Adventures in Transnistria (part 1)...

Tiraspol’s railway station is rather grand, and utterly wasted on the few trains that serve it, but like a surprising number of stations at home, it is a little way from the centre, at the end of a tree-lined avenue. I had a sense of where I was going though, and headed in the direction of the centre of town. This took me past a rather attractive monastery, and then I blundered across the Tourism Information Centre. Now I would admit to not having expected to find such a thing, but there it was, so I went in, in search of a city map.

My sense is that, whilst it was apparently staffed by three women, as they were all sitting in the side office, they didn’t expect to be very busy. However, seeing me standing there, one of them came out to greet me and, upon my request, handed me a colour photocopied sheet of A4 with a map of Tiraspol on one side, and some useful information. She talked me through some of the things to see and do - mostly see, in truth - including the war memorial. Transnistria commemorates three wars, World War II, the Afghan War and the War of Independence against Moldova. It was explained in a matter of fact sort of way, as though I should not be in the least surprised. I was also offered a chance to buy some souvenirs, but as I hadn’t actually been anywhere yet, I opted to wait until later.

Equipped with a map, I set off to explore the delights of Tiraspol. It doesn’t take very long, although what there is is interesting in a kind of bemusing way. The big Soviet style buildings, with Russian flags on, the enormous Russian consulate building, far bigger than you would think it ought to be, and the armoured personnel carrier that commemorates the victory of the “evil Moldovans”. There is even a consulate building (above a shop) shared by the representatives of North Ossetia and Abkhazia, neither of which is recognised by anyone either.

The other thing which is interesting is the dominance of the Sheriff Group in the Transnistrian economy. according to Wikipedia;

Sheriff owns a chain of petrol stations, a chain of supermarkets, a TV channel, a publishing house, a construction company, a Mercedes-Benz dealer, an advertising agency, a spirits factory, two bread factories, a mobile phone network, the football club FC Sheriff Tiraspol and its newly built Sheriff Stadium.

I can testify to a lot of that, and they also now appear to operate gyms/fitness centres, if the adverts showing various muscly men and women are anything to go by. The football stadium complex was rather impressive, a modern facility with what looked like a decent-sized capacity.

What you probably don’t want to ask too much is, where does the money come from to pay for all of this stuff. Transnistria has a population of less than half a million, so one can only presume that the Sheriff Group effectively controls much of the economy and that its relationship with the government is a strong one, or at least has been in the past.

I popped into one of their supermarkets to buy some snacks, and found it to be well-stocked with familiar brands. Clearly, Transnistria is not clinging on to communism despite retaining the hammer and sickle on the flag. The chocolate was Lithuanian, the crisps manufactured by Lays, a brand familiar to Americans. I didn’t seem to attract any attention, or even much interest.

It was time to see one of the most famous attractions in Transnistria. First, I needed to catch a trolleybus...