakiv cemetery, the burial place for the city’s pre-eminent figures, a fellow visitor, a Ukrainian at that, approached me and asked in a low, reverent voice, “Do you know where Lesya Ukrainka’s plot is?”

I did not and he went off to search the next block of the cemetery. I looked it up later. She’s buried in Kiev.

83205214_2073305009481471_627576017086578688_n.jpg
Ivan Franko is definitely at Lychakiv, though.


Kiev

I was pretty pumped to finally see Kiev – after Moscow and Novgorod last year I’d finally made the ancient Rus trifecta, and Kiev didn’t disappoint.

84811541_487683438613931_6000558350373224448_n.jpg
St Sophia's Cathedral, the foremost church of the Kievan Rus and for a while surpassed even the Byzantine churches, and that was where Prince Vladimir had gotten inspiration from when he chose to convert the Rus to Orthodoxy.

83197194_617573975703106_3978986625047724032_n.jpg
The view from the separate bell tower of St Sophia’s complex.

83712082_639477040156198_938687672593940480_n.jpg
St Andrew's church, overlooking the Andriyivskiy descent, a steep hill with lots of street vendors and interesting buildings.

But in all that ancient history there’s still the sense that there’s been some turbulent recent history. Key locations of the 2014 Euromaidan are commemorated by conspicuous signage with detailed information on what took place. Somewhere downtown there’s also a large sign that shows the number of deaths in the last few months in the Donbass conflict, and commemorative wreaths and ribbons can be seen on sidewalks and monuments. There are NATO and EU flags around. I visited on Jan 22, Ukraine’s Day of Unity, and there was a small procession of people who carried red-and-blue ribbons and were chanting something. So, yes, lots of ancient history but it’s also a city that’s acutely aware of its recent change and the ongoing uncertainty and struggle for Ukraine’s future.

82026888_227589568256883_3430515006381228032_n.jpg
The board that counts the casualties from the Donbass conflict.

83246033_180421786374581_1952376263133888512_n.jpg
The victory column on Independence Square. It was, understandably, one of the key landmarks of the Maidan.

Nearby is a recently-opened museum on the Maidan, and also a street called something like Alley of the Heavenly Hundred. Keep a look out for other references to the 'heavenly hundred' or hundred in general - the former refers to the 130-something people who died during the protests, and the latter refers to the structure of the protests. People gathered in 'platoons' of 100 as that was how the Zaporizhzian Cossacks fought.

That's the 10 photo limit reached. More to come on Kiev.
 
Ukraine pt 2

83051515_165655264722645_1188742511108030464_n.jpg
This memorial was not far from Independence Square. It's dedicated to Sergey Nigoyan, a student from Armenia who was the first person to die in the Maidan protests. It's not fully in the picture, but the flag on the right is black and red, a colour scheme seen quite a bit in Kiev that's used as an anti-Russian symbol. Those are the same colours that the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) used during WWII. The UPA was a nationalist paramilitary that resisted all kinds of outsiders. They fought against the Soviets and the Germans, and were responsible for the massacres of Jews and Poles in Galicia and Volhynia. After the Maidan/Crimean annexation, the black-and-red flag and pictures of the UPA's leader, Roman Shukhevych, started to pop up across the country, but mainly in Lviv. That set off a diplomatic spat between Poland and Ukraine.

84068258_173402663919634_5871691434364502016_n.jpg
The pedestal behind the foregrounded sculpture (which must have struck me when I was there, but I cannot remember why) used to have a statue of Lenin. It was toppled during the Maidan and as you can see has been replaced by the Ukrainian flag, the black-and-red flag, and the Ukrainian emblem which, by the way, is more or less the coat of arms of Vladimir the Great. He was the Kievan Prince who converted the Rus to Christianity in 988.

Ukraine and Russia's complicated history extends all the way back to the times of the Kievan Rus. As the appellation implies, Kiev had originally been the great city, the metropole if you will of the Rus. They later spread out to Moscow and Novgorod, but Kiev was the original home city. Nevertheless, the Russians, from their very name, have always sort of claimed the Kievan Rus as their own, whereas the Ukrainians believe themselves to be the rightful heir to that vast and rich historical legacy. People have told me things like the Ukrainian language is closer to the original language the Rus spoke than Russian is, and that Vladimir the Great, who was perhaps the key figure in Slavic history for converting the Rus, was born in Ukraine. It's definitely a point of national pride, just as Hungarians are proud of their fearsome ancestors who pillaged their way from the steppes of Central Asia to Europe, so it's not surprising that's Vladimir's trident is their national symbol.

83947144_1034890613539753_7345203771984576512_n.jpg
The parliament building.

83728455_1012498422447289_3954288772094361600_n.jpg
The Motherland Monument. At 102 m tall (including the pedestal), it's one of the most majestic monuments to the USSR that still stand. Although Ukraine has removed many Soviet symbols, this one is untouchable even to them. A bit hard to tell from the photo but the hammer and sickle symbol is on the shield. Apparently the sword was meant to be longer but it was decided that this symbol of war should not be higher than the bell tower of the nearby Pechersk Lavra monastery.

The Pechersk Lavra is worth a visit from what I hear. I was only able to see it at night, after visiting hours, which is definitely one of my main regrets from Kiev. I spent almost two full days in the city yet honestly cannot remember much of what I got up to. There was probably horilka involved. That’s the general term for Ukrainian vodka, and it comes from the word horyt’, to burn. I also remember having to wear shorts the second day - something must have happened to my pants - so the cold might have had something to do with it, too.

