Upcoming project:
MOSCOW TO CHISINAU BY CAR

Expected time frame for the trip is March or April 2005. I intentionally started writing the story before having getting into the clutter of facts. Although specific bits of information will be added, I hope to accomplish something different. I am looking for an definition, not a description. Was it Roosevelt who defined Russia as "enigma within a mystery"? Or that Frenchman (Torquille?) who explored America's social landscape in 1830s and came up with people's tendency to respond problems by forming associations as the country's essence. In my own small way I also want to find a key, not to document details. Contributions of materials and quality thoughts is of course welcomed, as usual.

Why

The ostensible purpose is to deliver my old Renault, which served me and my clients for years and made hundreds of trips to Moscow airports, to its new home in Chisinau, where cheaper labour and higher mechanical expertise, plus Marisha's care, may add a couple years to its life. This travelogue is the main expected byproduct. And, as always, the hidden agenda lurking behind this whole undertaking is to promote travel in the ex-USSR space, and to get my humble travel and business support services noticed. And those of my associates support services available from me my and associates, most notably Marisha in Moldova and Olesya in Moscow.

The excuse, the reason, the hidden agenda. Add a simple wish to be heard, my arrogant belief that no less that 1% of verbiage I generate has some value of the sort that does not need or imply "for".

The planning stage

  The old atlas

February evenings suddenly became long after I gave up on drinking as a retaliatory measure against my closet competitor on the Russian rural tourism market, who kicked his chain-smoking habit that kept him busy coughing instead of stealing my share of the travel industry of the Village of Dubrovki. It is Thursday, Feb. 3, and I'm looking a road atlas trying to figure how to get from Moscow to Chisinau in the most informative and memorable yet not excessively adventurous way. Dachas - a social institute that must be appreciated and understood all the way down to its existnetial roots by anyone with a non-trivial interest in Russia - often serve as time capsules. Today the dacha chaos treated me with a late 70s atlas. A delightful product from the pre-commerce days. What's the appeal of the Atlas of Automobile Roads of the USSR in gray vinyl cover with a blue automobile of no discernible make? Of the thing itself and of the world that generated it? Perhaps it stands out becaue there is no sales message. No corporate sponsors. No levels of meanings, when a map for you is an advertisement for someone else. It does not scream for your attention the way I dare to say all modern products, from words to kitchen utensils to space shuttles do. It is there to be used when needed. It does not lay claim for your memory and attention. Hotels are marked but without mentioning their names or affiliation. Just "this town has a hotel". All 180 pages of this old atlas are there to show you how roads are laid out, plain and simple. A few photos - a waterfall in Karelia, a monument in memory of a tank battle in Kursk - are where advertisements would be now. Something low-key and obvious to break the monotony of pages and pages of maps, and perhaps show respect for PC as it was understood and practiced back then. Totally un-aggressive. I am growing towards appreciating the Brezhnev-era esthetics, when the middle age economic thinking co-existed and formed a unity with advanced technology and sophisticated minds.  Austerity of motivations plus a wealth of means - a unique combination of incompatibles that the Soviet world created and sustained. I do not know where this 1978 altlas came from. Unlikely but possible that my father used this atlas when we travelled by his sidecar-fitted Izh motorcycle to Ukraine and Moldova 30 years ago, when Moldova was called Moldavia and Chisinau Kishinev,

  Getting there

The "itinerary". I hate the word. I don't think it has a Russian equivalent, blessed be my mother tongue. The official translation is probably "marshrut" - a German concept that has made it into Russian, probably in Peter the Great's attempt to make Russia a European state. Although "put" ("way") seeks like an OK translation, stylistically proper Russian requires one to say something like "let's see how we can go". All option remain open at all times. No plan is assumed. Freedom.

That subtle and unique freedom that can perhaps only be found in the Russian part of the universe. Are there other such places? Let me know. Russia is losing it while my own need is growing. Yes, there is a second layer to my hidden agenda. I'm not the 70's travel guide with a few unobtrisive political messages. Selling you my services is just the surface, the pretext, the means. When done with the bulk of the story I'll perhaps add bookmarks and hyperlinks to make it easier for you to jump over my musings by going from one specific fact to another. My diversions off the main course will perhaps be played down in smaller gray letters. Was I financially independent it would be the other way around.

