Transnistria National Day & Gagauzia Tour

Sunday 30th August – Chisinau, Moldova

• Arrive at your own leisure into Chisinau, the capital of Moldova. It is well connected with many European and Middle Eastern countries and the Caucasus. Self-transfer to our centrally located Soviet hotel. Pre-tour accommodation can be arranged for your convenience (for a fee).
• Pre-tour meeting will be held at the lobby of our hotel at 6:30pm to discuss tour itinerary and to meet your fellow travellers and YPT guide.
• We’ll then head out for dinner and, for those willing, to experience Chisinau’s nightlife.

Monday 31st August – Chisinau, Moldova

• At 9am, meet our local Chisinau guide and start our city walking tour of Chisinau. We’ll visit the abandoned National Hotel, see one of the most stunning monasteries in the city which was thankfully spared destruction under Communism, see the infamous city prison which has been declared a breach of human rights, amongst other things.
• We’ll see the enormous World War II Memorial and climb some tanks and surface to air missiles at the Military Museum!
• Visit the local flea market, great for antiques and Soviet kitsch!

Afternoon

• After lunch at a local Moldovan restaurant, we’ll give you the chance to explore the capital city of Europe’s least visited country at your own pace. This is a great chance to visit the national museum of Moldova, walk out of town and see the brutalist architecture masterpiece that is the partially abandoned Chisinau city circus (also the first circus in the entire USSR) or see the impressive Komsomol monument from the Soviet-era.
• We’ll later head up the abandoned National Hotel, which was a former InTourist Hotel during the Soviet times to catch the sunset over Chisinau.
• Dinner and drinks in the evening at the best steakhouse in town, and cheapest in Europe!
• Overnight in Chisinau

Tuesday 1st September – Chisinau – Bendery – Tiraspol, Transnistria

Morning

• Breakfast at our hotel
• At 9:30, we’ll meet our Transnistria fixers and depart for the 1.5 hour ride to the breakaway republic of Transnistria. YPT will deal with all permits, border formalities and conversations with the Transnistrian KGB/MGB.
• We will first arrive in the second biggest city in Transnistria, the war torn frontier town of Bendery. In Soviet times, Bendery was USSR-famous for its high-quality shoemaking, sewing and food-processing industries, electric cables and silk production. Many of those companies function today.
• Whilst in Bendery, we’ll check out the city hall which has been left exactly as it was during the civil war and is still filled with bullet holes.
• We’ll continue walking down the main street until we arrive at Lenin Park. We will see the main fountain and the bust of Lenin before going into the local cinema which is largely unchanged since Soviet times, except Mission Impossible is playing instead of Soviet propaganda.
• We’ll then reach the train station, renovated and well maintained. It seems like a ghost town because only a few trains stop here, and there are almost no passengers. Besides the train station is an old Soviet train from WWII with the hammer and sickle on the front.
• For lunch, we’ll stock at “Stolovka CCCP”, a recent project by a local restaurateur. Passionate about good food and Soviet relics he made this trendy canteen a real museum full of objects getting you back in time.

Afternoon

• After lunch, we’ll transfer to Tiraspol and check-in into our hotel.
• We’ll then visit the legendary Wine & brandy distillery KVINT”, which was established back in 1897. It was one of the most famous “cognac” brands in the
  former USSR. Today, it is a modern company investing in planting new vineyards and diversifying its products with a new series of excellent wines. During the visit, you will acquainted with a process of local cognacs (aka divins) making, see distillery’s infrastructure and have the opportunity to taste five different brandies aged from 8 to 15 years.
• We’ll then head for dinner and drinks at 7Fridays
• Carry onto our favourite craft brewery joints in town and possibly onto Russian styled clubs, who knows!
• Overnight in Tiraspol

Wednesday 2nd September – Tiraspol – Transnistria National Day!