If I had had an extra two hours to stay, I’d have gone to Chernobyl on the second day, but there is only one train a day to my next destination and it was in the early evening. The Chernobyl museum had to suffice – it is a well-designed museum that comprehensively covers the events of that day and the clean-up work.


The Donetsk dilemma

Some time before leaving I had applied for, and surprisingly received, a pass from the Ukrainian government to enter the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of the two self-proclaimed republics that comprise the Donbass region. The other is the Lugansk People’s Republic. Both are formed from parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts (regions), respectively.

I had, however, failed to notice that when they said the pass was valid for 20 days, they meant 20 days from the time you apply and not from the time it is issued. When I was on the train from Kiev, I realised that my pass had in fact expired a few days earlier.

I had a train ticket to Mariupol, a Ukrainian-controlled city in Donetsk oblast that has become the de facto capital after Donetsk city became part of the self-declared new republic. The plan had been to somehow find a bus from Mariupol to take me to Donetsk city. On the train I met some other passengers headed for Donetsk and they told me that the way to get there is to instead disembark at Volnovakha and take a minibus from there. So, my dilemma was: do I a) get off at this little ‘border town’, take a minibus, get stopped at the checkpoint along the way and risk being left in the middle of nowhere having to somehow find my way back to Volnovakha, then waste the rest of the day waiting for the next train, or b) keep going to Mariupol and forget about it all.

Thinking about it now, I’m a bit ashamed of the fact that after weighing up the options I let timidity (and maybe common sense) override my curiosity, especially when I had been that close. But perhaps now that I understand the logistics better, the next time will be successful.

For those interested in going there, here’s how it works:
First, Smartraveller does not advise going to Donetsk or Lugansk as there still is violence and fighting there, from both rebels and Ukrainian paramilitaries, so I am not endorsing this but simply providing information as I had some difficulty in researching how exactly to get there and would like to save others the same frustration.

The Ukrainian government has a limit on who can visit – for foreigners, only those who have family members there or are undertaking humanitarian work can. Neither was applicable to me, but either the purpose I’d stated was interesting enough for them to take it or they’ve relaxed their requirements, although the only information I could find on the requirements were an article in English from 2015 and some posts on a Russian forum.

It is possible to enter from Russia (Rostov-on-Don) but I didn’t want to wrangle with the Russian visa application process again, and there may be complications for future entry into Ukraine if the authorities discover that you have entered their territory illegally, which will likely only happen if you try to enter the rest of Ukraine from Donetsk/Lugansk.

The application to enter the ATO region can be found online and it’s in Ukrainian only. Remember too that the pass is valid for 20 days from the time that you apply, and it can take up to 10 business days for your application to be processed. The application is not designed for foreigners but I just entered the data that I could, in Australian format. You will also be required to describe your route and your reason for going.

To get there by train you need to go to Volnovakha, a station shortly before Mariupol. At Volnovakha there are minibuses that you can take along with 5-6 other patients to Donetsk, and that’s the route you would put down on the application.

Around half of the passengers who were on the train just before Volnovakha got off there. Most of them were visiting family. One of them told me she could only go there twice a year, probably because of government-imposed limits on citizens as well. I think it was mainly from speaking with her and a few other people in Mariupol, that it really started to hit me that there can be some very, very patriotic Russian-speaking Ukrainians even in the east, and that was not something I expected based on what I'd read from Russian sources and heard true blue Ukrainians complain about.


Mariupol

Mariupol is a seaside city that has suffered from the Donbass conflict and the Russian blockade of the Azov Sea. The city was attacked a few times by rebels but the Ukrainian military managed to hold them off. The airport was even used as a military headquarters, and even though that has not been the case since 2016, it has yet to be re-opened. It might be interesting to visit a re-opened former-military-base airport. I'd certainly consider coming back just to add it to the list of airports I've visited.

I read that many residents have been leaving, but it seemed a relatively lively city, with a decent proportion of young people. There are some American-style diners and cafes around. People still come in the summer for the sea.

84260549_3262369880458011_2781534835091439616_n.jpg
The view from the water tower. Not the most eye-catching city out there, but in many ways it reminded me of Vladivostok - its quietness, the ocean views, its identity as a port city, the blending of cultures, the birds that were more numerous and beautiful than the inland ones.

There's an ethnography museum here from which I learned that each region has its own pattern for vyshyvankas, the traditional dress Ukrainians wear. The most common colours are red and black, and that was the theme of a well-known traditional song called Two Colours (Два кольори) in which the singer says his life is embroidered on the shirt, and "red is love and black - that's grief".
IMG_20200124_134622.jpg
A look at some of the patterns from the eastern regions.

There are also vibrant Greek and German communities present today. How they got there I'm not sure, as I was struggling with the museum's Ukrainian-only information stands. From my conversation with the attendant it sounds like their predecessors came several generations ago, and they're simultaneously well-assimilated yet eager to hold onto their heritage. The city's most famed resident is actually a painter of ethnic Greek background, Arkhip Kuindzhi.

1200px-Kuindzhi_Moonlit_night_on_the_Dnieper_1880_grm_x2.jpg
One of his most famous works, 'Moonlit Night on the Dniepr'. (from Wikipedia)

In terms of Soviet history, if I remember correctly Mariupol was actually a major steel production centre and strategic port city, somewhere behind Odessa and Sevastopol in terms of importance to the USSR. The city made no small contributions to WWII (the Great Patriotic War as it's called in Russian), with several residents being awarded hero of the Soviet Union.

For all its pride in its role in the Soviet Union, Mariupol nevertheless acknowledges the darker periods. There is a memorial in the city centre to the victims of the Holodomor, the 1932-3 man-made famine that some insist Stalin inflicted on the Ukrainians to quash their independence movement. The Ukrainian government considers it a genocide.

