Back in the US!

I've been back in the United States for a couple of weeks now. I meant to write a concluding post a long time ago but just found myself too incredibly busy. I've been enjoying sharing the experiences I had in Moldova with new and old friends. I even performed one of my host mom's favorite songs (A Na Posledok Ya Skazhy) at the staff talent show where I'm working now. I'm very much looking forward to meeting a bunch of Moldovans when I move to DC. I know there are a lot of them down there.

Some things I miss about Moldova:

-My host family and our kitten
-Hearing a mixture of Russian/Romanian spoken everywhere
-Watching guys go crazy on the dance floor the way only Europeans know how
-Being able to go to great concerts/operas/plays any day of the week for every little money
-Food: mamaliga, borscht, placinte
-Homemade wine
-My students at the university and Educational Advising Center
-The Winrock staff
-The park near my house
-Talking about Moldovan politics
-Seeing the crazy outfits Moldovan women wear and think are totally normal

Things I don't miss so much:

-The constant feeling of fear while crossing the street
-The stray dogs
-Inevitably reeking of cigarette smoke after going to any bar or restaurant
-The incredibly hot and stuffy minibuses

That's about all I can think of for now. I hope I'll be able to go back to Moldova somehow in a year or so!

Political turmoil once again

The Communists seem to have done really well in the election on Sunday. I'm not surprised at all; they ran an awesome campaign. They are much more cohesive than the other parties and did a lot to get the youth vote. I went to an incredible free concert out on the main square on Friday that was put on by the Communist candidate for mayor of Chisinau. He got a Grammy winning DJ, Benny Benassi, who played his most famous song (Satisfaction) to the best fireworks show I've seen in Chisinau this year. There was also a laser show to go along with his performance and a bunch of dancers on another stage. The square was packed with teenagers and people in their 20s. The show must have cost a ton of money to put on and the Communists definitely put a lot of money into all their banners and people walking around with flags and passing out flyers for the past month. Where all this money comes from, no one knows, and several people mentioned that it would be better to share some of that with the pensioners who can barely survive on the money they receive from the government. I've heard mixed reviews from people I've talked to about the Communist party. One lady I talked to broke into tears remembering what the communists did to her family during the Soviet Union and said she can't understand how people in Chisinau can consider themselves communists today even though the communists were responsible for sending their grandparents to Siberia to die. Several people have told me that all the communists are criminals and none of them can be trusted. Others have told me that the communists aren't associated with the ideology of communism at all anymore and are really just like all the other parties.

The communist candidate for mayor of Chisinau, however, ended up with only 48% of the vote so there will be another election in a couple of weeks. The communists are accusing the other parties of fraud and the other parties are accusing the communists of buying votes. In the meantime, a car exploded in the center of Chisinau killing the president of the tennis federation who was also the chief of staff for another candidate. There aren't many details yet but of course there is a ton of speculation.

In other news, I traveled up north to the historic town of Soroca on Sunday with a Peace Corps volunteer. He showed me around the fortress that was established in 1499 and we walked up 500 steps to see the Candle of Gratitude. It doesn't seem to be widely known what this was built to show gratitude for but it quickly became another important site in Moldova when it was built in 2004. Soroca has a large Roma community so there are a bunch of gypsy palaces in the town but we didn't really get a chance to check those out, I just saw them from a distance.

Largest wine cellar in the world

My time here in Moldova is winding down. Melissa left for the States this morning and Liz left a few days ago. I had a nice time with Melissa in Orhei this weekend at her goodbye dinner Saturday and picnic with her tutor's family on Sunday. My host family insisted on calling her last night and putting her on speakerphone to say a final goodbye. This consisted of Grigory telling her how great she is, wishing her happiness and success and most importantly wishing her luck in finding a good man. Naturally, everyone we have met in Moldova will be invited to her wedding.

