Moldova and Transnistria

Turn up in Galati, Romania on the border with Moldova late at night. I had hastily arranged someone to stay with through couchsurfing, so hastily in fact that I didn't really take the time to check his profile/references. Costel is there at the station waiting for me, an interesting looking character, early 50's, shaggy and badly dressed, wearing a funny hat. He also has a pronounced limp, and his left hand is hook shaped and mangled. He seems like a really genuine fella though, in the bus to his house we talk of chess and sci-fi, literature and computer games. Arrive at his flat, it's bare and grotty but seems comfortable enough, Costel is unemployed and it's clear that he's not interested in keeping his ramshackle flat clean and tidy. I don't care as long as I can get some sleep. He has a fridge but it's wide open and switched off, I ask why and he tells me that he has no food to put in it. He does have a shiny new computer, it seems that his world is lived entirely through the Internet, he talks about his computer enthusiastically. We sit down and play chess.


He tells me about his time in the army in the 80's. He was posted as a border guard and got caught in a skirmish with Soviet guards on the Moldovan border, taking a bullet to the head. He takes off his hat to reveal that the back of his head is basically gone, there's a big hole. After this incident he spent 10 years as a hermit recuperating, becoming bitter and resentful and estranged from his family. He admits that the brain damage has left him insane, he frequently talks about killing pigs with a hammer. I notice his knife collection, his violent video games and gulp, it's basically perfect horror movie material. Maybe I'll end up in his fridge...still he is kind and welcoming, he kicks my arse at chess (he is one of Romania's highest ranked players on chess.com) and does all he can to make me feel at home. He goes to his room to play his games and I fall asleep still a little uneasily on the sofa. In the middle of the night I'm woken to a crash! He has fallen over my backpack in the dark going to the kitchen and onto the sofa. For a second I nearly shit myself!! I thought my serial killer fears were coming true. He apologises and I manage to sleep through the rest of the night. In the morning he offers me what little bread he has and goes a long way to help me get to the border. He's been nothing but the perfect host, interesting and hospitable, giving me everything of what little he has. I feel guilty for thinking badly of him, I guess I watched too many horror movies.

Start to walk the last few kilometres to the border and get picked up by a kindly couple who take me across. I try unsuccessfully for a couple of hours to hitchhike to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, but eventually resign myself to taking the bus.


It's only a couple of euro anyway. I wait at a small cafe, eat my first borsch of my trip. Moldova already feels much more Russian, people speak Russian as a second language and Cyrillic is common on street signs. The country has been involved in a tug of war between Russia and Romania for decades, and is currently leaning more toward Romania and Europe, though being in the USSR as it was (Romania wasn't) there is a large Russian influence. The cafe is owned by a large babushka type, with two young, pretty daughters that do the waitressing. The babushka keeps pushing one of them, Khristina, in my direction and smiling at me. When I go to pay she points at my empty soup bowl and says 'harosho?' (It means 'good') I say da. Then she gestures at her daughter Khristina and again says, 'harosho?' with a cheeky wink, again I say da. Then she beckons Khristina over, places her in front of me and says 'hochesh?' (It means 'you want') shocked I hesitate for a second and say 'nyet spassiba' with a smile, leave a generous tip and shuffle out feeling bemused.

The bus leaves with only me on board, this is going to be a breeze I think, stretching out luxuriously on the back seat. This illusion is quickly shattered. First by the state of the 'highway' (I tried to do some writing but ending up stabbing myself in the leg with my pen) and secondly by the driver proceeding to pick up every man and his dog from various villages and the side of the road. Pretty soon I'm confined to the corner, pressed in tight with my backpack sitting heavily on my lap. The bodies, backpack, 35 degree heat and lack of aircon make for very sweaty balls indeed. What should be a pretty regulation 200km journey is quickly becoming the bus ride from hell. Still, I'm able to enjoy the Moldovan countryside slipping by outside my window, the undulating, fertile fields of sunflower and vine punctuated by rusty, hulking relics of soviet industry. Just as I imagined Moldova would look! Eventually arrive at the bus station in Chisinau, 6 hours later, feeling sweaty and uncomfortable. The bus station is conveniently located miles away from the city centre. Great. I ask a few fellow passengers for advice on how to get into the city, get mostly confused looks and a shrug.