IMG_20200124_131124.jpg
The text along the top says: "Don't forget the tragedies of the past, so that they may not occur again", and along the side it's dedicated to "those who died from the Holodomor and political repression".

IMG_20200124_142546.jpg
And final photo to wrap up Mariupol - draped over the side of a building, this says in Ukrainian, Russian, and obviously English that a strong Mariupol is a strong Ukraine. Despite it being in Donetsk oblast, so close to the breakaway Donetsk People's Republic, I suppose this is an allusion to that a) the Ukrainian forces managed to secure Mariupol not only militarily but also politically and ideologically, and b) now that the Crimean ports are administered by Russia, it's Mariupol's turn again to play a key role as a port city.

Which, from the articles I've read, has not come to fruition given Russia's blockade. Nevertheless, my uninformed, one-day impression is that they'll somehow manage to hold out.

It wasn't a bad trip by any means, very interesting and enlightening in terms of politics and culture, but the missed chance with Donetsk was still on my mind and would accompany me on the 9 hr train ride to Dnipropetrovsk.
 
Last edited:
Swimbo's mother's family was from the Ukraine, although ethnically German. She still has some relatives there, but most had fled by the end of WW2, mostly to Germany, and in the fifties a lot ended up in Canada.
Anyway, Catherine the Great encouraged migration to the steppes in the mid 17 hundreds, many Mennonites took the opportunity to move to the Volga area.
Her ancestors settled in the Kryvyi Rih area, and her mother and aunties talked of the Stalin induced famines and eating grass to survive.
I also have a friend whose father was born in Moldova, was then part of Romania. He came to Australia in the fifties and never talked about his life there, never spoke the language again, my friend and family visited there about 10 years ago and had numerous visa issues despite having cousins with them that spoke Romanian, Russian and Ukrainian. They had to get a Moldovan visa in Bucharest and wanted to go to Transnistria, but it was too hard in the end.


On with your story, it's a great read with great photos and I'm very envious. :) Love to hear more about your visit to Vladivostok as well.
 
Last edited:
What an amazing and informative trip report. So appreciative of hearing about such different places. Thank you for sharing.
 
Very interesting TR. I was due to travel to Ukraine on the 18th May but SQ and Lot airlines have cancelled the flights. Will try and go next year, all being well. I am particularly interested in any train trips around Ukraine.

We (mrs oobi doob & I) will be visiting Lviv, Odessa and Kiev in that order preferably by rail.

cheers
 
Ukraine pt 3

Dnipropetrovsk


Third class train travel in countries like Russia and Ukraine is not only budget-friendly but also genuine and fun, as one can come across some interesting characters. Most passengers will show some interest in you if you’re a foreigner and try to talk. This time round, however, the lady in the bunk below mine seemed less than impressed. She was speaking way too fast, and ironically the only thing I understood was: “How terrible. In the past anyone who came here would know how to speak good Russian.” The other passengers found her the prickly sort as well, there were a few conflicts here and there, but goodwill generally won out, as it seems to do always do on these trains. I’m told most foreigners choose second class but I would highly recommend third class just to get a more authentic experience and watch the sometimes amusing dynamics between the passengers.

Arriving in Dnipropetrovsk at 4.30 meant I had nothing much to do but hang around the train station, drinking coffee and reading up on the history of the city. Some kind people, under the impression that I was waiting for a train, told me to just flash my ticket to get into the waiting hall.

Ukrainian train stations have a rather complicated system regarding the waiting halls. There are free halls with seats, but those halls also tend to be used by some homeless people as accommodation, so during the day it is rare to find seats and the smell is not altogether pleasant. The paid waiting halls have charging points and wi-fi. They have a set fee per hour to use, but some also allow you in for free if you have a ticket for a train that departs within a certain amount of time. This isn’t well-advertised, and I only found out when I tried to pay once and the clerk pushed the notes back and snapped, “What’s this for? You depart in two hours, da?” Otherwise, one has to stand around in the lobby and play musical charging ports. Smaller stations, like Mariupol’s, don’t have waiting halls at all but thankfully have seats in the lobby.
(I hope you get to go next year, @oobi doobi. Enjoy the chaos (and beauty) of Ukrainian train stations.)

In any case, after a few vending machine coffees – interestingly enough, I think I’ve seen more of these in Russia and Ukraine than in coffee-obsessed Melbourne, or perhaps one doesn't tend to notice such things at home – the metro stations opened. Dnipro has a pretty useless metro system compared to the other cities I’ve been to. There are six stations in a straight line and after visiting each I walked right back to the start, and it took less than two hours. There was construction work going on though throughout the city as they’re looking to expand it. As this was the first Ukrainian metro line constructed after 1991, it didn’t have the flourish of some other Soviet metro systems, and all the stations were in the same style but with different colour schemes.

83680069_2509103402638329_4237866590562942976_n.jpg
The techno-style and hard lines seem to fit with the city's industrial feel, though. It was a little charming, even, one of the little details I'd probably remember. Along with the pedestrian crossings that play music when it's time to cross, that to me is also something I've only seen here.

Dnipropetrovsk was a major industrial city for the USSR, among whose roles included rocket-building. It’s nicknamed Rocket City for that reason. Today it’s officially called Dnipro (a result of the 2015 decommunisation laws), its Lenin statues have been toppled, and Yuzhmash is a Ukrainian state-owned aeronautics company. There is a Yuzhmash factory open to visitors, if I remember correctly, or there were plans to do so.

