Hello again!
We left the winery and only travelled about 1.5 hours to our next destination. We stopped at a village on the way and had a walk there. Our car had all our gear in it so we parked it next to the only shop in town. As we were getting organised we saw this guy in a horse and cart hanging around outside. The hill he was on was a bit steeper than it looks in this photo and the horse kept moving downhill, presumably because the cart had no brakes. We weren't sure what he was doing but finally his wife came out of the shop with a bag of groceries. By this time the horse and cart were a fair way down the hill and she had to rush to get in before it got even further away!
We walked into the nearby rural area and it was lovely. We passed a few small vineyards and walked through patches of forest.
We found our next accommodation and it was on a bee farm! The adult son of the owners spoke English and showed us around. He knew a lot about the honey industry but, when we mentioned the honey we'd had in Greece, he seemed to think that Greece has no honey industry. This astounded us because we know that Greece has bees all over the country. I just googled it - Moldova puts out about 5,500 tonnes a year and Greece produces between 12,000 and 30,000 tonnes per year.....
He showed us how they put the frames into a centrifuge to collect the honey.
Our room there was really lovely - modern, spacious and spotlessly clean however two other families with little kids were there at the same time and the walls were pretty thin. We were serenaded by screams and yells at all hours and we fell asleep to the lullaby of kids' TV shows blaring through our walls.
We moved on again and thought we'd climb Moldova's highest mountain on the way. Sounds impressive doesn't it? Well Moldova's highest mountain is a whopping 430 metres above sea level. And, as Moldova is landlocked, you can't climb up it from the sea. The logical place for us to start was in a nearby village so we only climbed about 180 metres or so of vertical gain.
We passed this mud-and-stick hayshed along the track.
The Moldovan flag flapped proudly at the top. It seemed appropriate that a field of harvested sunflowers stood beneath it. We saw sooooo many acres of these!
A hiking trail passed through here. Part of the reason we came to Moldova was because we found a few hiking trails but it turned out that many of them just followed along the roads! Nonetheless, various grants were made to help fund the trail system. We have found these sorts of funding signs everywhere, even at what appear to be private properties. The last place we stayed at, the bee farm, was subsidised by something like four different organisations! We don't understand this when the profit goes to the owners, not back to the place that gave the funds.
Despite the blue skies, the weather was surprisingly cool. Daily maximums were in the teens and nights got quite cold. We weren't really expecting this.
I became a bit of a well-hunter. The wells here are so unique and their numbers are astonishing! They are decorated in many different ways. This one was covered in broken tiles, like a mosaic.
We pulled up in a village to eat our biscuits and cheese lunch that we bought from a supermarket and ate it next to this well. The A-frame cover kept things out that shouldn't fall into your drinking water.
One side of the sloping roof had a door for easy access to the water.
Teapot wells were really common. I only ever saw one with a spout though. I guess it gets in the way!
Occasionally we saw these huge lever-type wells. Sorry for the bad photo taken through the windscreen of the moving car. I'm not sure why they need to be this big. Maybe I'll learn by the end of the trip.
Something we started to see a lot of as we headed south were these shrines. They always had Jesus on the cross, he was often encased in glass and there was usually a curved roof over the whole thing, protecting it from the elements.
A well and a shrine together! Bonus!
We were starting to realise that we had maybe allowed a bit too much time in Moldova. It's certainly interesting but the difficulty in communicating made it hard to understand much about the people or the country. And, if I have to be honest, it's not like there are a gazillion sights to see. We decided to see if we could change our flights and leave earlier, but the only way I could communicate with Turkish Airlines (apart from calling and how do you think that would go when so few people speak English?) was to email them and they didn't respond. Looks like we have to do our time here!
We drove into the town of Hancesti to see the Manuc Bey Palace. Built in the 1800's it was an extravagant waste of money as it wasn't maintained and soon fell into disrepair. It's now been restored and, for Moldova, is a very impressive building.
The furniture in the huge rooms was actually more impressive than the rooms at times!
I see you, you see me, I see you.......
Not a bad place to sit and smoke your hookah!
Underneath the building was a hammam. Nearby, a tunnel led a long way to the servants' cottage so meals could be delivered without getting cold and wet above ground!
Even more interesting though was the Hunting Lodge. Looking like something from a scary movie, this building was close to the palace but was such a different style!