Last week we finally made it to Milestii Mici, the biggest wine cellar in the world. I'm not just saying that; they have an official certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records. You have to get a taxi or have a car to do the tour because you drive through the cellar. It's enormous. There are street signs with the names of the types of wines that are stored in the barrels on each specific row. I think the most interesting fact we learned on the tour was that at one point during the time of the Soviet Union Gorbachev went on a campaign against alcoholism and wanted all the places like Milestii Mici to be destroyed. There's a secret room in the cellar where they hid all their best wine in case this were to happen. Another tidbit was that there's a very small door on each barrel so a tiny woman has to be the one to go in there and clean them. Maybe I've found my calling.

Domestic Violence and Trafficking Seminar in Cenac

Yesterday I went to a village about 80 km south of Chisinau to give a domestic violence and anti-trafficking seminar for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls. A Peace Corps volunteer set it up for me with his colleague. I was a little stressed about it because it was the first time I would be leading this kind of an event and I had to do it all in either Russian or Romanian. I ended up doing a little bit of both languages. I spoke primarily in Russian but the girls answered questions in Romanian and I had a lot of materials (handouts, brochures) in Romanian as well. Almost everything I did in the first part came from previous Winrock trainings. At the beginning of the class I had each girl (there were about 30) come to the front of the room and something she is good at. Common responses were dancing, drawing, writing poetry, and singing. Then she had to write something on the board under the heading "Good thoughts about women." After that I had one girl read a story from the "16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence Campaign" that Winrock participated in back in November. The story was a pretty shocking retelling of acts of domestic violence. The idea behind putting these 2 activities together is to give the girls a sense of pride in being a woman from all the positive thoughts they gathered about women and then to show how distressing it is that so many women endure this kind of violence. Next, I had printed out statements about domestic violence and the girls were split into groups to discuss whether or not the statements were myths or realities. They then read their statements to the class, gave their opinion, and then read a paragraph that gave reasons for whether the statement was true or false.

The second half of the seminar focused on domestic violence. We watched a very powerful film, "Lilya 4 Ever" that has often been used for trafficking awareness and is also just a great movie. We stopped halfway through for them to answer questions and then had a discussion at the end as well. The seminar continued for over an hour after the end of the school day so I was really pleased that most of the girls decided to stay even though they didn't have to. It was great to go to a school in a village that is so remote and difficult to get to because they don't get the attention from NGOs and government projects that other areas receive. I wish I had started doing trainings like these earlier on in the year because they are a bit difficult to set up logistically and I probably won't get around to doing another one in the next month.

To give a better sense of how difficult it is to get in and out of the village, I wasn't able to get back to Chisinau last night because there was no transportation. The only bus out of the village to Cimislia (a bigger town where you can get buses to Chisinau) leaves at 7 am and is always full. It's a huge bus from the era of the Soviet Union that has an exhaust pipe on the inside that blows exhaust into the face of one unlucky passenger in the seat in front of it. It took 45 minutes to go 7 km because the road is so bad from Cimislia to the village Cenac where I was staying.

There is no high school in the village so if you want to continue your education you have to do so in Cimislia. Since there is no viable transportation, your family has to be able to pay for you to stay in dorms during the week. This means that a lot of young people in Cenac stop their education after the 9th grade. I was really impressed with the middle school though. They have a nice building and some great projects and activities for the students to participate in.

Albania: Best trip of the year

I had an awesome time with Liz in Albania. I mentioned in one of my previous blogs that Madrid tried really hard to swing me over to team Western Europe and failed but Albania is definitely holding my interest. I would love to make a more extensive trip across the Balkans in the future. Anyway, I'll start from the beginning of our trip.

We took a night train from Chisinau to Bucharest on Monday night, leaving at 5:30 pm and arriving in Bucharest at 7 am. We met a couple of Americans on the train who are on a faith-based program that sends them around the world doing mission work for 10 months. We also got trapped out of our wagon for 2 hours in the middle of the night when we wanted to sleep because we made the mistake of going to use the nicer bathrooms that were in the dining car. Other than that the trip was unremarkable.

The weather in Bucharest was beautiful and we sat by the lake in Youth Park all day because our flight wasn't until 7 pm. We had a picnic and watched people jogging and biking. This is something you would never see in Moldova.