Don't think English speakers are too common here. Find a couple of friendly Russians (!) who seem to find my attempts at speaking their language rather cute and offer to share a cab. They refuse to let me pay and shake my hand warmly, wishing me luck. I don't have anywhere to stay and it's getting late so I find a cafe for wifi to try to organise a hostel. Turns out there are only two in the city, one is full. Book the other and try to talk to Ninna but some truly horrific karaoke session begins, I get out of there. Find my way to the hostel, which turns out to be the best hostel I've ever been in. The guy there is insanely helpful, he takes great joy in finding train and bus tickets, advice and warnings for Transnistria. All the rooms are in the basement (the 'bunker') and is decorated with kitsch communist regalia.


Don't get much time to see Chisnau, I leave for Transnistria early the next day. Getting a bit nervous as we approach the border, I've read stories of bribery and people being locked up on suspicion of espionage. The situation at the moment appears pretty stable though and after a couple of questions (a few about my dad for some reason) I'm waved on. Pass under the huge hammer and sickle at the border post and I'm in. We arrive in the second town of Transnistria, humorously named Bender. The bus station is straight out of the 60's and is strangely deserted.


Grab another borsch and am served by a jolly babushka who gives me smiles and lots of free bread. This place isn't so scary at all! My lonely planet is from 2006 when things were much more tense and had warnings to stay away, stories of rampant bribery and arrest for speaking English, deemed to be 'subversive behaviour.' I see no evidence of this and immediately relax, walking around the town and market, getting fresh milk from ladies selling from carts on the street and buying sweets from the soviet style market.


It really does feel like I've gone back in time about 30 years. Despite officially being part of Moldova this is a breakaway territory, a frozen conflict from the breakup of the USSR. When Moldova declared its independence Transnistria refused to join it, preferring to stay loyal to Russia. There was a brief but brutal war, and backed by the Russians the region got a quasi independence, recognised by no one. It's a black hole of corruption and communism, having been unwilling and unable to move on from Soviet times. It feels more Russian than Russia, many Russians come here for nostalgic reasons, to experience the old days of the USSR. There are hammer and sickles everywhere, inspirational 'workers unite slogans and statues of Lenin.


Every hour there's a message over the loudspeakers, I hear the word 'roboty' mentioned a lot (it means 'work') I guess they are some kind of communist urgings. Walking around I come to an army checkpoint at the bridge over the Dniestr river. I've become increasingly comfortable here despite the sometimes curious stares and have taken some pictures without feeling like I'm doing anything wrong, so carefully and inauspiciously as possible I attempt to photograph the machine gun bunker, tanks and soldiers. I'm soon spotted though and 3 armed soldiers run at me pointing their rifles. Two of them hold them to my temple while the other snatches away my phone and starts to fiddle with it. He can't work out where my pictures are and starts yelling aggressively, jabbing at the screen. He gives it back and I open the pictures for him, he goes though them and deletes most of them. Finally satisfied the rifles are lowered and I'm pushed away, my heart pumping. I take the bus to Tiraspol, the capital, stopping at the impressive football stadium of Sheriff Tiraspol (built and owned on corruption by one of the bigwigs in the region) but unable to go near it, it's all very secretive.


I walk around a bit, a bit shaken by having guns pointed at my head.


Take a couple more pictures but feel like a strong drink, so head to a bar. I find a fancy looking place called 'VIP' and walk in, backpack and all, to suspicious looks from the bouncer. It all looks very flash and expensive inside but the famous local cognac is very reasonably priced, about 1 euro for a small glass. I take one at the bar but I'm soon getting gestures from some well dressed blokes at a table. They invite me over and we get talking, in a combination of their broken English and my broken Russian. We talk mainly about football but after a couple more cognacs the main man Sergei starts telling me and showing pictures of his cars, a Ferrari and two Lamborghinis. He even has a plane. I tentatively ask what he does for a living, getting worried that these are some seriously powerful guys. He tells me he controls a gas line that goes through the region, and takes money for the transit of gas from Russia and Ukraine into Europe. In this society Sergei is seriously big time, a corrupt and criminal official who I'm sure from his other stories is also involved in smuggling of dubious substances from east to west. This is another reason this lawless region is infamous. I'm offered cocaine numerous times. I decline and stick to cognac and Moët champagne, feeling a certain pressure to drink, which worries me a little, I need to keep my wits about me around people like this. The contrast between the ostentatiously rich, cigar smoking fatcats in this bar and the poor old babushkas outside selling trinkets in the street is striking. Typical communism out of control, the officials take all the cash, preaching communist doctrine while the people scrape by in poverty. Most people seem to work on the fields and sell in the market. I manage to keep up with them, getting steadily more inebriated as the time of my train to Kiev approaches. Despite being corrupt, criminal and obviously shitty people, a scourge on this society, they are nice to me. They take pictures with me, show me off to girls and speak their crappy English loudly. They refuse to let me pay for anything and finally, just in time (as by now I'm steaming drunk and in danger of missing my train) they bundle me in to a taxi to the train station. I get on my train relieved and fall asleep immediately.