Call it plotting the itinerary. Still, in my inner language the process is described as "kind of seeing what can be sort of found between Moscow and Chisinau or anywhere I could conceivably end up". Kiev is a must. Some cities have a mind and a soul of their own. They integrate and digest people. Tribes and races come and are absorbed into the aura of such city which remains unchanged, or perhaps develops - but only for its own reasons. You may eat carrots and beans and potatoes and to-fu and perhaps even cute little animals - by you don't become them. Because you have life. Non-living things are a sum of what goes into them. Cities have a chance of having life. Rome is a classic. In this part of the world St. Petersburg is one of these entities that digest people rather than storing them. A place with a soul some would say. Curiously, I never heard a Russian attributing soul to a city. St. Petersburg has a soul but of a sick and/or evil sort. What else would you expect of a city build by a despot for no other reason that "to spite the arrogant neighbour", as Pushkin nicely defined it. But Kiev is not only alive but also warm and welcoming and smiling. On the level of vibes. Also, a trickle of information from there - eg. a book of philosophy essays with "printed in Kiev" on the back cover, a rural development conference, a witty posting on an off-center dating site, that sort of things - makes Kiev look as a livable place. It is tempting to compare Kiev to Moscow. No amount of electric lighting and flower beds will overcome the sort of bleakness and heaviness that almost define the city where I lives two lives in the course of my 40 years. Kiev is light. Not light-weighted though. The whole of Ukraine too. Or most of it. Perhaps not the coal-mining east, and certainly not the vampiric Lviv in the west but Kiev but anyone overdosed by Russia is certain to find Kiev refreshing.

Odessa is tempting. Robust, cynical, self-mocking part of the definition of Russia.

Kaluga, judging from the map, is unavoidable. Space museum, Tsiolkovsky - that's how travel guides define Kaluga. Tsiolkovsky was a school teacher obsessed with space travel.

Tula is another option. On the tourist scene it is famous for the estate of Count Tolstoy. Too much of a cult figure, this Tolstoy. Tula is also known for its Samovars (tea pots) and honey-cakes. Again, I fail to be inspired.

Both Kaluga and Tula, however, seem like quiet pleasant places, based on assorted bit of evidence that float by me.

Then Orel and Kursk on the Russian side, the Sumy, Poltava, and Nikolayev in the Ukrain, and I'm in Odessa, and the distance form Odessa to Chisinau is only 250km. What's more, the road goes through Tiraspol, the home of probably the best brandy bottled in anywhere in the ex-USSR territory. There, apparently, it sells for about half of its normal price. Once there I may allow myself to revert back to unabashed alcoholism for a week or two. While on the subject, I recommend two lemons per bottle of whiskey consumed overnight, with a cup of good tea between every couple of shots.

Good so far but it looks like I'll miss Kiev if I head straight to Chisinau, and Kiev is not to be missed. To get to Kiev one needs to go, it seems, through Kaluga and Bryansk, and then, on the Ukrainian side, Chernigov.

Chernigov sounds good. I remember wanting to but not making a detour there when travelling with my father in the 70s. The attraction was that Chernigov was supposed to be the birthplace of one of the main epic heroes of the Russian folklore and/or the site of their battle with the three-headed dragon.

Bryansk is too patriotic. Two many heroic guerrilla fighter - partisan - stories. Probably a tank on a pedestal every three miles. And a vandalized common grave in every village.

Straight Chisinau from Kiev, or a 400km detour to Odessa? 

It is not on the map but during my train trip to Chisinau last March I found myself in a place called Zhmerinka. Although the name is well-known from "Jewish" jokes I somehow never thought of the place as having simple physical and geographical reality. Weathered train station, babushkas with walnuts, apples, and fried fish. A press kiosks with newspapers folded to display the TV program. Whoever has it bigger gets bought. Real while I thought Zhmerinka was the same sort of a place as say "Timbuktu" but serves as the butt of Jewish jokes. The proverbial Jew from Zhmerinka uses his wit and displaying originality in thinking to achieve grotesquely trivial ends. A typical one is on a salesman who, upon arriving to Berdichev, finds himself compelled to visit a brothel. He is shy to ask where it is. So instead he stops a fellow Jew and asks where the local Rabbi lives. On hearing the address he exclaims "Impossible! How can a Rabbi live across the street from such a place!". The response is "No, the brother is at Lipovaya 17".

Incidentally, before embarking onto a serious exploration of Russia as a semantic space, learn to understand and acquire a taste for Russian jokes, especially those of the "surreal" style. You may want to see my collection of Russian Misery jokes in the Misery Tourism site. More links to Russian jokes rendered into English may soon be added, probably to my main Links page.

  Insurance

A note to myself:

Remember to check with the insurance people if the recently introduced liability coverage will work in the Ukraine and Moldova. Ask about Belarus too.

Yes, I am tempting to travel through a bit of Belarus - a place that attracts me for the same reason it appalls the rest of the world. I prefer systems where evil is has a clear location in space, time, and even particular person to those where badness is spread out evenly.

  Resources on the subject

Feb 8. My apartment in Moscow. Wedged myself between tenants. No wood stove, high-speed Internet - yes, and only one rat, thoroughly domesticated and humanize. Three days of bliss.

Now, let's do an Internet search to see what obstacles I should be ready for just weren't around in the 70s. 30 years ago there were no garages, no spare parts, no taxis, no throw-money-at-it solutions. But the problems where simple and of the physical sort. I suspect things are different now. I repeatedly hear that in the Ukraine the policemen are into minor extortion. These stories, however, always come from BMW-driving types organically incapable of sticking to any reasonable speed or understanding that road marking even in Russia and neighbouring states is there for a reason. Crossing what are now state borders may be an unpleasant experience. I had a sample of it when travelling by train. So let's check out the information space. See the results of my search under Related Resources

...Picked up a hitchhiker half-way between Tver and Moscow. Tolik turned out to be a Moldovan and a driver. Say horror stories no longer apply. No robberies, no extortion at border crossings.

But a few practical warnings. See [Entry ports] and [Re-exporting your car or else] based on my talk with Tolik. 

  Chernobyl

Now looking at the Ukraine page of the old road atlas in more detail. The famous Chernobyl seems to be sort of between Chernigov and Kiev. There is a need, however, to cross the Belarus border twice. Just in case let me establish a page for Chernobyl.

  xxxxx Kiev to Chisinau

Again looking at the map of Ukraine and Moldova. No real choice but to travel from Kiev straight down to Belaya Tserkov ("White Church"), and then to Uman. A detour through Gayvoron, Balta, and Kotovsk will take me to the road to Dubossary, a short way to Chisinau. Nothing on the map that rings any kind of bell after Kiev unless I travel to Odessa but that's probably 400-500km extra.

What is Moldova like, in one sentence

Place of exile... middle of nowhere....  Verse 8 of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin

The actual trip

  Packing

  Leaving Moscow

  Kaluga????

  ????

  ????

  ???

  Russian-Ukrainian border at .......

  Kiev

  Belaya Tserkov

  ???

  ????

  Ukrainian-Moldovan border at .....

  Ukrainian-Belarus border at ......

  Belarus-Ukrainian border again at ......

  Driving a Russian-registered by by a citizen of Moldova

Related resources

A page on my trip from Moscow to Chisinau and back by train in March 2004 is somewhere on www.marisha.net

Car trip to from England to Chrimea, Ukrain:
http://vinnitsa.blogspot.com. Greatly recommended for the wealth of specific information, clearly presented.

Cities along the way

in Russia

Kaluga

Bryansk

Orel

Kursk

Ukraine

Chernigov

Kiev

Chernobyl???

Odessa

Belarus?

.......

Moldova

Chisinau

Tiraspol

PLEASE POINT ME TO GOOD INFORMATION RESOURCES OR EVEN YET UNDOCUMENDED PLACES BETWEEN MOSCOW AND CHISINAU OR MOSCOW AND ODESSA!!

........