Our flights went on schedule and we arrived in Tirana at 11:30 pm. We stayed at a hostel the first night because we were getting there so late but we met up with another Fulbright student the next day and stayed at his apartment for the next two nights. His place was really nice and it's located right in the city center so we could walk just about everywhere. We had quite a bit of time to explore the city and were lucky to have beautiful weather. We took a cable car up to the top of Mt. Dajty and had a gorgeous view. Liz was pretty terrified on the way up and we probably wouldn't have gone if we'd known what it was going to be like but in the end it was worth it. There's a hotel/restaurant at the top of the mountain that has a rotating bar on the top floor that gives another nice view. That night we went to another rotating bar on the top of the Sky Tower and got to look out at the Tirana city lights.

Something we really enjoyed was the fact that food is so inexpensive in Albania. You can get a huge, delicious meal in a nice restaurant for $5. There are 10 cafes with outdoor seating on every block. Both the Americans and Albanians we met said that you would think people never work because these cafes are always full in the middle of the work day. The salaries are comparable to those in Moldova but living expenses in general seem to be a lot less. Before this trip I had maybe had 2 cups of coffee in my entire life but I had at least 8 over 3 days in Albania. I cappuccino would be about $1.50 and they always bring a glass of water with it for free too.

On Friday we took a mini bus to Vlora, a beautiful beach town in the south. We met two students, Semi and Marsela, on the bus and Semi said she would invite us to her parent's house. We spent the first day on our own walking along the beach and taking in the scenery but the next day we met up with those girls and they took us all around town in their cousin's car. At night we went to Semi's house and met her mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, cousin, grandfather, and some others.

A couple of the guys spoke English well because they had worked abroad so they told us about Albanian life and politics which was really interesting. They cooked us traditional food that included a spinach, egg and cheese dish, rice pilaf, pasta, salad, and homemade bread. We also took a walk to explore their huge expanse of farmland. Semi's brother-in-law said that if I want they will give me a plot of land so I can build a house there with my Albanian husband.

We spent the next day with the family as well and went around to the houses of some other relatives. One house was way up on the mountain and had a gorgeous view of the ocean.

I wish we'd had more time to see other places in Albania but Semi's mom already invited Liz and I to her son's wedding that's coming up in two years so maybe we'll be back in the near future.

Click here to see more pictures.

Easter in my host fam's village

I just got back from my first orthodox Easter experience and thought I should post about it right away since I'm leaving for Albania soon and will want to write all about that adventure when I get back next week. I took a small bus up north with my host sister Saturday afternoon and arrived at the village, Temeleuti, around 7:30 pm. The population of the village is 1,780. Not so different from my hometown. A little bit bigger. We went to my host mom's brother's house and started celebrating around 9 with an impressive spread of food. We went to bed a little after 11 and woke up at 4 am to go to the church. There's a tradition to stand out all night in or around the church but apparently not many people do that in this village because it's one of the smaller ones. When we got there though just about everyone from the village was standing in a circle around the church with candles and food laid out on the ground including sweet bread, candy, meat, and eggs that are painted red. After a while the priest walked around with his incense burner and not long after that he came around again with a small group of women singing. At that time he splashed everyone and all the food with holy water. After everything was blessed we packed up and walked home. Here's a picture of the village church at sunrise.

Once we got back to the house at 6 am we broke out the wine and cognac to really start the celebration. After a little while my host mom left to visit some people and I was able to take a short nap before going around to visit other relatives with my host mom's brother's family. Basically the whole day consists of visiting lots of people, saying "Hristos a inviat" (Christ has risen) and eating and drinking all day long. Before we left the house I got to watch the wedding DVD of the couple whose house we were going to first. We had to fast forward through a lot of it though because it was on 2 disks and very long. It was cool to watch because most of the traditions were the same as what I experienced when I went to the wedding in Gagauzia and the main difference was just that everyone was speaking Romanian instead of Russian. One additional tradition they had was for people to dance around with sheets and blankets. They also cooked all the food themselves whereas the wedding I went to was catered and a bit more extravagant.

