First things first: the 'h' is in the wrong place. It's pronounced 'ki-shi-now'.
Officially there are 195 countries in the world at the time of writing. (193 of them are in the United Nations, the other two being Palestine and the Holy See.) I've never felt the remotest interest in seeing them all, not even if I won the lottery and retired tomorrow. Undoubtedly there will be many wails of regret on my deathbed, when I get there, but "whither Liechtenstein?" will not be among them.
That said, I do think it's entirely possible that I'll manage to visit every European country before I pop my clogs. Depending on who you ask, there are between 44 and 51 countries in Europe, so I'm already over halfway there on any measure. I also reckon I'll get round the whole of the former USSR: it contained fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics, and Moldova is my sixth.
It's the second poorest country in Europe, the poorest being Ukraine, and the border between the two is only about 30 miles away from me as the crow flies. The Black Sea port of Odessa is a short drive to the south-east, and without doubt that would have been my next port of call in ordinary circumstances. But these are not ordinary circumstances and the Russians are bombing the hell out of Odessa right now.
Touchingly, you see EU flags flying around almost every government building, even though (like fellow aspirant Ukraine) Moldova is a very long way from being eligible to join. As for NATO, Ukraine is keen for obvious reasons, but Moldova's military neutrality is enshrined in its constitution. Of course, neutrality didn't stop the Russians marching in here after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1940, and it wouldn't stop them doing it again.
They speak Romanian in Moldova, so I've gained extra profit from the roughly seven minutes that I spent learning Romanian phrases before Bucharest. My favourite Romanian word is beletristica, which means 'literature', and is derived - via German - from the French belles lettres.
I'm a fan of Chisinau. It's clean, safe, and friendly. There's a fairly plush shopping mall which is, inevitably, called 'Malldova'. Speaking of bad puns...they think it's Moldova...it is now! (I'll get me coat.)
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| Sometimes former USSR countries look how you expect them to look |
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| Government House The train carriage holds an exhibition about forced Soviet deportations to the gulag. Needless to say, the Russian government has complained about the exhibition. |
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| Cathedral and bell tower |
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| Birdhouse in your soul (Valea Morilor Park) |
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| View from the rotunda in the same park as above |
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| Posh gaff (AirBnB as always) |
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| An English breakfast, as imagined by Moldovan fast-food chefs. Soft cheese on cherry tomatoes is fine, as is the potato cake thing. I've had those in Belarus and Lithuania. They're just hash browns by another name and they're very nice. However that is plainly a hot dog masquerading as a sausage. Epic fail. |
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| Edd vs Food #117 Not too inspired by the local restaurants (see photo above) so here's my home-cooked bangers & mash. Plus carrots & peas, and also the Bisto that I managed to find in Sofia. That's a full-sized dinner plate and yes, those sausages are ridiculously big. |