I wake up in Kiev with a splitting headache, my passport wasn't stamped at the border. I also have a pocketful of Transnistrian roubles (they have their own currency which no one recognises) turns out I took out way too much and am now stuck with about 30 euros worth, nobody will exchange it. Great. Find a hostel and sleep some more, go out for a meal. Meet a thoroughly decent Aussie who's done a similar trip to me, except from the other way, through Russia. We are both happy and relieved to be able to have a beer and talk about cricket, it's been a while. I've been to Kiev twice before and I still feel hungover so I'm not interested in exploring the city. One last borsch, early night and the trip is over. Get to the airport and at immigration they notice I don't have a stamp. As far as they are concerned I entered Ukraine illegally. Shit. I get taken to an office and interrogated. Where have I been. Why. Why was I in Transnistria. They find my bag and search it. Dogs, swabs, the works. I'm getting seriously worried I'll miss my flight. Eventually they let me go, and I make it to the gate. Phew. I made it! Belgrade to Kiev in 15 crazy days.

Romania

Depart Belgrade from inauspicious surroundings, it's hard to believe I'll be taking an international train from this station which is little more than a tin roof.


The train turns out to be more of a glorified tram and we rattle slowly toward the Romanian border, the driver blasting his horn constantly at animals on the track, and also gypsies, whose shacks line the side of the track for the first hour or so from Belgrade. Get to the border at Vrsac and change trains, after a long delay at passport control (we are entering the EU now) rattle along on an even crappier train toward Timisoara.
I'm met at the station by a guy I met through couchsurfing, after dropping my stuff at his place we head out. Timisoara is a beautiful city, built by the Germans some 200 years ago it is also a popular university town. The revolution in 1989 started here. They were always opposed to Ceausescu, a town that just wouldn't play along, kind of like Benghazi in Libya. It's something that the people are rightly proud of. It's a bit of a special place in Romania, and considers itself the most European and cosmopolitan.


There are quite a few people out late on a Tuesday night, have a few beers and meet some really genuine, open people. Soon find out that this is absolutely the norm in Romania. After the bars close we grab big bottles of beer from a kiosk and go up on the roof of an abandoned building in the city centre, scrabbling over fences, through windows and up dodgy ladders in the dark. Absolutely worth it though, a great view and some beers in good company.
Adrian, the guy I'm staying with is an absolute legend, cooks me a big Romanian breakfast and coffee in the morning. He is typical of the youth in Romania today. Energetic, highly educated (almost everyone speaks English here, that certainly wasn't the case in Serbia), hardworking, creative and open hearted. I read the Daily Mail (in a 'know your enemy' type of way, I'm definitely not right wing!) and they would have you believe that when the work permit laws change at the end of the year pretty much the entire populace of Romania is coming to the UK to 'take our jobs' and live rough in the streets. Fearmongering. I find it incredibly arrogant too, everyone I talk to is happy in Romania, although they aren't rich they live to the full, enjoy family and friends and live in a large and stunningly beautiful country, why should they feel the need to go and chase the dollar in crowded, rainy England? It's a load of crap and I'm sick of hearing about it. Given the choice I know I'd much rather live in Romania.

A word about gypsies. Most of my prior contact with Romania was through gypsy culture (music mainly) but that's only a small part of the picture here. I think a lot of people assume that Romania is the land of the gypsies (Roma > Romania) maybe that's where a lot of the fearmongering stuff comes from. Romanians are more of a Latin people who live side by side with gypsies, their language is beautiful and I can recognise many words from Spanish. Very few Romanians speak the gypsy (Romani) language and I'm laughed at when I ask if they are curious to learn. The relationship between the two is similar to that in Serbia, the gypsies do all the crappy jobs (looking after the toilets etc) and the Romanians get on with their own stuff. There's a bit of anti gypsy sentiment but it's mostly pretty harmonious, everyone seems to have worked out how to live together.