I visited the ATO museum, an open-air museum that was the first to be dedicated to the war in the Donbass. It had some real machinery and debris from the fighting there:
83698878_1449385861890521_4240124751223193600_n.jpg

Then I went to the riverside and just stared at the Dniepr, bottle of horilka in hand, contemplating this body of water that has played such a large role in Ukrainian history:
IMG_20200125_085454.jpg

My main reason for going to Dnipro was actually to visit Stari Kodaky. It’s about an hour out from the city by marshrutka, a village at the end of the line characterised by stray dogs, gravel roads, grim faces, and a graveyard. As pleasant as all that was, I’d come for the fortress, or at least the piece of land on which it used to stand.

The Kodak Fortress was built in 1635 by the Poles as an outpost for the south-eastern part of their territory. At that time, the area that is now Ukraine was under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, who were generally oppressive towards the local people, among whom were the Cossacks, and in particular the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks who lived in the region. They had a military stronghold – a sich – on Khortytsia island in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia. (If you’re interested in Ukrainian Cossack history and culture at all, Khortytsia would be the #1 place to visit.) One of Kodak’s purposes was to provide a suitable location for the Poles to control the Cossacks. It was designed by a French engineer who had been the first person to make detailed maps of the country. He probably also had had a say in the choice of location, because Kodak was well-located: on elevated land, next to a cove that was easily accessible by the Polish forces, and in a way that cut off the Zaporizhzhian Cossacks from the rest of the country.

83346108_519965711960793_3919685410296430592_n (1).jpg
The cove. The lighting wasn't great but it was a very stunning and peaceful location, and I had it all to myself.

1648 was the year that the Khmelnytsky Uprising began. Bohdan Khmelnytsky was a Cossack who originally fought for the Polish army, but who eventually went to visit the Zaporizhzhians and convinced them of the feasibility and necessity of resisting their overlords. He was made Hetman of those Cossacks and was the strategic mind of the rebellion. Early on in that uprising, the Cossacks attacked and managed to capture Kodak. This is commemorated today by this monument:

84213652_2539800602974798_1341153703394017280_n.jpg
“At this place Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky with Zaporizhzian warriors took the fortress of Kodak by assault on April 24, 1648.” This is pretty much the only physical marker that Kodak was here. The remains of the fortress were completely removed by the Soviets.

The capture of Kodak is one of the key events in Ukrainian history, given the fortress’s strategic importance and how well-defended it was. The Cossacks had several victories early on the uprising, but it was to be drawn out for several more years, until in 1657 they finally drove out the Poles, paving the way for the Cossack state that would become the forerunner to Ukraine as a nation. They were the ones who gave that name to the country, and they play an important role in the country’s self-identity. As I mentioned earlier, the Maidan protests were done in units of 100, a reference to how the Zaporizhzhian Sich fought, and in the war in the east some of the Ukrainian paramilitaries use Cossack symbols to represent their fighting for Ukraine’s independence.

There are two darker sides to the story, though. The first is that as many landowners were Jewish, and the landowners were the intermediaries between the Polish rulers and the serfs, Jews were actively targeted and massacred throughout the uprising, to the point that it was “the greatest calamity the Jews were to experience until the rise of Hitler”. The other part, perhaps more well-known and significant to Ukrainians now, is that although the Cossacks gained independence for their territory from the Poles, it was not far from a Pyrrhic victory. They were so weakened that they looked to make another alliance – and Khmelnytsky yielded suzerainty to the Russian Empire.

If I remember correctly, what they sought was protection/alliance against the Ottomans. Cossacks had already been fighting the Ottomans as part of the Polish army prior to many of them defecting and joining the rebellion. Russia was supposedly the lesser of the three evils. They were ethnically and linguistically more similar than the Poles, and – this was the key point – they were also Orthodox Christians.

Under Russian imperialism, Cossack autonomy and Ukrainian sovereignty would gradually diminish. In 1859, Taras Shevchenko (the national poet who was born a serf, had his talent recognised by prominent artists who bought his freedom, and whose work was preoccupied with Ukraine as a beloved homeland but also as a country that lacked the political will to resist the Russians) wrote: “If only you could, drunken Bohdan / see Pereyaslav now!” Pereyaslav was where the treaty had been signed. While Khmelnytsky is still seen as a key figure, the nation builder, some patriotic Ukrainians are less enthusiastic about him. Ukraine is, obviously, still experiencing the ramifications of having been under the Russian Empire.

83385783_469701577040901_7445797038542815232_n.jpg
In Kiev, outside St Sophia’s cathedral, stands a large statue of Khmelnytsky. The architect’s original plan had been to have the other symbols and figures in the work: underneath the horse’s hooves were to be symbols representing Poles, Catholics, and Jews, while figures of a Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian were to be Khmelnytsky’s allies. The statue was meant to be a dedication to the Rus as an cultural group and a celebration of Orthodox Christianity. That design was deemed too controversial. What ended up being built was a simple statue without controversial plaques or ethnic symbols. Khmelnytsky alone embodies enough controversy.

That architect, by the way, also designed the Millennium of Russia statue in Novgorod that celebrated the millennium of the Viking arrival to the area and the coming into existence of the Rus. As you can tell, the architect was rather taken, as were the Russian authorities at that time, with the idea of the united Rus peoples. There were the Russians, the Little Russians (Ukrainians), and the White Russians (Belarusians), and they were supposed to be one big happy family who all spoke Russian, naturally. The effects of that attitude and the concomitant linguistic repression are very much visible today, especially in Belarus.


Odessa

The first thing that greeted me in Odessa was the train station, with letters on the roof that formed the message “Welcome to the Hero City Odessa”. It was one of the first to be designated a hero city for its role holding off German and Romanian troops on the southern front in 1942. Odessa was besieged but resisted for 73 days before finally being captured.