Morning

• We start early and grab coffee and breakfast, before heading at 8:45am to the Surovov square to grab a good spot to see the National Day celebrations.
• Usually the 2-hours ceremony consists of a layer of flowers at the Military Glory Memorial, a Military Parade and Mass Performance at the central Suvorov
  square. The general of the Transnistrian army will first greet his units and will receive Russian war cries in response. Afterwards, the troops will march past in formation and you will see everybody from the special forces and presidential protection squads to the secret police and elegantly dressed female soldiers.
• There will be no western journalists here, so remember to bring your camera! We will also witness the speeches of the Transnistrian President and Russian Diplomats from Moscow.
• After the ceremony, the central 25th October street becomes a place for expositions, public festivities, concerts, open-air restaurants and pleasant walks.
• We’ll enjoy this special atmosphere during our city tour, during which we will see the North Korean style statue of Russian General Suvorov. Surrounding it are the flags of Russia, Transnistria and the breakaway brotherhood states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
• Have your picture taken in front of a giant crest of Transnistria featuring the hammer and sickle!
• We’ll see the Parliament, housing one of the biggest statues of Lenin outside Russia, and visit the Eternal Flame Memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet-Afghan war, WW2 and the Transnistrian civil war. We’ll check out the battle damaged T-34 monument to WW2: it’s permitted to climb on it and get an awesome photo.
• We’ll then walk down the other end of main street which has a billboard of former President Smirnoff: The warlord who turned president for almost twenty years. We’ll see the embassies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the foreboding HQ of the infamous Sheriff organization and stop at a bookshop to pick up some Russian and Transnistrian nationalist paraphernalia, a mug of Stalin or a fridge magnet of ICBMs firing across the atmosphere, why not?
• We’ll also stop at the flea market in Tiraspol, here it’s possible to buy all kinds of Soviet antiques for rock bottom prices. You never know what you will find!

Afternoon

• For lunch, we’ll head to Casa Karaman, a traditional village house where local enthusiasts opened in 2017 a rural house-museum that gives an insight into the rural living of the 20th century. The visit is proceeded with a typical local meal (outdoor or indoor) accompanied with a homemade wine in a friendly family (extra charge: 10 euros).
• We’ll then switch it up and board an old Soviet ferry without an engine and cross the Dniester river to see how the village people live across from Tiraspol. This is an area truly lost in the USSR!
• We’ll visit a still functioning palace of culture with an enormous head of Lenin outside, pockmarked with Kalashnikov bullet holes after Moldovan troops symbolically executed him during the civil war.
• You’ll then visit a stunning and completely self sufficient monastery complex that has to be seen to be believed. We know many of the priests there and sometimes they allow us to sample their incredible homemade wine.
• Pay a visit to a local store which hasn’t changed since the USSR and still uses an abacus to calculate the total. Here we’ll stock up on $3 Kvint Cognac (One of the best Cognacs in the Soviet era), $1 Vodka and local smoked cheese.
• We then head to a stunning viewpoint and Soviet obelisk that was one of the most brutal battlefields during WW2. In the Russian speaking world, it’s respect to the dead to raise a shot of Cognac or Vodka in their honour and we’ll do just that!
• We’ll return to Tiraspoland enjoy dinner.
• Fireworks display in the evening, there is the option to go to a local bar or disco to continue the party well into the night.
• Overnight in Tiraspol.

Thursday 3rd September – Tiraspol – Comrat, Gagauzia

Morning

• After breakfast, we will leave Transnistria, stopping at the final Sheriff store on the border to exchange our Transnistrian rubles and buy some souvenir Kvint cognac before we re enter Moldova and head South to Comrat, the capital city of the Gagauzian Republic, who as opposed to Transnistria, made peace with the central authorities after a brief civil war in the 1990s.
• Gagauzia is populated by the Gagauz people; they’re Turkic Christians who have remained here since the conquests of the Ottoman empire. They speak their own distinct language and have a very unique culture. This is the only place in the world to see a Lenin statue opposite a statue of Ataturk!
• After the 1.5 hour journey, we will stop for photos at the welcome to Gagauzia sign before we arrive in Besalma, a village founded in 1791.
• We’ll visit to the world’s first museum of Gagauz culture and life. Here, you’ll see hundreds of exhibits of artistic and spiritual value from the Gagauzians who lived in Moldova for the last two centuries. The most valuable item in the museum is the collection of original films produced during the Gagauzian colonisation of the steppe of Bugeac.

Afternoon

• For lunch, we’ll stop at a local restaurant before continuing on to Comrat.
• We’ll explore downtown Comrat, seeing the stunning cathedral, a huge statue of Lenin, the Afghanistan war memorial and the national museum of Gagauzia.
• End the evening in a farmhouse partying Gagauzia style! Expect the locals to join in as YPT groups are the only foreigners to ever visit this isolated village.
• For those who wish to return to the hotel early, we will have a team of local drivers waiting at the farm to transfer people.
• Overnight in Comrat hotel

Friday 4th September – Comrat – Chisinau

Morning

• Breakfast and free morning to relax or explore the town for last minute gifts or photos before we head back to Chisinau via the one and a half hour private bus ride.

Afternoon

• Once arriving in Chisinau, we’ll have lunch
• Tour concludes – YPT can assist with onward travel advice or accommodation