Another thing I had to do before we left the house was go see all of their animals because I accidentally said "yes" when someone asked me if I had never seen a pig before. I should mention that not many people in this village speak Russian because there hasn't been any need to since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This weekend was great for practicing my Romanian but I could only understand about 60% of any given conversation. One person also mentioned that she can't understand pure Romanian so given the fact that I'm studying the Romanian language as it is spoken in Romania rather than in a small village in Moldova you can understand how following a conversation might be difficult. I had never heard the word "geeny" before (the g pronounced like in girl) but everyone used it in literally every sentence. It's clear that it means something like cool or awesome but I'm not sure if it's even a word in Romanian or what. Anyway, you can look at my Facebook photo album for pictures of those animals.

I'm running out of steam writing this because I'm still pretty tired from the weekend so I'm going to wrap up but might add some stuff later. The best part of the day was going down by the river and having a picnic out in the sun. I'll definitely be going back to the village before I leave Moldova. At one point people were getting pretty worked up over who I was going to visit first. One couple has a son that couldn't make it for Easter but according to my host mom is "an interesting guy" so we will go visit them when he's around for sure. The husband also brought the best homemade wine I have ever had so that's more incentive. At one point someone mentioned how lucky I am that I can go around to different villages and just pick any guy I want. At another house one of the grandmothers (who has Parkinsons and can barely walk but managed to cut some tulips for me and another girl) thanked me for coming, crossed herself, and then said may God grant me a good husband. This is all standard. I had such a nice time yesterday that I was starting to think I could see myself settling down in a village with a handsome Moldovan guy. Then I remembered that I'm not at all skilled with cooking, taking care of animals, or housework so I would almost certainly be the worst Moldovan housewife in history. My host mom's sister-in-law said that the next time I come to visit they'll give me an apron and put me to work though so we'll see.

Spriiiing

Spring is finally here and it's not going anywhere. Babushki are crouched over all the little trash cans in the park painting them a shiny new coat of green. The benches are also under repair. The bottoms of all the tree trunks will be covered by white spray paint by the end of the week to protect them from insects. The leaves are popping out rapidly and it appears like the general population has come out of hibernation. Last week only 2 people showed up to my negotiation skills class but today we had the highest turnout ever. I think this is more related to the fact that one of the professors definitely yelled at them all last week for ditching class. It was great to have them all there though and the lesson went really well. It's hard to believe we only have a few classes left before the end of the semester. Next week everyone has time off for Easter. I'm heading to my host mom's village on Saturday to experience the holiday there.

Conference & Guess Who

The conference on Friday didn't disappoint. I got on a bus with professors and some students at 8 am and got back to the city center around 10 pm so it was a long day. The conference took place at a hotel in Vadul lui Voda which is a place where people go to relax and get out of the city. There are little cabins you can rent out and the complex is near the river in a very pretty location.

The professor in charge of the event opened the meeting by introducing the guests. The first person he mentioned was the young American who looks just like one of our Moldovan students and whose name, Raspberry, even shows that she is basically one of us. Everyone turned to look at me and I gave a little wave. Then he went on to introduce the ambassador from Russia.

To my surprise, the entire conference was conducted in Russian. I guess this is because they didn't want to hire a translator and some of the guests did not speak Romanian. Most of the roundtables and meetings I have been to have had simultaneous translation but this event was a bit less formal and more like a discussion most of the time then presentations with powerpoint and all that. I was expecting at least a few of the talks to be in Romanian though since the agenda was all in Romanian and of course most of the professors there are publishing their work in Romanian. Not to mention this was a conference about Moldovan identity and the official language of Moldova is Moldovan/Romanian. At any rate, I was glad everything was in Russian so that I could understand the talks.

I have way too much to write about since there were at least 25 talks over the course of the day so I'll just highlight a few points that I thought were interesting. One discussion touched on the fact that Moldovan history is taught in Transnistria but not in the rest of Moldova where the subject is Romanian history and that it is very difficult to find journals that will publish articles about Moldova rather than Romania. One speaker said that his grandson was told he was wrong when he claimed that Stefan cel Mare (The Prince of Moldavia from 1457-1504) was Moldovan, not Romanian. Another speaker said that his granddaughter told him one day that she is Romanian; he asked how that could be since he and his wife are Moldovan as are her parents.

Someone from Transnistria mentioned that 18% of citizens in a poll consider themselves to be Soviet people which is even more interesting than responding that one is a citizen of the world seeings as the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.

A professor proposed the idea of creating a separate term for people who reside in Moldova (including Russians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, etc.) that distinguishes them from ethnic Moldovans. This system is used in Russia where ethnic Russians are "russkiye" and citizens of the Russian federation are "rossiyane." This sparked some debate among the participants but I don't think the guy was able to explain himself as well as he wanted to and it will be interesting to read his paper when it's published.

The most interesting topic of discussion for me focused on migration and Moldovans living abroad. One of the professors has conducted a study of Moldovans living in Portugal. He conducted interviews and found that the migrants there feel that if one wants to integrate into the culture she should let go of her Moldovan identity. He also found that Russian and Romanian speaking Moldovans abroad are divided and if they do meet they tend to speak in Portuguese rather than Russian. Another interesting point he made is that Moldovans who have been living/working abroad come back to Moldova when they are pensioners because they have managed to be able to receive pensions from both countries and it is less expensive to live here.

That's all I have to say about the conference for now other than that we had a nice banquet at the end and I gathered up the courage to give a toast in Russian. I talked to a lot of the students who were excited to meet me because they have either worked in the US or will be going there soon.

On Saturday night I went to a Romanian rap concert with Melissa. While we were waiting outside a guy sitting near us asked if we were speaking English and it turned out that he is visiting Moldova from LA as an aspiring Russian rap artist. He was born in Chisinau; his mom is from Odessa and his dad is from Cameroon but studied medicine in Moldova. I saw that one of the Moldovan rappers who would be performing that night, Guz, was just hanging around outside so I told this guy to go introduce himself to see if they could collaborate on something. Here's one of Guz's videos; it even has some English subtitles. The concert was pretty good overall. There weren't as many people there as I expected and Guess Who, the main act, only performed shortened versions of his songs which was kind of lame. It was a different crowd then we were used to since we usually end up running into Russians but, other than the guy from LA, most of the people there were Romanian-oriented.

East-West Conference

As I've mentioned before, I have been co-teaching a course on negotiation skills with a Fulbright Scholar at the Institute for International Relations of Moldova. It turns out that I can thank my affiliation with this institute for a pretty awesome opportunity this week to participate in a conference with the title "The Evolution of the Moldovan National and Political Identity: The Essentials and Characteristics of Internal and External Perceptions." It turns out a professor at the institute is also involved with the "East-West" Center that is hosting the event.

I knew very little about this event before I agreed to go but a professor from the university just sent me a program and everything about it looks like fantastic preparation for my master's program in Eurasian, Russian and East European studies. The schedule on Friday is packed. I'll get on a bus at 8 am in front of the Russian embassy and be bussed to a hotel in some area on the outskirts of Chisinau. The speakers include the ambassador from Belarus to Moldova, former ambassadors to Romania and Spain, and professors of history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. Many other ambassadors and high-level government officials including the President of the Parliament and the Minister of External Affairs were invited. Topics will touch on the genesis and evolution of Moldovan identity, European integration, ethnic minorities in Transnistria and Gagauzia, migration issues, and a lot more. I'm really looking forward to this and hope my Romanian skills will be sufficient to understand most of the material because I think I might be the only English speaker there. The organizers of the event wanted a couple of Fulbright scholars there to make the event more international but due to the fact that the agenda is only in Romanian and Russian I kind of doubt that many of the presentations will be in English. Maybe they will translate the Romanian lectures into Russian if some of the people from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine do not speak Romanian. We'll see. More on this event later of course.