The other thing that struck me was that it is an obstinately Russian city. While in all the other cities official communications and shopfront signs, road signs, slippery floor signs etc. were all in Ukrainian – in places like Mariupol and Dnipro, it’s essentially the language that’s seen but rarely/never heard – here stores liberally use Russian in their signs and window displays. A closed underpass informed inconvenienced pedestrians about it in Russian. The train I would take to Transnistria had ‘Odessa’ in its LED display, not the Ukrainian name of ‘Odesa’. The museums were technically trilingual, but sometimes they excluded a Ukrainian translation or just duplicated the Russian one. It was very interesting to notice this interplay as it differed so much from the rest of the country, and it’s unexpected given that Odessa, a city of freedom founded by foreigners, would hold on so obstinately to the language of a country that is now considered by many to be an oppressor.

85085727_606999013454850_5487401035146199040_n.jpg
At the Odessa literature museum, they had an early edition of Kotliarevsky's Eneida, an epic poem based on the Aeneid but featuring Cossacks. This was the first book written in the modern Ukrainian literary language, and therefore holds a place of significance to most Ukrainians and anyone interested in their literature. On this title page, however, it says "in the Little Russian language."

Odessa since its early days had been a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities: it had been settled by runaway serfs from Russia, Ukraine, and Bessarabia, as well as merchants from other countries, and officially founded by four foreigners under Catherine the Great's decree. It was a place for free people, and for free trade – its status as a porto franco led to flourishing economic life there as well. Scholars, intellectuals (including exiled ones), and writers gathered here. A city of history, commerce, freedom, literature, music, cats.

83772843_202266347559815_1690314439816904704_n.jpg

84977468_186800755865502_4926012512790380544_n.jpg

I cannot convey the atmosphere of it, the serenity I felt walking down the lively, angled streets, above the catacombs that provided the limestone for the houses and shelter during WWII, past cafes overflowing their music, gorgeous architectural facades, the little microcosms of activity. There’s the port area, there’s a Greek ‘precinct’, I came across a few streets that seemed to be a cat haven. It seems people are more carefree here. Some Russians on a tour asked if they could take a photo of me smiling because they were having a competition in the tour group to get the most pictures. Prior to that I wasn’t aware Russians knew what a smile was. (I'm joking... sort of.) The central park is full of children, teenagers, and adults alike, playing on the playground, sipping coffee and holding hands, or just sitting on a bench in contemplation – they all seemed to do it harmoniously.

Someone once said that, “Odessa is not merely a city – it is God’s smile.”

It was a comforting way to finish the Ukraine leg of my trip. While on the train to Tiraspol, I was looking up some more information on literary connections and came across a poem written by a soldier who participated in the 1942 defence of Odessa. The poem is called ‘Pain’ and is a bit dark, it seemed to me both a eulogy and a battle cry, but it’s perfused with the writer’s love for and intimacy with his city and I found it beautiful. I have tried to translate the first two verses:

Tender, beloved Odessa,
I have to tell you sorry…
From your fun scapegrace
Today’s poem is written with blood.

Camouflage nets dropped
In exhaustion, onto you
All is in death and desolation
The city of the sun is in flames.
 
Last edited:
Transnistria

Transport options:
If entering from Ukraine, bus or train from Odessa are possible options. I would recommend train for smoother border control, although those only run three times a week. Within Transnistria, minibuses are the main way to get around, though there are some intercity/intertown trams. There are buses to many cities within Moldova, with most services being to Chisinau or Komrat (the capital of Gagauzia, a Russian-speaking region in southern Moldova).

There is no telecoms company here that I’m aware of, so if connectivity is important to you, get a suitable SIM card before you head over.

The cities I visited, Tiraspol and Bendery, are both pretty walkable and you probably save time and get to see interesting sights more than if you take a tram or a bus to get around the city.

Language: Russian, Romanian (they call it Moldovan), and Ukrainian are the official languages, but Russian is the most-known and the interethnic one so it's what you'll hear 99% of the time. Romanian can be found on plaques used for commemorative or official purposes, albeit a Cyrillicised form of it (Moldavian was originally written in Cyrillic, and Transnistria being Transnistria, they had to preserve that).

Below is my impression of Transnistria, based on what I saw out and about and in the museums, and my general knowledge of this region. I’ve done some research to corroborate my notes, so have tried to keep it as factually accurate as possible but there may be mistakes and the interpretations of those facts are mine. Also, it was difficult trying to make this orderly while covering everything, so apologies for the turbulence.


IMG_20200127_173220.jpg
"Welcome to the capital of the PMR – the order-bearing city Tiraspol"
PMR - Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic - is the Russian name for Transnistria.
I don’t know what order/s it’s referring to.

I arranged a transfer from the train station with my hostel host, which I would recommend because the border agents ask a lot of questions about who you’re staying with.

IMG_20200127_125338.jpg

Transnistria had been part of the Russian Empire from ~1806. After the revolution, they became part of the Moldavian ASSR, an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR. The MASSR included parts of what is now Ukraine, and the original capital was the city of Balta near Odessa, but the capital was soon shifted to Tiraspol. The quality of life increased a lot: healthcare (in my trip notes I wrote that a lot of people were dying in hospitals prior to the Soviet period, but didn’t record what they were dying from), education, the economy all improved. The MASSR also collectivised and industrialised rapidly compared to the rest of the country.

84999508_876996476089548_1943558446167097344_n (1).jpg
The May 1 Factory, a canning factory founded in the early 1930s.

