March 2025. Bender. Transnistria/Moldova.
Yes, dangerously close to the Ukrainian border. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised us not to travel to Transnistria, a breakaway Moldovan territory without consular assistance or valid insurance, but Mrs RM insisted.
“It’ll be fine !” said our guide Lily, who then seemed to mislay her passport at the border, prompting quite a kerfuffle with a security guard.
“It’s nothing, just a parking fine” she assures me, before handing me her entire wad of identity cards and nipping off to the loos. I wonder if we’ll ever see her, or indeed be seen ourselves, again.
But she returns with a cheery “Those toilets are brand new !“, and I can see we’re dealing with a Moldovan Jane Stuart. And indeed, they were spectacularly smart (as were virtually all of Moldova’s loos).
We’re finally given a little ticket in Russian (I assume), which requires us to be back in Moldova by midnight or else conscripted into the Sheriff enterprise that dominates Transnistria. A bit like Roys of Wroxham dominate the Norfolk Broads, I guess.
And it’s to Sheriff we turn now, after parking up near the Church of Joaquim and Anna,
the military cemetery,
and the vast industrial complex next to Bender station.
We’d been the influence of Sheriff on everything from bakeries to a football team which recently won in Real Madrid, and Lily had sussed out her group were more interested in a Transinistrian supermarket than monuments to the dead,
and we needed to get some local rubles for our Untappd check-in lunch. I handed over $40 US I’d had in my wallet for 6 years and was wordlessly given back enough rubles to have bought ALL the alcohol on this shelf.
Sheriff No. 11 is the best looking supermarket I’ve ever been in, and I went in Ripon Booths last week.
I’m not sure if foreigners are brought here to be amazed at the bountiful products on display,
which stretched to a DIY caviar section.
I assume they use sturgeon for caviar ?
I won’t dwell too much on the meat counter,
but I was tempted by this authentic looking brandy for 39p,
before remembering I had craft beer to drink later.
retiredmartin 
Did “the vast industrial complex next to Bender station” remind you of the Carling towers in Burton upon Trent ?
And are those yellow labelled bottles “TIMBO”, a fake Wetherspoons beer ?
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It reminded me more of the giant Bass mirror factory in Wrexham Industrial Estate, Paul. Did you know Wrexham Industrial Estate has just acquired World Heritage status (same as that unpronounceable aqueduct on the other side of town).
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That meat looks like black pudding. Have your visits to breakaway territories included Northern Cyprus?
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Not yet, Jon. Have you been ?
I’d like to visit. Duncan the Pubmeister blogged about a taxi trip there.
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I have been to Cyprus twice but not the north, although my phone thought that I was there. I was using a hire car which couldn’t be taken across the border.
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Well of course it’s Sturgeon, they had to find some use for her once she left politics behind.
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