The staircase must have been impressive in its day.
If you look closely at these tapes over a large crack in the wall, they all have the same date written on them - 17/12/24. My guess is that they're measuring any movement of the crack. So far, there hasn't been a lot of movement in the last 10 months but that middle tape looks like it's starting to feel some pressure!
An election billboard. It's pretty clear what someone thinks of this party! (That's Putin working the puppets.)
More gold domes on a church.
We saw large paddocks of corn being mechanically harvested but this one was being done by hand - lots of hands.
I'm continually fascinated by the variety of transport in a country where cars are a luxury. This three-wheeled vehicle is a lot like the ones we see in Greece.
Rotary hoes are often used as well. Check out the luxurious addition of the car seat!
We even saw the occasional motorbike and side car!
Heading south, we entered Gagauzian territory. The Gagauzian people have an interesting history. They were originally from Turkey but, strangely, were Orthodox Christians, not Muslins. There seems to be no clear knowledge of their history but they don't speak Romanian (Moldova's official language) - they speak an old form of Turkish and Russian! They consider themselves to be separate from the rest of the Moldovan people and, at one stage, tried to be independent from Moldova.
We pulled up at our accommodation, in the town of Congaz, just as part of a wedding ceremony was going on right near us! We quickly checked in, took our bags to our room and came back out, just as it was finishing : ( We somehow got talking to another guest there. He was from Moldova but living in the US so he spoke English, something that's pretty rare around here. He and his wife were there for the wedding. He wasn't from Gagauzia so the ceremony was new to him. He said that this part of it seemed to be about the groom meeting the wife's family. There was a bit of dancing in a circle and much clapping to the music. Then the couple drove off in a convertible - with the mother in law in the back!
On our first morning, one of the staff members came up to us and handed us a note. We were really confused. It wasn't addressed to anyone but it was written by someone called Sasha. It took a few minutes before the penny dropped - it was from the American Gagauzian guy we had met at a previous winery! Once we realised who it was, the staff then handed us a gift bag. Inside were two jam jars of Sasha's father's homemade divin (the local cognac)!
During the big night we had together at the winery where we shared a lot of wine and divin with Sasha and his friends, Sasha had told us that his father had been aging some special divin for many years in preparation for Sasha's wedding. It was being aged in barrels and would be pretty amazing. The problem is that Sasha is around 30 years old and he has no plans of getting married at this stage!
Since we saw Sasha he had come home to visit his parents in Comrat, a town about 20 minutes from where we were staying. He had got the divin and driven it to the place we would be coming to in a few days. How amazing is that?
The alcohol was something like 70% proof! Apparently, it was very good!
We had two days here and got to know a couple of the staff. Our favourite was a lovely little old lady, who maybe wasn't that old at all. She always yabbered brightly to us in Russian and we had no clue what she was talking about. One day the owner, who could speak a little English, told her we were from Australia. She thought we meant Austria. She had no idea where Australia was. We had to get a map and show her. Hmmm, not a lot of education there!
I wish I had taken a photo of her but I came down with a rotten cold here and I wasn't on the ball really.
Before I got too sick, we went for a walk around the back streets of the town. It's sometimes just as interesting to see how everyone really lives than it is to see the sights, not that there are many sights here, lol.
Everyone had brightly coloured metal fences and most houses had a seat outside, which I thought was lovely. I'm quite sure that people on one side of the road would sit in the sun in the morning and people on the other side would sit on their seats in the afternoon.
Look closely at the framework on that circle on the ground. Is that old tank tracks?
Sometimes the Moldovan tourist things are too tacky for us. Welcome to Gagauzia Land!
By now I wasn't up to doing a walk so I dropped John off an hour or so from our place and he walked home. This area was a steppe - the high plains that are more well known for dominating parts of Russia' Ukraine, etc.
I drove back along a large stretch of steppe. The flat land was all cultivated and the large horizons were really cool.
We had heard that Gagauzian food is supposed to be very delicious. We guessed there would be some Turkish influence in it and we love Turkish food! Unfortunately, we soon learned that the only restaurant open in our town was the place where we were staying! The food was ok but nothing special and it was very expensive compared to elsewhere. Oh well!