Given the overall increase in quality of life, and Tiraspol’s relevance as the MASSR’s capital, it’s no surprise that it’s generally looked back upon fondly. I'm not, however, sure how the Holodomor fits into their assertion that life was better during that time. As they were part of the Ukrainian SSR, they also suffered during the famine. Even if they had the lowest total deaths and the second-lowest deaths per 100,000 rate among Ukraine's regions, a toll of 68,000 people is nothing to sneeze at. (I have not evaluated the method that paper uses. There are some Ukrainian academics who include the future children who would have otherwise been born in their Holodomor death counts. My main reason for selecting this study was that it breaks it down by region.)

In any case, they insist that 1924-40 were Tiraspol's glory days. In 1939/40 the Romanians captured Transnistria and incorporated it into Romanian-occupied Bessarabia. After the Soviets liberated Bessarabia later that year, they formed the Moldavian SSR – with the capital of Chisinau.

That would’ve rankled. Transnistria had been administered by Russia for a long time; they spoke Russian, they had ethnic Russian populations, and since they’d only been part of Romanian Bessarabia for a short while, they’d been spared most of the Romanianisation that had occurred. Chisinau was a relative upstart. Yet, nevertheless, Chisinau was chosen as the capital and even though Transnistrians probably still enjoyed a higher quality of life, they have yet to get over that insult. The 1990 formation of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic can, I quote from the history museum, “be regarded as the restoration of historical justice”.

Note too that this was 1990. The Moldavian SSR seceded from the USSR in 1991. This territorial dispute pre-dates the present-day Republic of Moldova.

IMG_20200127_113739 (1).jpg
The House of the Soviets, currently used by their legislative body, iirc.

I'm not going to post more Soviet-throwback photos since we've probably all seen them, the hammer and sickle emblems everywhere, the black-and-red colour scheme, the mosaics and the lack of advertisements. (I was also able to watch YouTube at the hostel without any ads, although was too tired to take full advantage of that.) Partly because of the photo limit, but mainly because I think it’s inaccurate to think of Transnistria as just a ‘Soviet’ place and to fixate on that. Although of course that’s the key attraction, its history extends way beyond that.

IMG_20200127_122342.jpg
"To A. V. Suvorov, the founder of the city. 1979"

The main square is Suvorov Square, not, say, Lenin Square, and in fact it seemed to me that the Suvorov statue was the more important monument. It stands opposite De Wollant park, named after the Flemish engineer who served in the imperial Russian army and went on to play a pivotal role in the building of Tiraspol fortress (and Odessa – he was one of the four founders of that city).

In the late 1700s the Russian Empire came along, Suvorov founded Tiraspol in 1792, the place developed economically and politically a bit, was used as part of the line of defence against the Ottomans, who had been controlling Moldavia for a while. This is a key point of Transnistrian identity, such as it is. They are very proud of the role they had during the Russian Empire's days. To understand this better, I went to the city of Bendery, a short marshrutka ride away from Tiraspol.

I accidentally got off a few stops early and had to walk the rest of the way. The terrain's sometimes variable, but it's a main road and the distance between the two cities is pretty small so it'd probably make for an interesting walk to go the whole way.

IMG_20200127_144256.jpg
"The city of Bendery, founded in 1408." This bus stop, the one I should've gotten off at, was built during Soviet times and there are some awe-striking examples of mosaics inside.

Bendery has a memorial park dedicated to the 1992 war against Moldova, and especially commemorates the 'Bendery tragedy' where, in the midst of peace negotiations, the Moldovan army attacked the city.

IMG_20200127_145416.jpg
One of the tanks used by the PMR during the war.

Bendery's main tourist attraction, however, is the fortress. This was built in the 16th C by the Turks - you can still see Arabic on the walls. During the Great Northern War, King Charles XII of Sweden fled to Bendery and sought asylum from the Ottomans, who were at that point not engaged in the war. This they granted, eventually moving him to a nearby village as his little community of Swedes was growing too big for Bendery. Here he would rule Sweden for three years. He convinced the Ottomans to join the fight against Russia, which they did, but the two countries made peace eventually. Charles was not the most gracious guest and after a build-up of grievances and rising frustration over his agitating for the Ottomans to rejoin the war, a fight broke out and he was arrested. He lost four fingers and parts of his ear and nose, but apparently never regretted because he'd rather let them "consider me crazy than cowardly!"

IMG_20200127_152710.jpg
The inside of the fortress. It seemed very old, with dingy cave-like rooms and collapsed staircases. The displays have English translations but, well, the other visitor who was there, a Serbian man in a France soccer cap, asked if it was just him or was the English dreadful, almost incomprehensible even. It wasn't just him.

The result of the Great Northern War was that the Russian Empire began its rise and the Kingdom of Sweden, hitherto one of the most powerful European states, its fall. And for three years that king had been just outside Bendery.

The fortress would bounce back and forth between Russia and the Ottoman Empire during three Russo-Turkish wars. Pushkin and Kotliarevsky (the one I mentioned earlier, who wrote the first text in the modern Ukrainian literary language) served at Bendery. Aivazovsky fought here. Kutuzov served with great distinction here - and he would become nothing less than the man who led Russia during Napoleon's 1812 invasion.

So, my point is, this region is steeped in cultural and historical significance, and they care about that. The Bendery fortress is the only tourist attraction out of the ones I went to that had English translations, even if they were nigh on incomprehensible. They care not only about the Soviet times, but also about their significance as part of the Russian Empire.

IMG_20200127_151524.jpg
The view from the fortress over the Dnestr. The bridge is the one that joins Bendery with Tiraspol. At night the trusses light up, one set in the Transnistrian colours and another in the Russian colours.

