Chisinau's Dendrarium

A few weekends ago, my REECA classmate Regina came to visit Chisinau for the first time since she left Moldova with her family at the age of 3. This was as good an excuse as any to leave Comrat for the weekend and go up to Chisinau and help Regina explore her native land.

Regina and I discovered the dendrarium, which apparently is the Moldovan name for a really cool botanical park. I have to say that I didn’t give Moldova enough credit. I didn’t realize there was anything this nice in the entire country. The gardens were manicured, there was no trash anywhere, and there were even lily pads. They even had a cute little train for kids! As Regina said, "Are we in Moldova or France?"

[I’ve noticed that I’ve started to adopt a very post-Soviet mentality of commenting on the cleanliness of everything. I’m not sure if this has to do with the decline in public services since the fall of the USSR or what, but it seems to be the first thing people here notice about a place.]

Since I don’t actually spend that much time in Chisinau, I still screw up the public transportation from time to time. This was definitely one of those occasions. On the way back, we just stood on the opposite side of the street, assuming that would take us back the way we came. This apparently logical thought led us sadly astray. We ended up going to the outskirts of Chisinau instead of the center. 

This was one of those moments that disproved the former Soviet stereotype of dour and unfriendly people. Several people on the bus helped us out once it became apparent that we were very lost. They alerted the bus driver to our situation, and we ended up going to the end of the line to wait until another bus left in the opposite direction to take us back to the city. Several of (shirtless) bus drivers were waiting at the end of the line and they invited us to sit with them.

I’m always slightly intimidated by bus drivers in the former Soviet Union, since they seem like a pretty tough crew. Their job involves weaving through traffic while making change at the same time, so they are usually intense. These guys were actually very nice. One was wearing a top hat, which is even weirder in Moldova than it is in the U.S. Another driver treated me to an apple and asked us what we thought of Obama. When someone asks me this question, I usually gear up to hear something racist, but this guy said he thought Obama was doing a good job and treated everyone fairly. We had a good time chatting and decided that in the end we were happy to have gotten lost!

After 15 minutes, the non-racist bus driver started the drive back to the center of Chisinau, but not before the top-hatted bus driver kissed us on our cheeks. The bus dropped us off in the center, and we rewarded ourselves with a tasty Moldovan lunch. 

Getting lost on public transportation: just think of it as a really cheap city tour!