The hotel owner seemed to be thrilled that she had Australians staying there and when we left she gave us a fridge magnet and some spices. It was a lovely thought.
We visited a Gagauzian museum nearby. The people there were friendly but didn't speak a word of English and none of the descriptions were in English. The lady who ran the museum took it upon herself to show us around. Using Google translate she showed us around the whole museum, explaining all the parts that she thought would interest us. It was probably more than we needed but it was very interesting nonetheless. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take photos - or at least until we were finished then the lady wanted to take photos of us, on both her phone and ours! This is John signing the guest book. I felt like we were signing something really important when we had to pose for photos, lol
Our lovely guide (with the help of Google translate).
We got into the car, drove a hundred metres or so, then heard a suspicious noise. We had a flat tyre! We were in a village and there was plenty of space to stop and change it over. While we were changing it, a young man turned up. He asked if we needed help. We didn't, but did he know where we could get the tyre fixed? We only had a space saver spare and didn't want to go too far. He made a phone call then told us to follow him. He led us down a rocky lane and we turned again and again, going around the back of old, largely abandoned buildings. I made a joke to John that a group of people were going to be waiting for us ready to rob us. We knew that wasn't the case but our radars were up just in case.
He led us to a shed beside a huge abandoned enclosed basketball court - of course!
The mechanic soon turned up (he had been having his lunch). He opened the shed and there was all the mechanical repair things you'd expect to see anywhere. He fixed the tyre in no time and showed us some of his collection of vintage motorbikes with side cars that he was restoring. This was all done with no common language!
The time came to pay. This is always the part where the tourist gets ripped off. His price? Six dollars. Wow. That speaks volumes to me about the low wages here. He would have spent 20 minutes doing the work plus he had all the equipment to finance. We gave him $7. Just as we went to leave, he came out again and gave us a large Coke bottle full of home-made red wine! The people in this area have been so lovely!
While this was going on, we received an email from the place we were booked to stay that night. A pipe had burst and had flooded the rooms out. They couldn't take any guests! The guy was really helpful and recommended somewhere else to stay but we're pretty sure it had no heating and, with my cold progressing, I needed to keep warm at this stage. The weather was pretty cold. The new place wasn't answering emails and it was a long way to drive if we weren't going to stay there. We sat on the side of the road working out what to do. I hunted around for a comfortable apartment and we found one in a town we wanted to visit but it was in the opposite direction to where we had been planning to go. We abandoned any idea of going south like we were supposed to and headed north go the apartment instead.
To top if off, we found out than my mum went into hospital this day. With my brother currently working in the top end of Western Australia, and me here, it was lucky a good friend of mum's was able to do all the running around at home.
It was cold and a bit wet but as we settled into the warm apartment, I saw this rainbow from our apartment window. Life can't be too bad!
That evening we rugged up and went to find somewhere to eat. There was only one restaurant/cafe type of place but the girls there were lovely and the food was delicious! We went back to our apartment and I didn't set foot outside again for two days. It was cold and miserable outside and I was well and truly full up with a cold but it was warm and comfortable inside. John was my hero and went out for whatever food he could find. We had pies for lunch and cheese and biscuits for dinner. Not exactly warm and nourishing but it'll do!
A friend of mine from home sent through the Moldovan election results before we saw them locally. Thanks Bee! I found this map really interesting because the results clearly showed the areas of different people in Moldova.
There were two main parties. In a nutshell, one party leans towards Europe and the other party leans towards Russia.
The red areas on the map are the ones that voted for the Russian-leaning party. The red section along the eastern edge is Transnistria, the region that we couldn't travel to as it's considered to be unsafe. The Transnistrians are closely aligned with Russia and don't want to be a part of the rest of Moldova, hence the unrest there.
The red area in the south is Gagauzia, where we just were. These are the Russian-speaking people of Turkish descent. (Gosh, it's a confused world we live in sometimes, isn't it?) So naturally, these Russian-speaking and Russian-aligning people voted for the Russian-leaning party.
We didn't go to the very north so I don't know why there's a red area there!
We didn't go to the very north so I don't know why there's a red area there!
The yellow areas voted for the Europe-leaning party. Many Moldovans are keen to join the EU and the EU is keen to have them. If Moldova aligned with Russia it would effectively bring Russia closer to Europe's borders.
