Our visit to this former soviet country started off with an inquiry at the frontier: “Under what circumstances are this Italian and Estonian trying to enter the country?” Fortunately, “a tourism visit to Chisinau” seemed fair enough to the officer, and the elderly couple who had picked us up, drove us to the nearest village where we could continue hitch-hiking.
The road was narrow and holey, rimmed with small bright-colored houses and old dark-bearded men puffing cigarettes on the front porch. After a few hours or driving and passing numerous horse-drawn carriages on the way, we finally reached the outskirts of Chisinau. Meanwhile the vividness of rural houses had been replaced with solid grey tones of crumbling huts surrounded by overgrown gardens.
Taking a ride with the rusty old Ikarus bus was like stepping 20 years back in time. I sat on a leather seat where someone had scribbled some Russian swearwords. The doors closed with a loud screech; the ticket officer came to me and in exchange of a handful of coins, handed me a piece of shabby newsprint paper which had the smell of printing ink.
Looking out of the window I saw giant apartment buildings, so-called “khrushchyovkas”, where the only thing that distinguished one window from another, was the color of curtains or different clothing items hanging from small attachable clotheslines. Everything exuded drabness and frailty.
Near the bus-stop I noticed a playground with big metal constructions, where the paint had partly been peeled off and some sharp edges of steel were sticking up from the slide. Then it hit me – all this backwardness was actually reviving my childhood. All around me were cozy corner shops where old men come to buy loose cigarettes and fill their plastic bottles with beer on tap, whereas children drool over baskets filled with cookies and candies. And even the plates in a public canteen had the same golden edging like in grandma’s place.
