Categories: uncategorized
Date: 20 June 2004 15:36:18
Well, back from the USSR to be precise - I got back from Moldova in one piece late-ish last night, and had a great time, so this will probably be tediously long. First things first though - holly, I *would* have got you a present, honest, but for a rather major technical consideration, which is the fact that everything in every shop was crap.
So - last weekend after what felt like forever either on planes or waiting in airports (4hr wait in Budapest, yawn), I arrived in Moldova at 11pm local time and joined the queue to buy a visa. Well, I say "queue", but let's just say they don't queue like they do in England. I was standing with a very nice Icelandic doctor, and the way the one and only man at the desk dealt with us I think tells a lot about typical Moldovan illogical bureaucratic mentality. The doctor had a faxed letter of invitation to go with her visa application form, which made me a bit nervous as my hosts had said I didn't need one. The man looked at her invitation and barked at her that he needed to see the original (which she didn't have, as Moldovan post is so unreliable). So he moved on to me (sans invitation, faxed or otherwise), took my money and waved me through. Which left the doc shaking her head in disbelief and me feeling very very guilty! She'll have got through eventually, but I hope she didn't have to wait too long!
I was picked up at the airport by a friend, once I'd finally got through the customs "queue" (read: rabble), and then for some reason I couldn't quite fathom I had a midnight roadside rendez-vous with the wife of one of our partners, who I had some stuff to give to. I'm sure I could have met up with her the next day somewhere more civilised, but anyway she seemed happy enough. I then got taken to the flat where I was staying, on the other side of the city (Chisinau, the capital, or Kishinev for those who prefer the Russian version), and met G., who I'd be staying with for the week. She turned out to be lovely (we'd not met before), we got on really well and managed to laugh and natter as well as be serious about work.
The next day (Sunday) we went into the city centre and I was able to get my first view of the city in daylight for over 4 years. Some things had changed (more mobile phones and McDonalds for a start), whilst other things were exactly the same (tatty, crumbly high rise flats, pollution, mad driving, evil toilet paper, TV reminiscent of the Fast Show's "Chanel 9"). Chatting with people during the week I think that the reason it looks like people have a bit more materially is not that the Moldovan economy is doing well (on the contrary, the EBRD and other commentators are really concerned about how badly it is doing) but that, out of a total population of just over 4 million, over 1 million of the working population are working abroad and sending money home to their families. This has left huge social problems, with families being split up for many months at a time, and a huge chunk of the working population not available to improve the economy by working in Moldova itself.
One of the main talking points last week was the proposal, by a Russian economist, reportedly supported by the US and by President Putin, that Moldova west of the Dniestr(Nistru) river should reunite with Romania, whilst Moldova east of the river (known as Transnistria) should reunite with Russia. Transnistria has never accepted that it is part of Moldova, and in fact there was civil war there in 1992-3, it's pretty much a maverick hardline communist break-away republic. This plan won't happen any time soon - Romania doesn't want it (as it is in the process of applying for EU membership in 2007, and any reunification would take huge resources from Romania), and Moldova doesn't want it as far as I can tell - partly I guess as they want independence still, partly because Moldova has a large Russian population who have no cultural identification with Romania at all, partly because all its gas supply comes from Russia via Transnistria, and partly because the government (which is basically communist) seems to be more interested in closer ties with Russia than with Romania. There were protests while I was there in a northern city where the authorities are trying to erect a statue of Lenin in the city. The government seem pretty reluctant to heed advice or accept help from the west, preferring instead as far as I can tell to keep the people in poverty and ignorance and keep themselves in power, doing their own thing.
I went to church last Sunday afternoon, it was so good to catch up with a number of friends from last time I came. What was less good was that the service lasted 2 hours (it's been a while since I've been in a service that long!) and the sermon was 3/4 hour long! Apparently my valiant (but not always entirely successful) attempts not to fall asleep were noticed - oops. I also popped into the Orthodox Cathedral - last time I was there I wandered in while the choir were singing, which was perhaps the most heavenly music I've ever heard, but sadly I didn't go at the right time, and the cathedral was full of scaffolding, so it wasn't such an experience this time.