We reluctantly left our cosy apartment and moved on as we had bookings. Our first stop was at a church with a really interesting history.
The church was built under Ottoman rule. The Ottomans allowed churches to be built, so long as they were no higher than a a soldier on horseback holding a spear! This was to ensure that no church was higher than a mosque. Subsequently, a lot of the church is underground. So it's a lot larger inside than it looks.
From the outside it looks very simple.
In 1763, the inside was lined with amazing frescoes. Sadly, these were seriously damaged when the abandoned church was later used as a place to smoke meats for a while! The church has now been renovated, again with US aid. The frescos seemed to be getting restored.
The outside was so plain that when I stepped inside it was like stepping into a world of colour.
When we changed our plans and skipped the far south, we had a few days to fill in and John wanted to go to another winery for one night. What a surprise! The distances weren't great between our stops here and it wasn't long before we reached Chateau Purcari, back on the Ukraine border but this time in the south east. We booked into a tour and wine tasting and joined five others from Ireland, Romania and Moldova. The tour was pretty good but a new thing for us was these huge amphorae that they're using to make different wines, including orange wines, which we detest!
We got on really well with the Romanian couple and we had dinner with them. Somehow the bottles of wine kept flowing and the hours ticked by. We had a rough night's sleep and I had a bit of a headache the next day!
Our last stop was at a lovely country BNB run by a very competent young woman. We had the whole place to ourselves which was lovely. There was a problem with the heating in our room though which wasn't ideal as I was trying to get over my cold and John was starting to come down with it. Groan...
Our young host was busy with paperwork. She was applying for grants to add a 'wellness zone' to the place, by putting in a spa and sauna! I wonder which country will be giving good money for this hugely important project (sarcasm intended!)?
The family had bought an old house and turned it into accommodation. It was all decked out with traditional furnishings. They seemed to have a thing about having embroidered curtains over every doorway. We were always ducking our heads to walk through them!
Some of the embroideries had clearly taken a lot of work.
They had a small museum on the property and it was surprisingly interesting, mainly because Madalina, the young host, was happy to relate relevant local traditions to her own family history.
Traditionally, families that were wealthy enough had a special "craft room". Crafts are the things that a woman makes for her married life - rugs, towels and pillows. Towels are used for all sorts of things - as blankets and everyday use as well as ceremonial and religious purposes. It is estimated that a woman needs 160 towels in her lifetime. To make 160 towels you first must have the sheep, then you shear them, then you spin the wool, then you weave the item. You can imagine how costly and time-consuming this is.
A craft room.
It was also essential to have lots of rugs.
Madalina's grandmother fell pregnant to a man before she was married. I didn't get the impression that a baby outside of wedlock was all that scandalous. The problem was the Madalina's grandmother was poor. She didn't have enough crafts. So the man's mother wouldn't let him marry her, yet she later allowed him to marry another woman who already had children. The difference is that the second lady was wealthy. Madalina's grandmother never married. She stayed at home with her parents and raised Madalina's mother. It's so sad and so senseless.
This is a roll of woven hemp. It's used for cleaning. Apparently, the woman cuts off how much she needs then uses that piece for a while. When it's no longer any good, she throws it away and cuts off another piece. It's the original paper towel roll!
The family had recently built a large cellar to hold preserved fruits and wines. Apparently they mostly drink the juice that the fruit is kept in. Building an entire cellar for what is effectively a shop seems a bit extreme. I bet they got a grant for that too!
We were then shown the original cellar for the house. An entrance led from one of the rooms.
The cellar was painted that same blue that we keep seeing everywhere. Apparently it is a colour that was cheap and readily available so lots of people used to use it.
It's been really weird filling in time before our flight. I don't recall us ever having allowed too much time to see a country before but I have to be honest and say that there's not a real lot to see here as such. It's been great to understand a little about this part of the world though. It's still a lot like 'old Europe' with a touch of Soviet austerity. The people don't seem particularly warm to start with, but they get a lot better once you get to know them a bit more.
It's also been a bit hard as there's so much going on at home. Mum's still in hospital but she's improving, which is wonderful. On a much happier note, my niece just gave birth to a 9.5 pound baby girl! All are well. My brother is now a grandfather, I'm now a great-aunt and my parents are great-grandparents! Woohoo!
Heather and John