Out during the day in Timisoara we bump into couple of friends of Adrian. They announce that are going to the beach and ask if I'd like to come. Its a long way away. My original plan was to cross the country over Transylvania, stopping at a couple of towns along the way. As I'm behind schedule and the place that they are going sounds great, I accept and get on a 16 hour train ride, crossing the country overnight in one fowl swoop (not sure if that's the right way to use that expression!)


The train is huge, 20 wagons long and full to bursting, taking people to Bucharest and also to the seaside. I get a cramped little seat but give it up for an old lady with huge saggy boobs and a bad back, so spend much of the journey standing up with my head out the window, or trying to doss down on the floor to catch a bit of sleep.
Finally arrive at the sea, hitchhike the rest of the way to Vama Veche. It's right on the border with Bulgaria, it started as a sleepy, underground hippy town but now everyone in Romania knows about it. Arrive on Thursday so it's not too crowded, but in the next couple of days it really fills up with the Bucharest weekend crowd. Pitch tent under a plum tree and go out for a walk.


I go straight down the beach toward the border, having never been to Bulgaria and wanting to set foot in it. It's about 2km away and I'm soon alone, it's beautiful and peaceful. The peace is shattered by the shrill, electronic honking of a jeep and some shouting through a megaphone. I'm approached by border guards who let me know aggressively that I absolutely cannot cross the border here on the beach, I have to go up to the road and go through border control. They are both EU countries but there's no free borders here, it's outside of the Schengen (is that right?) zone. Border control is busy and I figure it's not worth queuing for ages just to walk a bit on Bulgarian soil. I'll go there soon enough I'm sure.
Go for dinner at the gypsy fish restaurant, they control the fishing in the area somehow. Pick a random name from the menu (scrumpu) and get a large fish and some pâté stuff made from roe. It's amazing and super cheap, worked out to be about 30 kroner. Go for a night swim then find a place playing live music on the beach. It's 'folk' music, two guys with guitars. One sounds exactly like Kim Larsen and the tunes are pretty similar. There are lots of bikers around, everyone knows the words to all the songs and it becomes a mass singalong. I'm made really welcome, people share their wine, explain the lyrics and keep giving me palinca, a clear spirit similar to rakija from Serbia, but even stronger.


The music is amazing, especially the upbeat songs. Romanian sounds great lyrically, and it's really easy to move to, especially after all the palinca. There are quite a few gypsy songs, sung in Romanian, and gypsies are mentioned frequently ('ciganski') suggesting that there's a bit of pride and integration going on culturally, despite everything. I recognise quite a few songs because they are sung by zdob si zdub, a Moldovan band who are popular here. I found them a couple of years ago by accident. I switched on the TV and Eurovision was on, there they were as the Moldovan entry, crazy guys with trumpets and large pointy hats, spinning around on unicycles. I thought they were pretty cool because of the trumpet/rock combo, and also because they were so anathema to the Eurovision norm of cheesy pop and love songs. They came to Copenhagen so I saw them and have liked them since, they are a reason I got reading about Moldova and so am here now. At home they are my little secret (no one is interested anyway!!) so it's kind of cool to be around so many others who know these songs.

I did have some regrets about missing Transylvania at first, but this place is amazing. Of course the sea and beach is always nice, but it's just so damn Romanian. People come from all over the country to eat and sing and dance, I didn't meet or hear any other foreigners, except for and old American guy who ran a hostel. Instead of being alone amongst the tour bus towns and tack in Dracula country, I found somewhere real, lots of fun and so very free. You can drink what you like, where you like, walk around and swim stark naked, people were smoking joints all over the beach...hardly saw a policeman but they just didn't seem necessary. Transylvania can wait until next time.


I can't overstate how welcome I feel in Romania. Maybe it's because I live in Denmark where people are a little more cold and reserved, but here people interact so easily, and smile really frequently. People talk to strangers as if they've known them for years, and they love helping each other out. Maybe it's one of the few good things to come out of the special kind of communism they had here (Romania wasn't in the Soviet Union, it was closer to Yugoslav style communism) there's a definite sense of teamwork in society. I love it. Overall though, communism was a disaster here, Ceausescu was a particularly brutal dictator, spending ridiculous money on ostentatious projects on a whim, and living a grotesquely opulent lifestyle with his family and cronies while the people suffered.


