Monday 31st August – Chisinau, Moldova

• Arrival at your convenience into into Chisinau – the largest and the capital city of Moldova which has well connected flights within Europe and the Middle East.
• Pre-tour meeting and get-together with YPT guide and other travellers at the lobby of our hotel at 8:00am to go over the tour itinerary and plans for the coming days.
• Meet our local Chisinau guide and start our city walking tour of Chisinau. We’ll visit the abandoned National Hotel, see one of the most stunning monasteries in the city which was thankfully spared destruction under Communism, see the infamous city prison which has been declared a breach of human rights amongst other things.
• We’ll see the enormous World War II Memorial and climb some tanks and surface to air missiles at the Military Museum!
• Visit the local flea market, great for antiques and Soviet kitsch!

Afternoon

• After lunch at a local Moldovan restaurant, we’ll give you the chance to explore the capital city of Europe’s least visited country at your own pace. This is a great chance to visit the national museum of Moldova, walk out of town and see the brutalist architecture masterpiece that is the partially abandoned Chisinau city circus (also the first circus in the entire USSR) or see the impressive Komsomol monument from the Soviet-era.
• We’ll later head up the abandoned National Hotel, which was a former InTourist Hotel during the Soviet times to catch the sunset over Chisinau.
• Dinner and drinks in the evening at the best steakhouse in town, and cheapest in Europe!
• Overnight in Chisinau

Tuesday 1st September – Chisinau – Tiraspol, Transnistria

Morning

• Breakfast at our hotel
• We’ll meet our Transnistria fixers for the 2 hour ride to the breakaway republic of Transnistria. YPT will deal with all permits, border formalities and conversations with the Transnistrian KGB/MGB.
• After checking into our Tiraspol hotel, we’ll kick off our city tour.
• We’ll stop at the flea market in Tiraspol, here it’s possible to buy all kinds of Soviet antiques for rock bottom prices. You never know what you will find!
• We enter one of the largest outdoor markets in all of Transnistria. Guests will be able to shop and buy anything they want at very, very low prices. Also, many opportunities for old world type photos. This is a true old school, Russian market. Expect pigs heads, spices and everything imaginable for sale.
• We’ll walk down main street called October 25th street to see the North Korean style statue of Russian General Suvorov. Surrounding it are the flags of Russia, Transnistria and the breakaway brotherhood states of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh and South Ossetia.
• Have your picture taken in front of a giant crest of Transnistria featuring the hammer and sickle!
• Visit Parliament, housing one of the biggest statues of Lenin outside Russia.
• Visit the Eternal Flame Memorial complex dedicated to the Soviet-Afghan war, WW2 and the Transnistrian civil war. Check out the battle damaged T-34 monument to WW2, it’s permitted to climb on it and get an awesome photo.
• We’ll then walk down the other end of main street which has a billboard of former President Smirnoff: The warlord who turned president for almost twenty years. We’ll see the embassies of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the foreboding HQ of the infamous Sheriff organization and stop at a bookshop to pick up some Russian and Transnistrian nationalist paraphernalia, a mug of Stalin or a fridge magnet of ICBMs firing across the atmosphere, why not?

Afternoon

• We’ll have lunch in the town at a local café called CCCP. This is designed to create a sense of nostalgia for locals and is packed with original Soviet memorabilia and great food.
• We’ll then switch it up and board an old Soviet ferry without an engine and cross the Dniester river to see how the village people live across from Tiraspol. This is an area truly lost in the USSR!
• Visit a still functioning palace of culture with an enormous head of Lenin outside, pockmarked with Kalashnikov bullet holes after Moldovan troops symbolically executed him during the civil war.
• You’ll then visit a stunning and completely self sufficient monastery complex that has to be seen to be believed. We know many of the priests there and sometimes they allow us to sample their incredible homemade wine, however, this is subject to whether the one priest with the key is available on the day.
• Pay a visit to a local store which hasn’t changed since the USSR and still uses an abacus to calculate the total. Here we’ll stock up on $3 Kvint Cognac (One of the best Cognacs in the Soviet era), $1 Vodka and local smoked cheese.
• We then head to a stunning viewpoint and Soviet obelisk that was one of the most brutal battlefields during WW2. In the Russian speaking world, it’s respect to the dead to raise a shot of Cognac or Vodka in their honour and we’ll do just that!
• Return to Tiraspol and head for dinner and drinks at 7Fridays
• Carry onto our favourite craft brewery joints in town and possibly onto Russian styled clubs, who knows!
• Overnight in Tiraspol

Wednesday 2nd September – Tiraspol – Transnistria National Day!

Morning

• We start early and grab coffee and breakfast to go from the nearby Sheriff supermarket before heading to the centre of the city to grab a good spot to see the parade.
• On display will be the might of the Russian and Transnistrian military on parade in true Soviet style. The general of the Transnistrian army will first greet his units and will receive Russian war cries in response. Afterwards, the troops will march past in formation and you will see everybody from the special forces and presidential protection squads to the secret police and eloquently dressed female soldiers.
• There will be no western journalists here, so remember to bring your camera! We will also witness the speeches of the Transnistrian President and Russian Diplomats from Moscow.

Afternoon

• After the parade, we will give you free time and an assigned meeting point so you can enjoy the local festivities at your own pace. There will be live music, dancing, Cossacks holding BBQ’s and local street food markets.
• When we meet up after free time, we will head to the second biggest city in Transnistria, the war torn frontier town of Bender, to catch their independence day celebrations.
• Whilst in Bender we’ll check out the city hall which has been left exactly as it was during the civil war and is still filled with bullet holes.
• Continue walking down the main street until we arrive at Lenin Park. We view the main fountain, the bust of Lenin before going into the local cinema which is largely unchanged since Soviet times except Mission Impossible is playing instead of Soviet propaganda.
• We continue to walk down the main street until we reach the train station, renovated and well maintained. It seems like a ghost town because only a few trains stop here, and there are almost no passengers. Besides the train station is an old Soviet train from WWII with the hammer and sickle on the front.
• We’ll return to Transnistria and enjoy dinner with free time to see the fireworks or board the party boat that sails up and down the Dniester river, Russian hardbass and bring your own vodka as standard!
• Fireworks display in the evening, there is the option to go to a local bar or disco to continue the party well into the night.
• Overnight in Tiraspol.

Thursday 3rd September – Tiraspol – Comrat, Gagauzia

Morning

• We’ll pack our bags in the van and head to breakfast at a wonderful Ukrainian restaurant in Tiraspol. If you have a hangover from the previous night’s festivities, be prepared, as they’re known for handing out complimentary shots of pepper flavoured vodka!
• We then leave Transnistria, stopping at the final Sheriff store on the border to exchange our Transnistrian rubles and buy some souvenir Kvint cognac before we re enter Moldova and head South to Comrat, the capital city of the Gagauzian Republic, who as opposed to Transnistria, made peace with the central authorities after a brief civil war in the 1990’s.
• Gagauzia is populated by the Gagauz people; they’re Turkic Christians who have remained here since the conquests of the Ottoman empire. They speak their own distinct language and have a very unique culture. This is the only place in the world to see a Lenin statue opposite a statue of Ataturk!
• After the 3 hour journey on dirt roads, we will stop for photos at the welcome to Gagauzia sign before we arrive in Comrat and transfer to our Hotel for the night.

Afternoon

• We will stop at the abandoned Comrat airport, still littered with a number of abandoned Soviet era planes.
• We’ll explore downtown Comrat, seeing the stunning cathedral, a huge statue of Lenin, the Afghanistan war memorial and the national museum of Gagauzia.
• We’ll then head to a trip highlight as we drive through the Gagauzian countryside to an isolated village where we will meet Stopan and his family. Formerly a director of a collective farm during the Soviet era, Stopan has been a friend of YPT for a number of years and organises a formidable Gagauzian feast on his family farm for our groups. Gagauzia is the most famous wine region in Moldova and Stopan has a lot of it!
• End the evening in a farmhouse partying Gagauzia style! Expect the locals to join in as YPT groups are the only foreigners to ever visit this isolated village.
• For those who wish to return to the hotel early, we will have a team of local drivers waiting at the farm to transfer people.
• Overnight in Comrat hotel

Friday 4th September – Comrat – Chisinau

Morning

• Breakfast and free morning to relax or explore the town for last minute gifts or photos before we head back to Chisinau via the one and a half hour private bus ride.

Afternoon

• Once arriving in Chisinau we’ll have lunch.
• Tour concludes – YPT can assist with onward travel advice or accommodation.

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