Day 8: Moldova Bound

After parting ways with Anne, we sped towards Vinnystia. Full of diesel-spewing and oil-burning automobiles and trucks, it was decidedly not the most scenic place we've been thus far. Nate, being that good sport that he is, went into the train station armed with pictograms of two people, two bicycles, and a map of Western Ukraine and Moldova. This would be easy enough, we thought.

An hour later, Nate came out of the train station, having been through multiple lines, plenty of hassle, and some serious difficulty in obtaining our tickets, as well as tickets for our bicycles. With this taken care of, we ran around trying to figure out which platform we were supposed to be departing from. With ramps at 10 percent grades, we mostly had to haul our bicycles up steep flights of steps to platforms. A kind cyclist tried to help us, but, surprise, the number of the platform isn't printed on your ticket: "Seriously, there is no information here. It is useless. I am so sorry," he apologized over and over. After asking people "Chisinau? Chisinau?" and realizing that it's pronounced differently in Ukrainian, Russian, Modolvan, and Romanian, we finally gave up and waited for a train to pull in at the appointed hour.

We climbed up onto the train's last car and were lucky enough to get a cabin attendant who spoke enough English to help us. Our bicycles were stowed in the back of the train car, and our belongings and tired selves were stuffed into a corner of a Pullman sleeper car. Lucky enough to snag second class tickets, and even luckier to have a cabin built for four to ourselves, we settled in for a dinner of ramen noodles.

The trip is only 100 km, but due to border crossings and rail sizing issues, it took 14 hours to reach our destination. Bicycles aren't allowed to cross via land, so we were stuck with the train as our mode of transit. We were woken up at 23:00 and again at midnight with Ukrainian and Moldovan border security wanting to know just where we were going.

In the morning, we woke up as we pulled into the sparkly, decidedly non-Soviet train station in Moldova's capital. The morning was spent being overwhelmed and horrified by hideous buildings, obscene traffic, and even worse "traffic circles." No one had explained the rules of the road to post-Soviet Moldova, and people drove like drunken teenagers on methamphetamine.

We found some peace with our new friend, Yulia, who founded Moishe House in Chisinau. Moishe House is an organization aiming to create young Jewish communities in places where there aren't necessarily thriving communities. Although we were ecstatic about the hot shower and laundry, we were most excited about figuring out just what was going on in this funny little capital city. We were given an incredible tour of Jewish Chisinau by Yulia, who is certainly one of the go-to resources for Jewish history in Chisnau. Before WWII, Chisinau was 40 percent Jewish. Currently, less than one percent of the city identifies as Jewish. We stayed up until past midnight, discussing the state of global Jewry, learning about the FSU, learning about Chisinau and Moldova, and generally being charmed by this incredible young woman. We were cajoled into spending another day in Chisinau so that we could enjoy Moishe House's Shabbat hospitality.