A country drive in Transnistria

Transistria is actually a fairly long country, at about 200 kms (120 miles) from north to south. But it's only a few kms wide.

Most people who visit only see the city of Tiraspol. But we are not most people, so yesterday morning we hopped in the rental car and went for a drive.

We started in Tiraspol and drove north as far as Goian.

Tiraspol to Goian.

Of course Transnistria doesn't show up on google maps. Why not? Because the country of Transnistria doesn't really exist!

But the route above shows the approximate length of the country. The border on the right is Ukraine, and the border on the left is mostly the Dniester River, which is very close to where the blue highway line is.

We didn't make it as far  north in Transnistria as we would have liked to. But, we made it to a beautiful view, and then we turned around.

Heading north from Tiraspol.

Hardly any traffic. 

Here as well as in Moldova, they have planted trees on both sides of almost all highways. I bet it's really pretty in the summer. Kinda drab and dreary at this time of year.

Typical village.

So we're driving along, and all of a sudden out of nowhere there's a big old Soviet tank on a hill. We stopped at this monument beside the highway (in the middle of flat farm country) just to see.

Some kind of WWII monument. At the base of the hill there were some gravestones with dates on them. Whoever it was, they all died in 1944. Perhaps there was some kind of battle at this location.

How did they get it up here?

Can anybody read Russian?

Someone did get back to me on this. Apparently it says something like "To those who lost lives for saving the soviet union and whole world from the fascists -you will never be forgotten by today and future generations"

We carried on until just before the town of Goian. There, I saw a sign pointing to a picnic table, and it looked like there might be a trail. I used the camera translate option on the iPhone, and sure enough the sign says "Recreation Area".

Our rental car and the sign.

We hiked up the hill to this beautiful view.

And a little further up to this beautiful view. On the far side of the river is Moldova.

We walked back down the hill and sat at an old rustic table to have our lunch. It wasn't long before one of the local dogs smelled the possibility of a treat.

Our new friend.

She sure was a friendly thing, but she had no table manners at all. She sure did enjoy the salami and cheese that we gave her.

Uneventful drive back to Tiraspol. There is a fortress in the nearby town of Bender and we went over to have a look, but they wanted $5 each to get in and it was getting late in the day so we took a pass on it.

Today, we're heading back even further north. But first, we have to cross back in to Moldova. That should be interesting because I've read that the border guards can be a little crooked. I guess we'll see...

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