I think it’s also inaccurate to say, all right then, they’re obsessed with Russia, which is how some people interpret it. There's the Ukraine connection, for one. They were part of Ukraine during their Soviet glory days; at some points in time, ethnic Ukrainians made up the majority of the population. The Ukrainian army helped liberate them from Romania and also provided assistance in the 1992 war. The Transnistrian national university is named after Taras Shevchenko who, as I might have described earlier, was a vocal anti-imperialist and is the figure for Ukrainians today who want to resist Russian influence. If you go to Ukraine, you will see Shevchenko everywhere. There is a warmness towards Ukrainians, who do, after all, make up about 1/3 of the population today, Ukrainians are an integral part of Transnistria, and this warmness is not found in the 'Little Russian' attitude of the Russian Empire or today's rhetoric.

Yes, they are obsessed with Russia, and yes, in their referendum they voted not just to secede from Moldova but to join Russia, and their politicians pretty much view it as a foregone conclusion. Several websites belonging to the republican/municipal governments use the .ru or .рф extensions. But there is a part of the Transnistrian identity that does not fit in with Russia's.

Another case in point: Transnistria's relations with the Moldavian Principality. It had always been a frontier relation, some parts under Moldavian influence, some nominally Moldavian but administratively Turkish, and a large portion belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Regardless of who ruled the region, Transnistria initially had a significant Moldavian ethnic presence, which it still does but to a lesser extent, and it seems that Transnistria actually feels itself to be the last bastion of true Moldavianism, decrying Moldova’s increasing cultural and linguistic union with Romania, and the threat of a political one as well. Transnistria is, after all, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. They respect Moldavians, just not Moldova.

85011745_1855709674565475_6518799382165323776_n (1).jpg
The train station, with the Romanian word 'gara' written in Cyrillic.

What I want to say is: there is so much more to Transnistria than what tour companies or most travel bloggers will talk about. After my short time here, I really began to see Transnistria as a separate country because it's run like one and it feels like one. The uniqueness of its identity is based on the fact that it doesn't have a single story-line, it's a mix of histories, cultures, and ethnicities.

The idea of its independence became so natural to me that when I ran into issues at the Moldovan-Romanian border and they asked about my entry into Moldova, I told them I'd taken the bus, because I had taken the bus from Tiraspol to Chisinau. Things might have been different if I'd said it was the train from Odessa. More on that in the next post.


The main lesson for me from this trip was that there are so many connections to be made that extend beyond time and geographic borders. Which I guess we all know intuitively, but it's still delightful and stimulating to experience. I mainly travel to learn, and actually came back to Australia more exhausted than I'd left.
Thanks for slogging through my extensive ramblings. I'll have 1-2 more posts with some miscellaneous stuff, but this is the main content. Let me know if you have any questions, and please share thoughts/observations from your own experiences if you've had the good fortune of visiting these places!
 
Last edited:
Chisinau

To top up my SkyTeam points balance, and as I also wanted to experience being hoisted up onto a platform to have the wheels of a carriage changed, I decided to fly Tarom out of Bucharest. So from Tiraspol I went to Chisinau, from where I would take the train to Bucharest. Chisinau was therefore more of a transit point than a destination, which was a pity because walking around felt like a history scavenger hunt and in terms of cultural and history tourism it should be on more destination to-do lists.

Moldova’s capital felt quite different to Tiraspol, and in some ways less developed. It’s not uncommon to see streets like this around, and I think this was only one block away from the main drag:
IMG_20200128_172950.jpg

Though of course the nearby presidential palace looks nothing but ritzy:
IMG_20200128_171116 (1).jpg

Although EU flags can be seen everywhere and politically the country’s been gravitating westward, with the national museum giving their communist history a disproportionately small glance, it’s still possible to see USSR emblems around.

IMG_20200129_075704.jpg
A statue of Lenin in front of an 'honour roll' (in Cyrillic Romanian and Russian). Either the honour roll was on the other side or Lenin is meant to have all the honour here...

Wikipedia says 80% of Moldovans speak Romanian as their first language, but in Chisinau it’s more of a 60-40 split in favour of Russian on the streets, more like 90-10 by clerks in shops/museums, and Russian is what I as a foreigner was addressed in by people who could speak both. Although, understandably, there were a few who were less than enthusiastic about using a language that had been imposed on them. When I was on some backstreet wanting to get the attention of a passing person to ask for directions, before I’d finished saying “izvinite”, before she’d even turned around, she snapped, “Do you speak English?” and turned out to have nearly perfect English.

All in all, Moldovans seem to be pretty friendly and laid-back people, with Chisinau being a reasonable middle ground between Tiraspol’s staidness and the bustle of that giant parking lot of a city that is Bucharest.

Leaving Moldova

If you enter from Transnistria, you must take the entry slip to the migration office in Chisinau within 72 hours to receive a Moldovan entry card. Wikitravel, however, says that a Ukrainian exit stamp is sufficient. I went to the office anyway just to be safe. It is apparently open 9-16, but at 14.48 they arbitrarily decided to close up shop. I was next in the queue; the staff member told me to come back tomorrow, but I was leaving that evening. I asked if I needed a Moldovan entry stamp for coming via Transnistria from Ukraine. He said “no”.

Near the train station there’s a La Placinte outlet, part of a chain of national cuisine restaurants. Ironically, this one shared the space and kitchen with a pizza restaurant. I had mamaliga, a kind of porridge made from cornmeal, with lamb, scrambled egg, and feta cheese.
IMG_20200129_160706.jpg

IMG_20200129_171110.jpg

The train was an old Soviet-style one with only second-class carriages. It was nearly empty. The bed number on my ticket did not exist so the conductor plunked me into a room that had one other passenger, but I got the whole room to myself for the night as she disembarked a few hours into the ride, at Ungheni, a town on the Moldovan side of the border.

