151–160 of 427 posts
Staying in Moldova for 2 weeks proved to me that even the most boring of places can be amazing with the right people.
No place is boring if you’re naturally inquisitive. How can a place you’ve never been to be boring?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve been to both and the Turkmenistan visa took me a week. North Korea required 2.5 years.
Same, but my Turkmenistan LoI took over 4 years and several attempts to get (us passport holder). It has been by far the most problematic and difficult country for me to gain entry to. DPRK, Iran, etc all were substantially easier. My DPRK one was not an issue in the slightest, maybe 1-2 month turnaround from the tour company applying. YMMV.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I imagine your friend is genuine. During undergrad/before 2014 I attended a summer school ( https://www.jass.school ) in St. Peterburg. I found the city to be welcoming, almost European in ambiance, with friendly university students. It never felt too foreign or unsafe. In my experience, St. Peterburg is as distinct from how I imagine Moscow as San Francisco is from Dallas, Texas. (edit: I have no idea how it’d feel…
> almost European in ambiance It should. SPB is in the European part of Russia.
Central Asia still remains largely untouristed. I loved this article from the New York Times concerning a boy who taught himself Russian and then went to Kazakhstan with his father to immerse himself. The Foreign Language That Changed My Teenage Son’s Life https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/magazine/russian-language...
It is as close as you can get to India/Chinas growth without leaving Europe. Chisinau is bustling with activity and full of foreigners chasing entrepreneurial opportunities. The leading Eastern European private equity funds are making hundreds of millions of investments in the country and there appears to be a gold rush in all service oriented areas: IT Consulting, Banking, BPO outsourcing etc.
It is lazy, easy and dishonest to draw a portrait of a derelict country. Diving into the essence of what is actually happening behind the scenes takes a lot more effort. The description of a horse carriage in the center of the capital city is outright false. Chisinau is on par with Kiev, Warsaw, Bucharest, Sofia etc, but bustling with opportunity at every corner.
Like many post Soviet countries, Moldova is incredibly corrupt. Fortunately, it now has a former US federal prosecutor leading anti-corruption efforts. The current president and more than half of the current prime ministers cabinet is made up of Ivy League educated technocrats under 40 yrs of age. It is a very exciting place.
This is a terrible misrepresentation of Moldova and the progress it has undergone in the past 20 years. Please look at Moldova’s GDP growth since 2000 compared to the rest of Europe and some BRICS countries https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/national-gdp-constant-usd... It is as close as you can get to India/Chinas growth without leaving Europe. Chisinau is bustling with activity and full of foreigners chasing entrep…
The table on that page (countries with the most and least tourists per capita) is a prime example of how NOT to present data. There are so many better ways of visualizing tourism than lazily dumping a spreadsheet with one significant figure after the decimal on a page.
This would fit maybe in 2019, but Moldova now has many foreigners. Hotel prices went up considerably! For "Europe's least visited country" try Belorus, Ukraine, Russia, Ossetia or Armenia. Traveling to Mariupol as a tourist is the real deal in 2024
I have a Russian friend who is adamant that I would really enjoy and have a great time in Russia. IIRC he tells me to go to St Pete more than Moscow. But I cannot imagine doing that as an American. It kind of makes me wonder if he's messing with me but he hates Russia and Putin and I don't know why he would. I feel like I would be so unsafe. I'm a very "American" looking person and I only know a handful of Russian wo…
"Sergiu exuberantly offers up shot glasses of mulberry vodka, pine-needle vodka, strawberry vodka, “medicine” vodka, “78 per cent proof” vodka" Although Moldova has vodka-drinking Slavs in it, the beverages described are not vodkas. Vodka is made of cereals or potatoes, whereas these are nicer-flavored, fruit-based distilled beverages that locals call "rakiu", in English it would be schnapps: https://en.wikipedia.org…
"rachiu" in Romanian/Moldovan is brandy in English.
"bald and bankrupt" take on this (2019) was enlightening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnDxHTaeNX0