Tuesday 28 August 2007

Moldovian Hospitality

I was last week in Moldovia, in the capital Chisinau.
Not really a place I used to be. On business the turnover is almost nothing. So I am not too much there.

Exactly the reason I went there to see it with my own eyes.
It was pretty wired,

in 24 h....

2 cutoms officers
1 police (after work in civil)
3 police in uniforms in a car (I used to chase away the first)
2 police patrolling the street
3 military police (who accompanied the two aboce)

...wanted bribery.

I made them a hard time in avoiding this, with 4 years of Russia experience.
It happens everywhere that government officials (usually the traffic police) mix up a foreigner and a cash maschine.
But this amount of incounters was extrem. I am not sure if I just had very bad luck or if it is normal. But unfortunately I guess it is.

Then there was also a raid of masked special forces (something you hear in Russia, but appears very rarely)... with all people around me seems to be with perfectly fine.

Yap, and finally we went over to Kiev on a ferry which was merely a steel raft with some cars on it which a guys pulled over the river on a steel rope.
All in all, Ukraine and Russia seemed very high developed afterwards.

I feel like Moldova never really came out of the situation, where Russia was in the wild 90s.
Thanks good Russia made a long way to become this country where I enjoy to life in (even though this blog not always sound like :)

Sunday 26 August 2007

Marry a foreigner :)

I saw a flayer on the streets of Kiev. It say...

Marry a foreigner

Getting a real gentlemen as groom form French, Germany, Australia, GB, Sweden (...)
All services for free and you get as present 28 lessons of english and a professional photo.

Honestly, I am surprised. Didn't expect to find something like this anymore. Ukraine is a well developed country which in my mind is pretty far ahead. Anyway, obvious still existing:)

At the other hand, all this "russian bridge" spam we get need their "human capital" from somewhere.

About this blog

This blog is a close up on Russia and the CIS. I am not giving you the big picture.
I would anyway fail. I am too long here. So beauty & decay,
education & corruption, high culture & kafka-style administration are meanwhile normal for me.
So this blog is like a painting from from Roy Lichtenstein... when you are with your nose on it :) You will just see the dots, not gaining any understanding of the whole.

Most things will look strange in this blog. But you can be sure, I would not live here, if there would not be a lot of great things here. Unfortunately, the weired stories are more interesting to tell & read.
Don’t judge Russia on this blog, if you want to know the country, come over and take a look by your own.

Gilles