So, my fellow passenger went out and a police officer came in. She flipped through my passport, asked me how I'd entered Moldova. "By bus," I said automatically, because I'd taken the bus from Tiraspol to Chisinau. She left, only to return with a colleague and ask for the passport again. Flipped through, gave it back, left. They returned with a third officer and told me to come with them.

I was taken to a large, probably Soviet building, very functional and stolid. The lights in the corridors and staircase were either busted or it’s a psychological strategy to have the traveller stumble their way through to the main office. There were five border officers there and they debated for a long time, every few moments asking to see my “ID card”. I said I’m not from the EU and use a passport instead, the one they had right in front of them.

(One thing that stumps me is why border police don’t seem to use machine translation. When I crossed to Mexico from the US, I also took a masterclass in pantomiming. At the Hungarian-Ukrainian border the policeman asked if I spoke Hungarian and then huddled with two colleagues for several minutes with my passport, saying “Canada” and “Ukraine” a lot in their conversation. They were probably unsure if I could legally enter Ukraine, as most non-EU, non-CIS countries require a visa.

I’d always wanted to visit Ukraine but Australians need a visa and I had assumed the same for Canadians, so had originally planned a trip to Serbia. I found out about the visa exemption two weeks before leaving, hastily renewed my Canadian passport, and changed plans. So, I watched with some sadness as the Hungarian policemen stabbed at and bent my glossy new passport, when they could’ve talked to me with translation software. Is it unprofessional to do so?)

It turned out that by “ID card” they wanted my Moldovan entry card. Wikitravel advises to hold one’s ground against border officers regarding the adequacy of a Ukrainian exit stamp. I told them in both English and Russian that I had the stamp and the migration bureau had said I didn’t need a Moldovan one, but they ignored me.

As one of the policewomen was taking me to the exchange bureau to pay my 300 lei ($25) fine, she started lecturing me with, “If you come by bus you have to-” and I suddenly realised and said I had forgotten that Transnistria was part of Moldova (maybe not the most tactful thing to say laughingly to a border guard?) and had actually taken the train from Odessa. She stopped then and looked at the fine slip for a while, but then we continued to the exchange bureau.

I don’t know if taking the train makes a difference, but she did specifically mention coming by bus and she had hesitated. After all, if it is acceptable to have only a Ukrainian exit stamp, then a train ticket is official proof of having entered directly from Ukraine. For me, the fine wasn’t the issue – I consider it a donation to the poorest country in Europe. What rankled was missing out on the quintessential European wheel change experience.

I don’t know the source for that section in the Wikitravel article and couldn't find information online. I emailed the migration bureau asking for clarification, but their response made no mention of Ukraine and simply repeated: one must register at the office within 72 hours. (I had also told them, a little tongue-in-cheek, that since I was only in Moldova for 71 hours, technically I hadn’t yet broken the rule.) As for the bureau officer who told me I didn’t need an entry card, now I’m not sure if he was answering my question or just trying to get me to leave.

My recommendation would be to err on the side of caution. Budget enough time in Chisinau and get to the migration bureau early.

Departure

Named after the Romanian inventor who claimed to have invented the first jet, Henri Coanda airport seems pretty modern from the outside, but I wasn’t enthusiastic about the inside. The passageways are confusing, I think I did three laps of the ground floor before finding the check-in area. There are also no drink fountains airside and the apron bus ride is long.

IMG_20200130_163130.jpg
It was a scenic ride, though. There were air force planes as well but they were on the other side and I only got a picture of the Tarom maintenance facilities.

IMG_20200130_163611.jpg
The plane to Athens. It’s in special livery, I believe to celebrate their 100th anniversary.

They provided a pickle-and-cheese sandwich and a Rom chocolate bar, the national candy that has the Romanian tricolor wrapper and a rum filling. Quite substantial for a 70 min flight. The FAs spoke English fine but they always addressed passengers, including those of other ethnicities, in Romanian first, which was charming and what I feel a flag carrier should do as it makes a flight feel like a part of that country as well. It was quite a contrast to the ATH-VIE flight with Austrian, where the safety demonstration was all in English and the FAs used it even with the passenger next to me, an elderly man with poor English and a German-language newspaper in his lap.

Corrections and additions to previous posts

Town signs in Hungary are displayed in both modern Hungarian and the old Hungarian rovás runic script. As I had gone only by train I didn't see any, but they might be interesting should you find yourself debating whether to take a train or a bus to your destination.

Ivan Franko was not born in the city that is now Ivano-Frankivsk. He was born in a town in Lviv oblast. What I said about Ivan Franko University refusing him a teaching position should be accurate though, as I think I saw it in a museum there.

It was a picture of Stepan Bandera and not Roman Shukhevych in Lviv that caused the diplomatic incident with Poland. Bandera was the leader of the extremist branch of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, the paramilitary of which was the UPA, led by Shukhevych.

Another notable figure who'd fought for the Russian army at Bendery was the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev, who would later lead one of the most significant peasant uprisings in the empire.


Thank you for reading.
 
Last edited:

Become an AFF member!

Join Australian Frequent Flyer (AFF) for free and unlock insider tips, exclusive deals, and global meetups with 65,000+ frequent flyers.

AFF members can also access our Frequent Flyer Training courses, and upgrade to Fast-track your way to expert traveller status and unlock even more exclusive discounts!

AFF forum abbreviations

Wondering about Y, J or any of the other abbreviations used on our forum?

Check out our guide to common AFF acronyms & abbreviations.
Back
Top