I’ve been a member of couchsurfing since about 2010/2011 . It has been one of the best things I have ever done. I started really using it when I was in France studying abroad. I continued to use it ever since for hosting, surfing and meet ups. While many people think it is just a free way to stay somewhere, I have to say it is more than that. Most of the places I travel to, it is quite easy to find a hostel for no more than 10 bucks . I usually end up treating my host of drinks or dinner or whatever anyway, so it is not so much about the money for me. Often when you have a host, you get to learn more about the place you are going to through a local lens. Hostels can be fun, but you sometimes fall in a bubble of other travelers and you can miss out on local things. It’s not always the case, but still.
Anyways, I posted that I was going to Transnistria on couchsurfing and a day later I got a message from a guy my age living in Rybnitsa. He offered to host me at his flat he shares with his girlfriend. I read about how there are very few people that age still living there so I was curious to see what living there for them was like. There are also even less people that go there. Rybnitsa is in the north of Transnistria. It is just across the river from Moldova . As my couchsurfer said” if the river was frozen you could slide across back to Moldova in 2 minutes”.
Rybnitsa was about a 2 hour ride from Tiraspol. I took the mini bus. I was a little confused at the station, but managed to find a yellow van that was going there. I had to convince the driver I really wanted to go there and not back to Chisinau. Various passengers were pulling up the wikipedia and asking me if I was sure, and I kept nodding. I paid for my ticket and was off. I think I accidentally got on the long mini bus because it stopped absolutely everywhere and took definitely more than 2 hours. My phone battery was at its end as always. I became slightly concerned that finding my host was going to be impossible. I got off at the wrong stop in the outer part of the city. There was nothing but a Sherrif. I asked some young guys if they knew where the bus stop was and they drove me down the road about half a km down the road and there is it was.
Tolik, my host was waiting there. He was a very cheerful and funny guy.He was about the same age as me and hosts probably every single couchsurfer that comes through Transnistria or at least Rybnitsa. ” Geez I thought you got left at some break stop. I saw atleast 4 or 5 Tiraspol- Rybnitsa buses come in the last 30 minutes”. Supposedly some of the buses take less stops than others so of course I managed the one that stops everywhere. He also told me he sometimes gets wary of the police when standing around waiting, because he went to class with many of them and they were sort of the assholes of the class. I guess this is the same situation in most countries. I have to admit when I see some tool from my graduating high school class in any position of power, I can’t help but chuckle. We went to his flat that he shared with his very lovely girlfriend. They prepared a nice dinner for me and were interested in having some nice discussions.
I have read a million academic articles, other academic publications, news sources, opinion poll and in addition I watched a number of documentaries on this place. What I was lacking was a local insight apart from some surly bus drivers and teenagers overly hyped about game of thrones. This was a chance to gain some introspect. One of the things I suspected went out the window was when they turned on the television. It turns out they had more access to international media other than just stuff like RT or Sputnik. Tolik of course was interested in watching a football match. I think it was some premiere league match of some sort , but I can’t recall . He invited several of his friends over as well. We discussed the whole situation and after I has enough vodka in me, I decided to just bluntly ask ” Do you guys want to be independent or not?” Most of them laughed. They laughed if I asked if they would want to be annexed by Russia as well as that is a popular opinion among many residents of Transnistria. ” We sort of need a land border” one of them said. Another one chimed in with ” A lot of us have Russian passports, if we wanted to live in Russia we can just go there”. Obviously, they aren’t the average group of Transnistrians. Most of them agreed to the idea that it is better to just have Transnistria as an autonomous region. That response comes to usually less than 3 percent at best on most of the opinion polls I have gathered which led to speculation of whether or not I tapped into a special group of people or these polls are just rigged. I would probably wager it is a combination of both.
I was also curious about why a group of young and bright people were still there. Tolik told me he planned to go to Australia for a work study thing , but the Australians denied his visa because they feared he would overstay . Him and his girlfriend told me they would like to try later for somewhere in Europe or elsewhere but were rather content showing people like myself where they live and educating them about it. Many of them also said that leaving is not always simple as they have families there . Also in an area that suffers a brain drain or even just a shortage of workers, there needs to be at least some people to stick around. Everything is not always black and white. We didn’t just have serious conversations. We joked around a lot. We talked about travel stories, embarrassing moments, dirty jokes, In the end, it was a very pleasant evening. It was no different than a house party I would have had anywhere else in the world.
In fact, I had so much fun this was the only party photo I managed to snap…428942 vodkas later
Miss you guys!!!!
The next morning, I was in a bit of a crunch of get out of Transnistria. I didn’t have as much time to stay to explore the great city of Rybnitsa as time was ticking. Tolik offered to help me extend my stay, but I needed to get back to Chisinau so I could catch my flight the next morning. There was no way I was going to try to make it from Rybntisa to Chisinau airport the next morning. I jumped in a taxi to the Moldovan “border”. I was greeted with no other than ” What in the hell are you doing here” reactions by both the Transnistrian and Moldovan guy. The Moldovan guy was more concerned because there is a lot of illegal trafficking that comes from Ukraine into this part of Transnistria on its way Moldova. He put me in a room and tried to find out what I was up to. I showed him my passport stamps and various selfies. He eventually figured out I was just some silly tourist and wasn’t in fact smuggling weapons or frozen chickens into Moldova. The officer took a selflie with me, but my fat thumb deleted this gem
I sort of failed with getting any other real pictures of Rybnitsa. I took this one at the hill and the other one leaving the border. It is a bit of a challenge for me to do discreet pictures in focus. Actually, I am not really known for my photograph taking. If anyone wants to pay fpr me to take a photojournalism class, I can send you my paypal. Or not I live for the moment not the picture..if you are interested in seeing more what Rybnitsa looks like, google images is at your service.
I was grateful to get a personal perspective of Transnistria and glad to see if for myself. I wish my Russian skills were stronger so I could gain a deeper insight, but I did what I could. Hopefully, I can come back sometime and do more studies and reports on it in the future. I really am grateful for Tolik and his girlfriend who were an amazing hosts and his friends who were great to meet. Thanks guy, you all are welcome in Prague or wherever I am based.