In other news, I went to an OSCE Anti-Trafficking and Gender roundtable meeting today and it was one of the most interesting that I've been to so far. The OSCE Representative on Gender Issues is visiting this week from Washington, DC so I think they were trying to share as much information with her as possible and many more people were present this time than last month in general. The Moldovan government's 2010 report on trafficking in persons was distributed and it shows a decrease in identified cases but there was once again a discussion on the difficulty of producing accurate statistics. The prosecutor from the Causeni region always poses some tough questions and constructive criticism. He mentioned that the roundtables should consist of fewer presentations on the successes of the various actors and more on a discussion of actual problems that the participants are facing and how they can make their projects more effective. As of now, the meetings consist primarily of powerpoint presentations by 1 or 2 NGOs or government actors that give overviews of their projects and some statistics on how many beneficiaries they have helped and so on. It's essential for the participants to have an idea of all the projects that are out there so that overlap can be prevented and coordination can be improved, but I would say that about 75% of the group is the same from month to month and the regulars already know the basics of the projects being presented, unless they are brand new of course. The meetings usually run short on time so the question and answer section, which is always the most interesting and productive part, is limited.

I also went to the US Embassy today to have visa pages added to my passport. It looks a little sketchy now because I have an old passport and the pages they added are from the new version so they look completely different and are just taped in there at the end. The consular officer assured me that it's legitimate though. I'll be going to Albania in a couple of weeks with Liz so it needs to work. By the way, check out Liz's blog because she has a great new video about Transnistria.

http://moldovamoldovamoldova.wordpress.com/

Fulbright Seminar in Sofia, Bulgaria

The Academic Enrichment Seminar for Fulbright students that took place in Sofia, Bulgaria at the Hilton was a great success. The Bulgarian-American Commission for Educational Exchange organized the program with the title "Social and Cultural Integration in 21st Century Europe." The two-day seminar was packed with lectures by Bulgarian professors on topics of diversity, Balkan minorities, cosmopolitanism, Bulgarian culture and more. Solomon Passy, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave a lecture titled "Internet: From Cultural Diplomacy to Culture of Democracy" that focused on his metaphor comparing running a government to flying an airplane. His talk was a little odd but entertaining and he's clearly a very intelligent man.

The best part of the trip was meeting the other Fulbrighters and hearing about their research projects in Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Macedonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, and Bulgaria. 14 out of 32 of us presented during the panel discussions on topics ranging from the loss of textile traditions in Macedonia to translating forgotten languages in Slovenia to shifting ideas of masculinity amongst Croatian men. All three of us from Moldova presented and in general were very excited to share a little bit of information about Moldova with everyone else who was present since no one there really knew much about the country. The worst part of the trip was that we all wished we had had the opportunity earlier on since now we all want to visit each other and we're running out of time.

The commission really pulled out the bells and whistles for our stay. The hotel was posh to say the least and you could tell who the Fulbrighters were in the dining room at breakfast by how overwhelmed we all looked by the selection. I don't think any of us are really living in luxury in our host countries so we were easily impressed. They took us out to dinner at a great Bulgarian restaurant on Friday night that had traditional food, dancing, and music and arranged a trip to the city of Plovdiv on Saturday.

It was great for me to be able to go on this trip because I was able to revisit the city I lived in during the summer of 2009 when I interned at the US Embassy in the capital. One of the Bulgarian employees who works in the political section and helped me as a translator when I was interviewing a prosecutor of an organized crime case came to the seminar the second day and was there for my presentation. It was great to catch up with him afterward and he introduced me to one of the new political officers whom I chatted with for a little bit about NGO competition and corruption.

I'll leave you with a photo from the traveling "Buddy Bears" exhibition that is now in Sofia. There is a bear representing each country and Moldova's is obviously the best.

Humor Day in Odessa

Melissa and I decided to take a last minute trip to Odessa this weekend after finding out about the April Fool's Day festival that promised to be quite a scene. After going to the opera to see Madame Butterfly with my host family and Fulbrighters and having a couple of my host mom's boyfriend's signature Bloody Mary shots we headed to the north bus station to try our luck at getting a seat on a bus around midnight. The two big buses in the parking lot were full so we had to get on the one mini bus. We got worried for a second because I thought the driver was this old man standing near the bus who was clearly wasted. Melissa demanded to know who was driving though and it wasn't him so we were in the clear. Of course he was on our bus though along with his enormous bag full of branches and another bag full of what sounded to be quite a collection of bottles. He passed out as soon as he got on the bus and didn't wake up again until we got to the Ukrainian border where he had to show his passport. This was impressive because the driver blasted a Russian gangster show on the TV for the entire 5 hour trip. While we were waiting to cross the border the driver came back on and said "Grandpa" (with the meaning "Hey old man," not that he was his grandfather) and motioned for him to get out of the vehicle. It turned out he had to pay a bribe to cross the border for some reason. The 3 twenty-two year-old guys that were partying in the back of the mini bus got this info out of him. Soon after they all became friends because the old guy pulled out a bottle of vodka and offered them some. They asked if it was good, to which he replied, "There are two kinds of vodka: good and really good." Their eruption into laughter served as agreement and they went through the bottle pretty quickly.

All in all, it was an entertaining trip to Odessa through the middle of the night. We arrived at our hostel at 5 am and the girl working was super nice and let us go into the room to sleep right away. We were expecting that we would just be able to leave our stuff there but they didn't even charge us for sleeping there that morning. We got up around 9:30 and the American guy who is co-owner of the hostel gave us a map, a schedule of the festival, and told us of good places to go to breakfast. We walked around for hours on Friday and saw quite a bit of the city. The downtown area has some really pretty spots and we got to go to the famous Potemkin stairs down by the water. The festival consisted of tons of people walking around in weird hats and costumes if they were really into it. We got matching sailor hats that say "1st of April" and "Odessa" and we looked legit. There were also concerts, a parade, lots of street food and games. Standard festival. At night we went out with the owners of the hostel and a couple guys from England to check out the gala concert. After that we met up with a couple other people, got food, and went to a bar. We were supposed to go to the Detroit Club which was rumored to be "as ghetto as real Detroit" but it was closed so we went to a different place close to the hostel that was nice but low key.

The next day we splurged on a lunch replete with fresh juice, pizza, delicious salad, and milkshakes in the prettiest area of Odessa. (Not splurging by US standards considering that cost us about $10 each.) We got on the bus to head back to Chisinau around 3 and had a quiet trip back. It only took 4 hours this time because the driver was nuts. Quite a bumpy ride because the roads are in disrepair to put it mildly. I liked driving through a bunch of villages to see some of the houses and people shepherding, doing other kinds of work, or playing outside. When we got back to the city we had dinner at the mall and saw the movie "Limitless" dubbed in Russian. Great end to the night.

Festival of Languages

Another busy weekend in Chisinau. On Friday night I went to the Bach Festival at the organ hall with Fulbrighters and listened to some great music. The prime minister's wife was a patron of the event so he was there with her and as a result there was a lot of security. The German, Polish, and French ambassadors were also there and they all gave speeches to kick off the concert.

On Saturday morning I went to Winrock to check out a training for new Moldovan and American volunteers who will conduct trainings on business and entrepreneurial skills for students in the villages. After that I met up with a student from my conversation group for tea and headed to a photo exhibition that was taking place at an old abandoned museum near my house. That place is extremely creepy. Here's a link to some more info about the event that opened the exhibit. http://chisinow.blogspot.com/.

The final event of the weekend for me was the Festival of Languages that took place on Sunday at the Jewish Community Center. The festival was organized by the Tolerance Club to celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. There were 20 languages taught in 40 minute sessions over the course of the afternoon. During the first cycle you chose one European language to learn (French, German, Turkish, Finnish, Portuguese, etc.), in the second a language that is spoken in Moldova (Romanian, Russian, Gagauzian, Bulgarian, etc.), and in the last cycle some more exotic languages (Urdu, Chinese, Swahili, Japanese and more.) I attended the lessons on Turkish, Gagauzian, and Swahili. It was very cool that they found native speakers of so many languages to attend and teach basic phrases as well as share information about their cultures.

