The last bastion of Communism in Europe– Lucion Tion

 

For information on seeing Transnistria please go to the following website and contact Andrey:  Transnistria Tour

Some of you reading this are probably saying the following:  “I have never heard of this country?”  If you are one of those people then you are not far off.

This country does not technically exist as it is a breakaway state of Moldova, it is not recognized by any UN member state and pretty much the only countries that recognize it are other breakaway states like Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and South Ossetia.

I was initially not going to include it on my list of countries visited but after talking to a friend Steve Spanrring, it fits all the criteria.  They have their own government, their own police force, their own Army, and their own currency.

So where is it?

Sandwiched in between Moldova and Ukraine and it is predominately Russian speaking.

I was with my friends Steve and Lucion and we ended up getting a train from Odessa to the capital Tiraspol.  It was a typical old Soviet style train with wooden benches and no aircon.

As we got there our contact named Andrey met us at the train station where we did our visa paperwork, then off to the currency exchange and hotel:

We had always heard from people how dangerous this place would be and how it is a pain in the ass getting in or out of there, and how they do not like Americans at all.  In fact, the opposite of all of this was true.  This was probably one of the most welcoming places I have been, albeit English was not widely spoken, but we were able to get by.  I did not feel in danger the whole time I was here as I do in other parts of the world (I imagine their crime rate is pretty low here).

We did day tours with the company listed above and they did not disappoint: