Impressions of a Country on the Edge: My flying visit to Chisinau, Moldova... 

Thank you for watching! Very much appreciated! Yeah, after such a long journey to get there, the plan was to have 3 nights and do some proper exploring, but still a pleasure to have a day there

​@@steve-marsh why does Moldova have the same flag as Romania?

​​@@gigikontra7023ery interesting is that they Speck the Romanian language 2...😅 The end of the world war it was given away to the winners... The history of Romania is quite interesting

@@danygpd6853 speck is something to eat. And what is "Romanian language 2"!?

@@danygpd6853 look, Moldova's parliament VOTED to join Romania in 1918. They are Romanians after all, yes!?

Please get the train there Scott, you'd absolutely love it, and we'd all love to see the vlog!

You can fly to Iași in case flights to Chișinău are not restored. The take a train from Iași to Chișinău.

You are so right there of course so too. The country wants to join the EU as many do, but I wonder if it will do sometime then?

Those (șor) demonstrations weren’t “protests”. Those were desperate attempts of the russians to keep their 🥾 boot on our soil. We’re a part of the Romania and our future is in EU. Cheers

the population isn’t pro russian, they are just scared of putins army so they side with him

Moldova is beautiful country. But I don't feel safe. Russia is crazy neighbor.

Congrats on a great idea! It's so exciting eh? Going places few others go, you'll never be bored again!

Lovely to read your comment! Greetings from Lithuania! Hope you liked our country!❤

@@danbaltic9678 we very much enjoyed Lithuania and will return . We visited Kaunas and really had a wonderful time 👍

@@steve-marsh it’s been a wonderful decision we made but people laugh at us and think we’re stupid , we’re far from stupid lol

Thanks so much for the wonderful comment! I wish I had longer there as originally planned, but even in my short time I left with a really nice feeling about the place

Best food and red wine in the world.

Moldova is statistically poor but if you go there you would not say.The state is poor but people are not poor..

I had huge feasts at some places and it'd be like your bill is $14.

Oh I wish I'd had more time there David!

Thanks Christopher! I keep getting drawn back there eh!

Thanks so much John, it was a great experience, only wish I'd had a bit longer there!

Cheers mate! Not quite the video I'd hoped to bring you, was wanting to explore a lot more before the flight cancellation! Oh it's difficult seeing dogs on the street, I saw a lot more in Romania on my way home, I wanted to take them all!

@@steve-marsh yeah, the Romanian street dogs have it really tough, although I'll leave my thoughts about it for another channel.

Lovely video

He did concentrate on things that look broken or taken down for repair. That pavement he showed is literally the only stretch where it’s broken around the center - pay attention on the other side of the road, that’s how it’s paved ~60% in that area.

Awesome place deserving more credit!

I also had a great time, just looked at the map, no visa ,lets go to Moldova, love hearing Russian spoken. Greetings from Australia😅

Greetings from Laos. I would love to visit Moldova. But I'm scare of Russia. Russia is crazy neighbor. I don't feel safe.

@@LaoSoftware russia is not even our neighbor 😅

Cheers mate, contrast is the word!

Bless ya! :D

Cheers David! I was a tired traveller when I fell back through my front door :)

My wife said she couldn't believe when the actual train workers came into your compartment, pulled up the floor, and started working on the wheels! You see, her mother was an executive secretary for Union Pacific railroad in Omaha...And when they used to take the train to different locations, Jeanne says she can't recall that ever happening to them!

Great tips, thank you!!!

You are right. Moldova always had tough times being between empires through the centuries.

The need to reunify with Romania

Brilliant!

Cheers for joining me Thomas! I wish I'd had time to explore a bit deeper!

Thanks so much or the kind words mate!

Chișinău looks like the poor version of Berlin

​@@virgiliuvieru3005 Moldova is in fact Eastern Moldova, the eastern half of Romania's Moldova region, taken by Stalin in 1940 which forced Romania to ally with Nazi Germany. Many Romanians in that place were sent to Siberia, Kazakhstan etc. Moldova still has 82% Romanian population

@@gigikontra7023 Wow! I did not know that. It actually doesn't surprise me though. Most countries, including here in the UK, are being overrun by other nationalities. It's become the norm now. I have no problem with that. But just as long as the natives of countries do not become tourists in their own country.

@@heeeeeresrossy Yeah man, everyone knows about Holocaust, about Eastern Germany and Western Germany, but nobody knows what happened to all those hundreds of thousands of Romanians sent to Gulag and the fact that Romania was split in two by Stalin: People's Republic of Romania and Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova (which is in fact not even the real MOLDOVA, but rather its Eastern, less significant, part)

@@gigikontra7023 yep. People need to know the real history. Such a shame that Hitler & Stalin STILL today have a hold over some countries.

No way! It's a small world! Lovely part of the city

Thanks so much!

Sadly true mate!

So true mate, the people there really made it a great place to be despite the poverty all around!

Thanks so much!