So that's four days in Romania. It's been way too brief but having spent the whole time in the company of Romanians, (thanks couchsurfing) I feel like I got an awful lot out of it. Again the girls are beautiful, a real mix of mainly dark and Latin, but also blonde blue eyed girls with sharp, almost Slavic features. Romania has changed hands so many times in its history that there really isn't a certain Romanian 'look', which is noticeable for me having come from Serbia which is a lot more homogenous. There are the original Romanians, mixed with Hungarians, Turks, Saxons from Germany, Slavs from Russia, gypsies... The beer is pretty standard lager/pilsner stuff but they almost seem embarrassed about it, sometimes the only thing I could get on tap was Carlsberg and Tuborg! A little annoying coming from Denmark and only being offered Danish beer. But at least I discovered palinca, and the wine was really good too, even though I don't usually drink it. Food was amazing, being a agricultural country there's a lot of hearty fare for those long days in the fields, my three favourite ingredients eggs, cheese and meat featuring heavily. A dish called mamaliga really stood out, mushy polenta mixed with cheese, covered in runny eggs and ham. I ate a lot of that.



I could go on and on about this country, I really love it. I'll be back soon with much more time on my hands, this place needs a month at least to do it justice. I'm now a little further up the coast having hitched to Constanta, I'm going to spend the night in Galati on the border with Moldova, the poorest and least known country in Europe. Should be interesting!

Next stop, Moldova and Transnistria

Guca festival

After a baking hot, 3 hour bus journey I arrive in Guca after dark accompanied by a couple of blokes I've met along the way, Peter and Jose. First impressions on getting to the village are incredible, rows of pig rotating temptingly on the spit, the streets teeming with people drinking beer, and trumpets, so many trumpets.


Brass bands are in every bar and restaurant as well as marching up and down the streets, stopping every now and then as people stop for a spontaneous jig, attaching notes and cash to their instruments while they play. And it's only Wednesday.


We hurriedly search for camp, set up through couchsurfing by a generous Serb (Miroslav) for a small donation of your choice. We are offered the use of a tent as its dark and we just want to get back to the village. Can't be arsed faffing around putting mine up just now. There's already a group of about 30 in the camp and its easy to make friends, a few shots of rakija (the first of many many to come) and then it's off to eat some of that rotating pig and get to know the layout of the village.
The next day I'm woken up way too early by the blazing sun on the tent, so I pick up my mat and walk off a bit to catch a few more winks under a tree. This becomes the norm in days to come. Spend the day at camp meeting people, throwing frisbee, playing football and chess.


I'm pretty much the least hippy person there, the vibe is very much peace and love, man, with some juggling and jamming (with trumpets of course) thrown in. I'm made really welcome and have a relaxing day before heading out with everyone for the first of 4 big concert nights in the football stadium.


Surprised to find that there's a rock/pop band on tonight, having had a few rakijas have a ball anyway, they seem like a Serbian Red Hot Chili Peppers, and judging by the size and reaction of the crowd are massively popular around here. Go back to the village after and find Marko Markovic playing randomly at a restaurant and have a few more rakijas and a dance, if you can call it that, it's more just jumping around wildly with the people around you. Marko Markovic is the son of Boban, THE legend of this type of music who has won the completion for best trumpeteer at the festival so many times he's not allowed to compete anymore. He tours together with his son and band around Europe and America, having outgrown the local scene. Ive seen them in both Copenhagen and Malmø in the last couple of years, and are a big reason why I began to like Balkan music and hence came here.


This is Marko in the picture. They will play the headline act at the stadium on Saturday, something I'm really looking forward to.
Go to bed at what became the regular time of 5am after a few beers back at the camp, sleep won't be a feature of this festival.
The next day is spent hiding from the 37 degree heat again, nursing a hangover and playing cards. Haven't eaten nearly as much as I usually would, starting to lose the belly I picked up in the UK. I'm doing maybe 1 meal a day and its usually just rotating pig and potatoes, although there were a few late night drunken plejevica (awesome burgers) thrown in. The food cooked at camp is mainly vegetarian, reflecting the hippy feeling around the place.
Fridays concert is brilliant. Heavy metal band fronted by two prissy looking dudes wearing suits (?) belting out tunes in deep, booming voices, a bit like a Serbian Rammstein. Then they bring out one of the best local gypsy brass bands and they play together, a fusion of metal and huge, powerful brass that gets the place heaving.


