Welcome To Moldova ! - Marisha

Welcome To Moldova!



A Cautionary Tale

By Eddie Barton (an Englishman)

Email: eddie.barton@btinternet.com

The story of my 12 day visit to Moldova and Transnistria (DMR/PMR) in May
2005 & return visit April 2006.

http://www.marisha.net
English, Române?te, ???????
Guidance (my site):
http://welcometomoldova.net/

Chapters 1 - 19 published on Marisha's site from October 2005 with high hit-
rate:
http://www.marisha.net/eddie-moldova.htm

Chapters 1 - 27 written in 2005. (Visa and registration requirements
simplified April 2006).
Moldovan/Romanian and Russian translations published on Google Blogger
September 2006.

English, Moldovan/Romanian and Russian translations on Marisha's site from
November 2007 by friends in the story, and longterm (pen)friend Ioana
Campean in Romania as follows:

WTM! Part 1 (Chapters 1 - 27) "Irka" (Irina) first translation (Irka's
first language is Russian) to chapter 20. Irka appears at La Taifas
restaurant and then the party at 129 Columna. Reviewed and improved by
Diana Valuta in Chisinau, Ioana Campean in Romania. I met Diana on second
visit.

WTM! Part 2 (Chapters 28 - 35) translated by Ioana Campean.
Chapters 1 - 35 available on Marisha's site November 2007.

WTM! Part 3 (Chapters 36 - 45) translated by Ioana Campean.
Chapters 1 - 45 available on Marisha's site October 2008

WTM! Part 4 (Chapters 46 - 61) translated by Diana Valuta
Chapters 1 - 45 available on Marisha's site February 2010

Russian translation by Anna Ustinova in Tiraspol, Transnistria / PMR. This
is the Anna in the book.

Ioana Campean is a professional translator and conference interpreter in
English and French, currently working in Cluj Napoca, Romania. Ioana is
also fluent in Polish (which she teaches at the Polish Cultural Center in
Cluj). Ioana continues to translate for major historical preservation and
restoration projects in Transylvania and is now also learning Hungarian.

Anna Ustinova graduated from Tiraspol University. Teaching English in
schools in Tiraspol for ten years. In July 2007, Anna gave birth to Fyodor
and is taking time off work to raise him.

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The Return (April 2006)


Margarita held my arm firmly and expertly as I slipped and skidded around
in the dark. How she could tell the firm from the muddy patches in the
broken tarmac I just didn't know. It was like holding onto a 16 stone
weight lifter. But 19 year old Margarita was smaller and lighter than me.

This was the first evening of my return visit to Moldova. I spent it with
very good company, mostly with Margarita's family who I had first come to
know in Moldova itself.

The rain was relentless. The light from apartment windows poorly
illuminated the misshapen ground on Chisinau's most northerly suburban
road. Now I knew why Marisha had said to take a taxi. "You sound annoyed" I
said after declining her suggestion. We were welcomed by Marisha at her
flat. Margarita politely declined offers of hospitality. She wanted to head
back immediately.

Eddie: "We should phone your mother to let her know you're coming back."
Margarita: "She isn't worried about me."

A smile played across her face. Her mother had made a fuss when I said I
was walking the 500 metres on my own. Margarita had cautiously tucked the
baggage label behind the zip on my green shoulder bag. Gazing up at me she
had seemed both happy and sad at the same time. Then her naturally pouting
lips firmed together, her big eyes looked bigger still and her sadness
faded away.

I had returned to make more sense of what had happened to me eleven months
earlier in May.

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Comments by penfriends in the story.

Eddie, thank you for the scripts. They are very nice. I want more !!!
Thank you for describing everything in a good way.
[On receiving three quarters of the book including the part which covered
her].

Really... I think you a have a good spirit of observation and a
counterbalanced critical sense. Also you are right in your observations and
conclusions and it is amazing for me. It's a real pleasure to follow an
outside point of view about your country. It makes you think differently
about some things. It's something that "openminds" you.

Didn't know you are writing a book about your trip to Moldova, wow, we will
all be famous! :) Good job! I loved what you wrote so far. [On reading the
first half of the book and impressed with the rest].

Your story is very interesting so for me it will be a pleasure to
translate.

I'm surprised at your new ideas. You want to become popular with your
writing. I like your ideas.

I like it very much. Great job done! Congratulations!