Thanks so much!

Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed it :)

Haha so true - exactly what I thought when I first saw it on booking.com!

Really appreciate your kind words Janine :)

A lot of unexpected wee treats in that city, just wish I'd had more time after the long journey to get there!

I bet it was less dangerous than most of the streets in Glasgow

Con-Tourism are waiting for your booking! :)

They weren't too keen on doing refunds either! The annoying thing is, even after getting the money back, it cost me a bucketload more having to try and find another way home!

As somebody who knows people from Moldova... I think you should have taken a bus to Iasi and flown out from there. That's the common way to go to Moldova. Flights to Chisinau are unreliable thes days due to the unstable situation. Not Wizzair's fault.

@@ms-zy5wl Whizz Air could / should have done what you suggested don't you think? That's the point! How much does hiring a few coaches cost in Moldova? Not much is the answer. If they flew people into Moldova, and know they have people ticketed to get out, then they have a duty of care to get them out if they believe the security situation is becoming dangerous (too dangerous to fly back in). It's entirely Whizz Air's responsibility alongside the UK Foreign Office. Not for the first time a budget airline completely walks away from its customers and obligations...

I bet in summer that lake is busy :)

Aye it's a tricky old situation with little prospect of a happy conclusion

Miserable past??? Surely You have no idea what you are talking about. Compered to the past, the present is unbelievable miserable, and if it continues same way, the future looks even more miserable, to put it nice....

Moldova is in fact Eastern Moldova, the eastern half of Romania's Moldova region, taken by Stalin in 1940 which forced Romania to ally with Nazi Germany. Many Romanians in that place were sent to Siberia, Kazakhstan etc. Moldova still has 82% Romanian population

Basically you don't know what you are talking about when you talk about Moldova. The best defense of the country is it's neutrality.

Stiil Moldova might a be a poor country it is not a miserable one. You see less misery in the streets of Chisinau than in many cities of the western world.@@russt8874

Haha so true mate!!! :D

is best time for soviet looking place. adds to the vibe

Glad you enjoyed it Paul, thanks!

GDP per capita is the solution.

Bucharest is very different, first of all there are still lots of 19th century French style buildings, and there are zero communist monuments (no Lenin, no red stars, no glamorizes tanks or bombs or other weapons) - in fact, there are many monuments to the heroes who resisted the foreign communist invasion, and many Christian symbols (crosses, frescoes of the Virgin Mary). Chișinău has a large ethnic Russian and Ukrainian population (the rulers were brought from Russia proper to govern the land, and they brought an entire bureaucracy) so Moldovan society, or parts of it, still have some Soviet nostalgia. Also, Moldova experienced ethnic cleansing (of ethnic Romanians) at least twice in the 1940s whereas Romania didn't, so the cultural roots are far weaker in Moldova, which became a Soviet style hodge podge of nationalities from the former Soviet Union. Bucharest's population has a lot of cultural ties to Western Europe (there are very cheap tours and many people take advantage of them, plus everyone gets Western European TV stations) whereas Chișinău's population has some roots and family ties in Russia and the former Soviet Union republics, and much of the media comes from Russia. So fashion, mores, politics, and everything is pretty much different. The language is the same (for those making an effort to speak the local language in Moldova, although many Russian ethnics refuse to learn the language of the people they ruled) and food is very similar (with more Arabic and Western European influence in Romania, and more Uzbek and Russian influence in Moldova).

Glad you enjoyed it Richard, cheers!

Thanks is much Max!

Cheers for joining me David!

Cheers Roger! Just wish I'd had longer there!

Thanks so much Sarah! Appreciate it :)

Glad you enjoyed it Marti, thanks!

Contrast is the word for sure!

Thanks so much!!!

Cheers Tim! The snaps from your trip look amazing!

Haha feels safer here than parts of Scotland mate :D

Cheers John!

It really was, just wish I'd had more time as originally intended!

Cheers Gordon! I wish I'd had more time, but still nice to get a wee walkabout :)

Oh great tip thanks! I'd originally planned 3 nights, was a shame I had so little time there eh!

Thanks Derrick!

Cheers Chris!

Cheers Damon!

My pleasure!

Haha and after that long arduous trip to get there, I wish I had more time to explore!

So glad you've had the pleasure of this wonderful place, and sounds like your timing was perfect :)

Yeah, Moldova was once part of Romania, but I have a lot of reading to do too to learn about it all!

also ? :D Romanian is our native language.

Thanks Sue!

Thanks so much for coming along with me! Wish I'd had more time as originally planned to show more!

Cheers James!

Thanks Elaine!

Cheers Richard! A nice wee Romanian adventure next week that doesn't quite go to plan :D

@@steve-marsh can't wait young man!!

Aye indeed mate! Hoped to have longer to explore, but still nice to see the place

So true mate!

Thank you Debs! You too! :)

@@steve-marsh my pleasure you have a lovely channel debs xx

It really was, wish I'd had longer, but still what an experience!