Exhausted afterwards, head back to camp for more rakija.
Saturday is supposed to be the big one. Boban i Markovic in their own country. Head to the stadium with a group of Spaniards that I've met, quietly smug with myself that I can still understand and speak a small amount of Spanish, though Danish words keep getting in the way. Just 10 minutes before the concert is to begin and just around the corner from the stadium the heavens open, in a big way. Cool, I think, dancing in the rain and mud will be even more fun. It really is pelting though and it's starting to flood, by the time we get to the stadium people are streaming out. We try to force our way in but a guard grabs a woman's umbrella and starts thrusting it at me, telling me basically to piss off or he'll stab me with it. The owner of the umbrella shouts for her umbrella back and he throws a punch at her, narrowly missing her face. We look at each other and decide to retreat with the rest of the crowd, leaving the arsehole there waving the umbrella menacingly at anyone else trying to get in. What now? Every inch of shelter is taken and we are soaked to the bone, there's a bit of concern about the state of our tents, which aren't well covered and likely to be getting flooded. So we decide to go back and rescue what we can before it gets too bad and passports, laptops etc get ruined. I'm cold and pissed off when we get back, my tent is indeed soaked so I drink rakija with gusto. The rest of the night passes in a blur, the rain eases up and people who had made it in to the stadium and stayed there came back covered in mud, deliriously happy at how good and how much fun it was. I'm jealous but at least my phone and passport are ok, some of theirs weren't.
Next morning hangover and drying out all my stuff. The water in the whole village isn't working and it will stay that way for the next two days. No shower and brushing of teeth, the toilets (I'd just gotten used to crapping standing up again) not flushing so by the end of the festival it really wasn't pretty. I lost my wallet on this day, I wasn't sure if it was one of the sly, skilled gypsy pickpocket kids or it fell out while I was jumping around. I suspect the former. Luckily I'd taken out the important stuff and only lost a bit of cash. Oh well. I won the camp chess tournament today so I'm happy.


It's the last concert tonight and I'm determined to make up for last night. Tonight is Goran Bregovic, the most famous musician of this genre in the west. He did a lot of the music for the Kusturica films and is brilliant at what he does. He is the one most of the people in the camp have come to see. He doesn't disappoint, the concert is wild and hugely enjoyable! Lots more rakija and another late night to finish it off.
Wake up under the tree for the last time to find that almost everything has been packed up already. After goodbyes it's time to head back to Belgrade.
The festival has been brilliant and it certainly won't be my only time. I met lots of fantastic people, particularly at the couchsurfing camp, had tons of meat, rakija, beer and great music. What more can you ask for?? Although there were obvious signs of Serb nationalism around the place, crazy dudes in military gear chanting patriotic songs it was never at all threatening. I went out one night wearing a shirt with a Polish flag on it and was greeted with smiles, and was basically mobbed by the many Poles there, especially when they found out I wasn't Polish myself. I had my picture taken countless times that evening, which felt a bit weird. Finally, a word about Serbian women. They are incredibly attractive, almost unbelievably so, most of them walking about with their short short skirts, patriotically coloured tops, draped with flags and wearing little military hats.


A slightly bizarre, but very sexy sight. I've got my lovely girlfriend Ninna back in Denmark but I can imagine that for the single bloke this could add yet another dimension to what is already a fantastic festival.
So there you have it, skip Glastonbury, Roskilde and the likes for a year and try Guca! Guaranteed good times :)

Next stop, Romania

Belgrade

Ok so I'm doing a blog, I figured it was about time I tried to keep a record on one of my trips. This time I'm starting in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, before heading down into the countryside to the legendary (in these parts anyway) festival of the trumpet, Guсa. From there I'm going to somehow get across the border into Romania, hopefully grabbing a lift from some Romanians at the festival. Then it's crossing Romania from west to east, hopefully avoiding Bucharest and crossing instead through Transylvania, time permitting. Into Moldova I'll stay in Chisinau (the capital) for a day before going into the secretive breakaway republic of Transnistria, a relic of the Soviet Union frozen in time. A final train from there to Kiev in Ukraine, then fly home, 15 days after starting in Belgrade. Not much time for so much travel! But that's the plan, who knows how it will go.

Day 1

Waiting to board the JAT airlines flight at the gate in Copenhagen the captain comes out to greet us in both Serbian and Swedish, which I thought was a nice touch as looking around it seems that pretty much all of my fellow passengers are Serbs who live across the bridge in Malmø. Due to Sweden's somewhat looser immigration laws (at least in comparison to Denmark) there is a sizeable community of people from the Balkan region in Sweden, particularly in Malmø.

The feeling of sticking out a bit is reinforced when boarded on the plane, just about half full. The steward hands out Serbian newspapers to everyone, children included. Pausing at me however, he purses his lips, furrows his brow and moves swiftly on, no newspaper forthcoming. Snubbed! I hadn't even opened my mouth. I know already then that I'm not passing for a Serb, I obviously don't have the nose for it...

On arrival at the airport I paid twice for my bus ticket, the first guy selling me a ticket to a bus that was already full to bursting, cheeky bastard. I get on the next one thinking my previous ticket would suffice but no, pay again. Good start! Had a chat on the bus to a bloke who offered to show me to the hostel when we got to the city centre, the first of many acts of kindness I'd experience in my short time in Belgrade.


After a nap, shower and some dinner (Serbian pork stew with tons of red peppers) I find out that there's a football game on tonight, champions league qualifier, kicking off in an hour. I ask a random guy on the street for directions to the stadium, he mutters something in broken English while gesturing for me to follow him. He takes me to his car where his girlfriend, who speaks excellent English is waiting for him to give her a driving lesson, at rush hour, in the city centre. They offer to take me to the stadium so I hop in, sitting in the back while she crunches the gears, changes lanes constantly and suicidally and screams back at her boyfriend who is barking instructions at her in Serbian. All the while trying to have a conversation with me about her country, which she loves and hates with equal passion. Somehow we make it to the stadium in one piece and I thank them profusely. Another act of kindness.



The stadium is rocking when I arrive, a guy gives me a ticket he had spare for free so I sit with him and his mates. It's 0-0 going into the last 10 minutes and the crowd is about delirious now, jumping up and down and singing non-stop, urging Partizan on to get the one goal they need to go through to the next round. I'm getting drenched in the sweat of a hundred Serbs, and I can feel the sunflower seeds being spat on my head from behind me, the word 'pitchka' being screamed pretty much every couple of seconds. Partizan attack and attack, inspired by Djemba-Djemba (remember him) who is hugely popular with the crowd. I thought Serbs were supposed to be racist?? They hit the bar, the post and have one cleared off the line before the Bulgarians get a counterattack in the last couple of minutes, penalty, last man, red card. They score the penalty and all hell breaks loose, the riot police (who make up about a quarter of the sellout crowd) are pelted with lighters, flares and coins. After a short delay everyone is ushered out of the ground leaving the players to play out the last couple of minutes on their own. I lose my new friends in the melee so ask a couple of blokes for directions back to the city centre. They are severely pissed off about the game but offer to drive me back there, and invite me for a beer. I take them up on the offer and they turn out to be great blokes, we talk about football and it soon gets to politics, even though I promised to myself I wouldn't talk about that in Serbia. I won't bore you with the details but they were very open and honest about what went on during the war, although they are proud and extremely nationalistic they admit that things got out of hand. They feel that the West misunderstands them and they aren't the wicked, evil Serbs we can sometimes be led to believe. The sad fact is that as proud of their country that they are (almost ridiculously so) they all want to leave. There's no money or jobs here, and they have watched as all the neighbours that they have looked down upon throughout history have joined the EU, while they are left behind because of their leaders brutality in the war. But despite some of the sensitive subjects raised it was all very fatalistic and good natured, lots of beers, a good laugh and I learned a lot from another perspective. They wouldn't let me pay for my beer even though they don't have jobs. Evil Serbs my arse.



Looking out over the city from the hostel balcony with a nightcap whiskey and a cigarette I find it hard to believe that just 14 years ago these night skies were full of tracer bullets trying to shoot down stealth bombers sent by NATO. The nightlife in the city is thriving, the people are generous, fun and passionate but there are still big problems in Serbia, the corruption, the mafia (most of the leaders of the mafia were at the football, they control the 'ultras') and violent nationalist undercurrent is holding her back while all the best and brightest young people flee to other countries in search of a better life. It's a shame to say so, but it seems that the scars of the war are still far from healed here.

Next stop, Guca.