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Hi JohnOdd,

I believe ajb is on the road, so in case he can't reply soon, here's the excert from his last trip to Eastern Europe related to Transdniestr :

Quote:

I then travelled to Trandsdneistr a couple of days ago which was, well... not amusing. At the "border" I was ordered off the bus with my bag and told to stand up against a wall that looked like it had been used by a firing squad! Then about 5 million soldiers took it in turns to look through my passport, after which one of them took it and walked away. After about half an hour he came back and asked me loads of questions, then I had to go and speak to someone else who asked me all the same questions again. After they were both happy I had to go to another room and fill in a 2 page form that was in very badly written english so I have no idea what I was actually meant to write and I made half of it up anyway. I then had to wait while they discussed how much to charge me to enter, after paying it they informed me I had to register with the passport office in Tiraspol within 3 hours. There went my plans to visit Bendery on the way.

So I get to Tiraspol, find the passport office and it's absolute bedlam. There are hundreds of people all over the place and about 5 different queues, all at least a couple of hours long. As everything was in Russian I had no idea where to queue and couldn't find anyone who could help me, so I decided to forget about it and go find somewhere to stay. Having done that I went back and found someone who told me in broken English to go to a particular police station where they could do it much faster. I did this and finally got registered (after paying another fee and filling in 2 more forms). I then tried to find a cash machine, only to be told there are none, so I'm living off bread and water until I get to Ukraine.

Anyway, I'm now here legally (I think) and it is seriously cool. The "capital" isn't even really a city, like a small town in the UK. It's got such a soviet feel to it though, it really is like a huge outdoor museum. Tomorrow I leave for Odessa, Ukraine. I'll let you all know how that border crossing goes

Have a great time in Moldova !

:cheers: