Disclaimer: this is a copy of the reports tourists
that I found at www.lonlyplanet.com. To be modified
and add with more details and useful information.
The information below is provided
by Lonely Planet readers and is not verified by
Lonely Planet. For the official lowdown, contact
your nearest embassy .
Visas, Embassies &
Border Crossings
Transnistria: The entry by minibus from
Chisinau was easy, there was a list for the
entry fee in 6 different currencys. (It was) ˆ0.45,
so much less than I expected, although leaving was a
bit harder. I left on a bus from Tiraspol to Odessa.
Everybody had to put their luggage through an x-ray,
and then the custom officer complained that I didnt
have a Moldovan exit stamp! (you dont get one as
there is no border post). I told him in my broken
Russian that it was another country, and why does he
care, but he insisted and took me into his office.
Finally he gave my passport back and said I had to
go back to Moldova. Well I just hopped back into the
Ukraine bound bus and left. I was really getting
nervous, but he didn't demand money as I expected.
Rainer Hamet, Austria
(Jun 06)
Update on getting to Moldova. I took a
bus from Odessa, there are several every day.
It looked like the 11:00 bus avoided Transnistria,
but I wasn't sure how late Adresa, who owned the
apartment I was renting, stayed open (turns out they
say 24 hours), and I took the 9:10, which was a
mini-bus. With 20 of us, it took an hour to clear
the Ukraine-Transnistria border. There was a guy on
the bus who spoke some English and offered to
translate for me, but one of the TN border guards
spoke English and sent him away. We did a
back-and-forth about how I should have entered
Moldova at a different crossing, and where was my
letter of invitation for TN (I pointed out that
since I wasn't staying I could hardly have an
invitation). Eventually we got around to the
cost of the transit pass and I paid ˆ20. (I was
told) the going rate was ˆ10-50, depending on how
much money you had, so this is one border where it
pays to dress down. It took the remaining
10 of us about 15 minutes to cross the TN-Moldovan
border, no hassles, no stamps.
Kathy Wilhelm, USA (May
06)
I feel you need to emphasise the problems re
visas and invitations to travel to Moldova.
If a person enters by road from Romania or by air
through Chisinau, a visa is available at the airport
and entry consulate at the border for road.
But not by train. You will be turfed off the train.
If you are from an invitation needing country (eg
Australia) you will need an invitation and it must
be original, not a copy or scanned print out or fax.
If you do have an invitation and not a visa and have
enough money, a security officer may accompany you
to the nearest visa issuing consulate, but you still
need two photographs and the taxi money and the visa
fee. If arriving during the wine festival you will
not need to pay for a visa, BUT you still need the
invitation if from a country whose citizens' need
one. The best thing if possible is to get your visa
from the country you are entering Moldova from,
namely Ukraine or Romania. Do not get stuck
without a visa at the border - you may be arrested
!!!
Edward Congdon,
Australia (Aug 05)
The Chisinau-Bucharest train is terribly
hot inside in summertime - windows cannot
be opened manually - and excruciatingly slow. It
leaves at 5.10p.m. from Chisinau and arrives at the
border town of Ungheni at 7.30 p.m. where it stops
for about 2 hours to change wheels and for customs
controls - the Moldovan custom official may decide
to check throughout your baggage, unwrap everything
you bought to find out if you have ancient
icons...or drugs.
Ferdinando Giammichele &
Fiorella Polo, Italy (Aug 05)
I got stuck in Ungheni and wasted half a
day because I believed I could cross the border by
road here, but this is only possible at
Sculeni about 25 km north. From what I could figure
out, there is no bus or maxitaxi between Ungheni and
Sculeni, so I had to wait and take the twice daily
(8.00 and 17.00) train from Ungheni to Iasi in
Romania. Ungheni is a town of reasonable size with,
among others, a hotel on the main street if you get
stuck overnight.
Peter Goltermann,
Denmark (Aug 05)
Travelling to Moldova, I had serious
problems with the authorities for not registering my
visa. I was there in June 2004, I had a
tourist visa, but stayed privately. One has to
register within 3 days, with what used to be the "OVIR".
After finding out about the need to register (after
5 days), I went to the office, naively thinking I
could settle everything no problem. I didn't speak
Russian, and, naturally, they didn't speak anything
but Romanian or Russian. At first they wanted me to
pay a ridiculously high fine, but the organisation I
stayed with (an orphanage) knew people who knew
people and everything was fine after 2 phone calls.
Nevertheless, I had to be registered with A PERSON,
who had to come to the office with me (which is in
the middle of nowhere, aptly called "Botanica"). All
this is of no concern if one stays in a hotel, but
any other option is quite complicated!
Elvira Gottardi, Austria
(Jul 05)
Just came home from a trip that took me
through Transnistria in Moldova. I have
some comments on the info provided in the book.
First of all, we did not have any problems at all
with the authorities. Secondly, we stayed at a hotel
which has lovely staff, but they can not register
your passport, so we had to do it by ourselves.
However, we could not do it at the Militia passport
office, which is marked on the map. Instead, they
kindly told us to go to OVIR on Katovskava 2a
(everyone was very nice to us in this little
statelet!). The OVIR building is brand new but it is
surrounded by small old houses and gardens, so at
first we thought that we had been fooled, but we
finally found the right house. We had to fill in a
form in Russian and pay 4.7 rubles and after that we
got our registrations. Once again, the service was
excellent. The hotel gladly accepted our
registrations, as did the border guards, no problem
at all there!
Johan Dittrich Hallberg,
Sweden (Jul 05)
Travel Tips
Warn people that if they head out into
the Moldovan countryside they need to carry food.
You can't count on a cafe, never mind a restaurant,
at the tourist sights like Saharna.
Kathy Wilhelm, USA (May
06)
If you buy Moldovan Lei in Moldova (ˆ1 =
15.10/15.14 Moldovan Lei) and plan to change them
back in Romanian Lei when you are in Romania...
well you simply won't be able to change them! No
bank in Romania changes Moldovan Lei into Romanian
Lei. Not even the BCR Bank. After trying at the BNP
Bank in Piata Unirii where they treated me as if I
were a leper, I went to the BCR Bank in Piata
Universitatii. First I tried at the exchange counter
where a surly lady recoiled at the sight of Moldovan
lei and uttered angry words in Romanian. Then I went
to the bank information desk where they told me this
very textual words, translated by a kind girl from
Romanian into English. I was lucky because I changed
only a ˆ10 note at Chisinau station before departing
with the train bound for Bucharest and spent most of
them there - I still have the equivalent of ˆ2 in
Moldovan Lei, and I will have them forever unchanged
given that even in Italy they refused to change them
into Euros.
Ferdinando Giammichele &
Fiorella Polo, Italy (Aug 05)
Just came home from a trip that took me
through Transnistria in Moldova. We did not
have any problems at all with the authorities. We
stayed at a hotel, which had lovely staff, but they
can not register your passport, so we had to do it
by ourselves. However, we could not do it at the
Militia passport office, which is marked on the map.
Instead, they kindly told us to go to OVIR on
Katovskava 2a (everyone was very nice to us in this
little statelet!). The OVIR building is brand new
but it is surrounded by small old houses and
gardens, so at first we thought that we had been
fooled, but we finally found the right house. We had
to fill in a form in Russian and pay 4.7 roubles and
after that we got our registrations. Once again, the
service was excellent. The hotel gladly accepted our
registrations, as did the border guards, no problem
at all there!
Johan Dittrich Hallberg,
Sweden (Jul 05)
Moving About
Transdniestr - I think the best
and most reliable source of information on
Transdniestrian affairs is the OCSE office
in Chisinau. It is located on Strada Sfatul
Tarii, close to Strada 31 August, 1989, around the
corner from the UN offices. The information I got
was that foreigners travelling by private transport
might expect some harassment at the internal
"border" but travelling to Tiraspol by bus was no
problem. The price is 14 Moldovan lei one way and in
both Chisinau and Tiraspol it has to be paid in
Modovan lei. Apparently no registration is needed if
you return to Chisinau the same day.
Pasi Hannonen, Finland
(Mar 00)
Scams & Warnings
I have been living and working for an NGO
in Chisinau for 4 months now, and thought you should
correct information in the health/saftey section of
the book with regard to water in Moldova.
Since I have been here, I have heard/read
universally (from locals, expats, and the government
itself) that the water is NOT good to drink. People
in many villages use well water but it is not
recommended by anyone who I have spoken to. It is
recommended that water be boiled to remove
bacteria/amoeba etc., and then filtered to remove
pesticides and heavy metals, or just drink bottled
water.
Up to 80% of water in Moldova's eight
rivers, 57 lakes, 53 water reservoirs, 1,500 ponds,
and over 120,000 water wells is substandard
sanitary-wise. Similar percentage has been
observed in 3,500 artesian wells. The worst
situation with water has been recorded in Glodeni,
Falesti, Sangara, Calaras, Ungheni, Nisporeni,
Criuleni, and Basarabeasca. Each year Moldova
consumes over 145 mln cubic meters of water, at that
less than half of the population can enjoy quality
drinking water.
Brigid Kennedy-Pfister,
USA (May 06)
One evening, at about 21.00, I was
stopped by police right on B-dul Stefan cel Mare in
the centre of Chisinau and asked for ID. I
did not carry my passport, so I offered them we
could go to my hotel 15 minutes away, but this was
impossible, they wanted to take me to the police
station. They could not explain to me how they could
verify my identity at the police station, and I
figured I better not get into their police car, so I
refused. We discussed on the street for almost half
an hour and more policemen appeared (in the end they
were 7!), and then they began to push me into the
car by force. I made a big scene, and fortunately a
young couple stopped and interfered. They offered to
go with me, which I gratefully accepted, and later
we went to my hotel for my passport, and the whole
situation was sorted out. I never got a logical
explanation why we couldn't just have gone to my
hotel in the first place, but this very nice
(English speaking) couple assured me it's correct
that everybody - also Moldovans - in
Chisinau (and perhaps all of Moldova?) must carry
ID; that is your passport if you are a
tourist.
Peter Goltermann,
Denmark (Aug 05)
Yarns, Fables &
Anecdotes
If you really want to see how the old
Soviet Union was, wander round Bâlti. This
town is a communist stronghold in aspic: complete
with very noble bas reliefs of Marx, Engels and
Lenin on the restored town hall. There are freshly
painted red stars gracing walls and fences in some
abundance. The central square is very imposing with
a statue of Steffan cel Mare, and it larger than the
one in Chisinâu. I attempted to ignore your
correspondant's advice to avoid the railway system
and whilst studying one of the poorer examples of a
railway timetable in Bâlti's railway station was
arrested by a very polite monoglot Russian speaking
policeman (he saluted me!). 15 minutes
later after desperately trying to think of the
French word for 'tomorrow' and after being assisted
by a superior officer who spoke some English, I was
escorted back to the very same timetable by the
polite police constable! Bâlti's a town Kafka would
love to have visited! I never caught the train, but
that is another, equally bizarre, story. But that is
why I travel.
Lari Parc, UK (May 06)
I got a taxi from Chisinau to Bendery in
the "Republic" of Transdniestr earlier this month.
I was only there for six hours; getting in we were
just waved through. Coming back I was stopped and
taken off the bus for not having a permit. I
explained I thought you only had to register if you
stayed over three days. After studying a huge tome
the Border Guard decided you had to register after
three hours not three days. I would have to pay a
fine of US$12 (this was worked out by the number of
hours I'd overstayed) but they wouldn't take the
money as they had no receipts (they wouldn't take
the cash as a backhander either). I should have got
a permit from the Transdniestr Police in Chisinau. I
pointed out there were none. They decided I would
have to go back to Bendery for the permit. OK, what
address do I go to? They didn't know. So what do I
do now? They didn't know that either. An impasse had
been reached. Fortunately the English speaking one
who was questioning me had managed to glean that I
was a Customs Officer by profession and made me draw
him a picture of my shoulder epaulets (seeing this
as a way out I added an extra stripe for effect). It
worked, he jumped to his feet, saluted me of all
things and suddenly it was handshakes and
cigarettes all round! Finally they flagged
down the first Chisinau bus and waved me off. They
even refunded my busfare so I profited from this
rather amusing incident.
Mike Wallace, UK (June
02) |