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WTM! Chapter 1

I squatted naked in a partly filled bath as the wooden doors of the
bathhouse were closed noisily and then secured. I had been taken to an
unknown location in the countryside outside Soroca and I guessed it was
about midnight. My clothes were behind the doors, my luggage had been taken
off me and the hire car was hundreds of yards away behind the locked gates
of another property. I wondered: "is the lowest point of my life ?" Nadina
had called this a sauna so I wondered whether masses of steam would come
pouring in from somewhere. I hated heat and I was trapped. Hurriedly I
washed myself. I thought if I am to be found in my underpants by the
Moldovan police at least I could be clean. I visualised my mother in front
of me with her head slightly on one side: "well, you have been a fool" she
said. I reflected on the evening's events.

I had signed out of the Hotel Nistru in Soroca and left with Nadina and
Sergiu who had somewhere
nicer for me to stay. I was a day early and Nadina hadn't expected my call.
Nadina was 18 and Sergiu, her cousin was I guess a little older. They were
smiling and directed me up Soroca's main road to a café on a corner. There
in a back room we all had something to eat and drink. They didn't eat much
and looked at me expectantly as we had a friendly discussion. After the
meal, I was directed down a long narrow unlit track towards some apartment
blocks. It was completely dark. Nadina disappeared to see her aunt but
returned to say that her aunt wouldn't have me. This was worrying. It was
11:15. "Don't worry" she smiled. "I have another aunt". I was then directed
to a shop. Nadina went in and seemed to spend an age in there. She
explained she had a friend or relative in the shop. In her emails, Nadina
had told me she had a lot of relatives. She returned and we headed out of
Soroca into the countryside. The journey seemed to go on and on.

Now very concerned I started to look for signs and landmarks I could
remember. All I could see
was the road. Eventually they told me to turn up a track and we headed for
an unlit one storey
house. Sergiu opened the gates and wanted the car keys. I said to Nadina:
"that's OK, I can drive
it in there". But Nadina said "there are hidden obstructions". I was deeply
unconvinced and
for a second looked to weigh up my options. But what choice did I have ?
Reluctantly I handed
over the car keys and got out of the car as requested. Sergiu drove the car
into the space behind
the gates. I walked over. "What obstructions ?" I couldn't see any. I
waited. "We need to take your
luggage" Nadina said.

The gates were closed and locked. They took my cases across what looked
like part of a field, not the track which we had driven up. It was pitch
black and I stumbled over the rutted ground. "Is it all to end here ?" I
thought. As I followed behind them I tried to visualise Nadina's face and
remember her words. She had been so sweet, so attentive, so apparently kind
throughout. Could such a nice girl really be so wicked ? It couldn't be
true. But in the history of the world such things have happened many times.
I certainly wasn't the first person to be taken in by such a sweet girl. In
any case she was part of a family group and she was expected to play her
part. They had been caught by surprise with my early arrival and hastily
had to make alternative arrangements.

As I washed myself, I wondered again whether they were gypsies. It might be
hard to tell as I had seen pictures of some Eastern European gypsies who
didn't look so very unusual.
I had found very little about Soroca on the internet. It did say however
that the gypsies live in an unmarked, undefined region on the top of a
hill. There was a brief article about a red haired girl called Anastasia
who had fallen into the clutches of these gypsies. They sold her into
prostitution in Russia. There predictably she had a truly terrible time
before escaping back to Moldova.

I had another penfriend called Alina who had come from Soroca and was an au
pair in Norway. She said her parents "live in a new region and there is not
yet an address". When I told Nadina this and that I had their phone number,
she said she'd contact them. Surely only gypsies would contact gypsies ? I
had posted Nadina a copy of "Playing The Moldovans At Tennis" (I comment on
this book later) but I didn't tell her I'd sent it. She didn't receive it.
With one exception (to be explained) where items were refused, all the many
items I'd sent to Moldova proper (excluding Transnistria) had been
delivered. So I'd tested out Nadina's credibility. She appeared to have
failed but my ego refused to believe it. Because of the doubts I'd had, I
phoned her three times. I hadn't phoned anyone else in Moldova at that
time. She had an American accent. She sounded very pleasant. I'd introduced
her to my quiet son, William born a few days after her. I read her very
nice helpful emails and believed I could trust her. I was now feeling very
mixed up.

Mixed up ? When I first contacted Nadina, she had just suffered some
terribl