The actual work I went out to do (interviewing partners of the charity of whom I'm a trustee about their perceptions and experiences of partnership working) went really well I think. To start with I was a bit worried - everybody seemed to be telling me that everything was hunky-dory, and although with my trustee hat on I was really pleased to hear that, from my student point of view I could imagine my tutor saying "What aren't they telling you???" Mid-week, though, it suddenly occurred to me that what I was witnessing was a major cultural difference - the Brits by and large are only too pleased to complain about everything, whereas it seemed to me that the Moldovans (in general) were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear, which is why everything was so positive. I met a US Peace Corps volunteer who said that she had noticed the same cultural variation, but when I asked G. about it she said that she felt it was more that Moldovans don't want to air their negative experiences with an "outsider", preferring instead to try to sort things out themselves. Either way, by the end I think I got some more balanced opinions which will give me a bit more meat to work with. I also got plenty of exposure to the Romanian language - when I was here 4 years ago it actually got rather good, but as I've not used it for a while I was really rusty. But it started to come back - if I'd been there another week or so I think I could have been back up to my former glories. I'm still none the wiser about Russian though, although along with Romanian I'll probably be starting Russian classes in the coming autumn.
Towards the end of my stay, another British girl came out for a few days (she's thinking about returning for a year in the autumn to work in one of the villages near Chisinau), and it was then that I discovered the slightly alarming news that I should have registered with the authorities within 3 days of arriving. Apparently there is a notice to this effect on the window where you get a visa at the airport, but it certainly wasn't obvious to me, and the guys in the office were all so busy that they had all forgotten about it. When I was last there 4 years ago there wasn't this requirement, so it was only when this other girl, who was in Moldova last summer, turned up on her first morning with her passport that I knew anything about it. I thought about risking not bothering to register, until they told me that it might cause me a problem when I tried to leave the country, so in the end I had to leave my passport overnight at one of the ministries and pay a fine. We had a few jokes about me spending a night in jail, but to be honest officials are more interested in the money (which, thanks to the machinations of my hosts' accountant, only amounted to the grand total of $10!). So I must say I was a bit fed up that after all the excitement and frisson and sinking heart feelings, they didn't even bother to look at the slip of paper when I checked in at the airport on the way back.
I didn't see much in the way of individual projects while I was there, as I was mainly there to interview rather than be entertained. I did however go to the opening of a wonderful community centre, which has been set up in a very poor area of a small town near Chisinau to work with children from poor families who are considered "at risk" (due to extreme poverty) of truancy, abuse, prostitution or worse (all of these are very very real problems in Moldova, which has a huge problem with people trafficking and organised crime rings). It was wonderful to see the kids clearly enjoying their classes and learning to use computers (something they'd never have the opportunity to do otherwise). As the centre develops they will hopefully be able to work with more families, but as a start it is a great programme which will hopefully have a huge impact on those kids' lives.
A couple of days back I visited Chisinau's Botanical Gardens, which I'd never seen before. It was really refreshing, like an oasis after all the high rise blocks. [I think it might have to count as June's cultural activity, I know they're supposed to be in London, but unless you count a possible trip to the Dog and Bull in Croydon I don't think I'm going to get a chance to do anything cultured this month] This was the first time I'd been in Moldova in the summer, and (believe it or not) the first time I'd seen flowers growing there. The Gardens have given their name to a district of the city - Botanica - which I'd always found ironic, having pretty much not seen a single plant there before. The city in the summer is much nicer though - lots of trees etc - though still not a pretty place, it has to be said. A few things stood out, not least the alarming lack of any road markings at all in most of the city (which has a population of about 3/4 million, so isn't small). Crossing the road was scary to say the least, and although I didn't mind being driven around and always felt safe enough as I knew the people who were driving understood the Moldovan road etiquette, I thought to myself more than once that if I had to drive myself it would be the scariest experience! Mind you, I can see that not having road markings would have its advantages - if you have to swerve into the path of an oncoming trolleybus to avoid the huge pothole on your side of the road, pesky road markings would only turn that into a driving offence. The few white lines I did see seemed to be routinely ignored anyway. Not somewhere I'd like to learn to drive or take a driving test, that's for sure.
So, now I'm back - glad to be home again, but so pleased I went. It was wonderful to make new friends and catch up with old ones, and despite the city and the country having next to nothing going for it, as soon as I was there I felt totally "at home". Maybe it's partly due to me knowing Chisinau a bit, and having lived in Romania for a while, but I think it's more than that - it's hard to describe, but sometimes there are places which you just "recognise" in your heart, guts, spirit, whatever. Moldova's like that for me. It's a very difficult place to romanticise - like I said, the last thing you could accuse Chisinau of being is a beautiful place, on the contrary it's a typical dreary Soviet city. But I've got a definite soft spot for the place and its people, and I think this trip has renewed my love of the region and my desire to retain strong links with it, not just to visit every so often and see charity projects or whatever, but to have a more active involvement. The PhD (if it happens) will be a way of doing that in the medium-term hopefully, but after that - who knows?
This must break the record for my longest blog entry by miles, anyway I hope it's given you a taster of Moldova and my love of the place. I'll certainly be back there at some point - it's in my guts now. As will be some rather tasty Moldovan Reserve Merlot (£1.80 a bottle) before too long :D