Sorry, no exciting interrogation stories from Transnistria

Yesterday I went on a trip to the de facto state of Transnistria to visit the NGO where Matt (another Fulbrighter) has been volunteering. After hearing lots of stories of foreigners not being able to cross the border one way or another without paying a hefty bribe or being detained for quite a while, I wasn't expecting the trip to go so smoothly as it did. We went on a normal mini bus with about 10 Moldovans from Chisinau and didn't have any problems at the border. We had to get off the bus to go register at the border on the way in with a migration card but on the way back someone just came on the bus to check our passports then let us on our way. On the way into Transnistria they stamped my migration card with the exact time I needed to be out of the territory that day so if I hadn't left by then it would probably have caused some difficulties.

For the most part Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, looks just like any other place in Moldova. There is, however, a prevalence of tanks that creates a different feel from Chisinau and you also see a lot more Russian flags, men in military uniform, and statues of Lenin. The streets also still have names like Lenin Street, Komsomolskaya St, and so on that are left over from Soviet times. When we were walking to catch the bus back in the afternoon there was also an overwhelmingly delicious bread smell permeating the air that was coming from one of the many factories that Transnistria has and Moldova doesn't. Matt suggested that the government probably pumps that smell out artificially in the areas where they own restaurants to get business. The people in power pretty much own everything in Tiraspol though they're pretty well off anyway.

I only got to see the city from the bus because we spent the whole afternoon at the NGO Interaction. I might want to go back another time to walk around some more but we'll see if there's time. The NGO isn't really in the center of the city and it's office is located underground. It's a pretty nice place but super hot and the director's husband was doing construction inside so it was loud with the sound of drilling. All the people were very friendly though and I enjoyed hanging out with them. It was the hotline coordinator's birthday so she brought cake, fruit, and champagne for everyone and we enjoyed that at the end of the day. This is how the system works in Moldova and probably a lot of other places; if it's your birthday, you're expected to bring a bunch of stuff for the office. I kind of like this because no one is ever forgotten and you get to eat cake pretty often if you have a large staff.

I spent some time talking to the director of the NGO and she told me about the difficulties they have with Transnistrian authorities and how other NGOs distance themselves and do not want to collaborate for projects because Interaction is known to have bad relations with the government for the work they do. It's very difficult to get funding and a complicated process because they have to account for the money both in Moldova and Transnistria and it's tough to transfer money because of certain laws. I didn't really understand that whole situation, but did get the gist that the life of an NGO director in Transnistria is often very stressful. Another interesting comment she made is that she doesn't like how the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) heads the roundtables in Transnistria because they have a clear political stance that deters the Transnistrian government from attending and in order for real, sustainable changes to take hold in society the government somehow has to be convinced to play a positive role.

All in all, I liked my little half-day adventure back in time to the Soviet Union. But really, although the territory gives you that feeling with the hammer and sickle visible at the border and the tanks popping up in various places the people there are just like the people living in Moldova. I know a lot of people living in Chisinau who have relatives in Transnistria and they're definitely not a bunch of hardcore communists who would start another civil war if Transnistria were going to join back with Moldova again. There is going to be an election this year and the NGO director said that 5 people are "applying for the job" but she doubts that any changes will come. In fact, she said it's probably better for the dictator Smirnov to stay in power because at least he's predictable and the Russian government can control him.

More adventures with music

I have started volunteering at the Chisinau Assistance and Protection Center (CAP) for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking and have met a couple of European volunteers who work here as well. One of them, a German named Christina, plays the flute and when I told her I have been learning Moldovan folk music with Rod she got really excited because she's also interested in learning the nai and generally getting together with people to play music as often as possible.

Christina told us that on weekends a lot of European volunteers get together at a friend's house to have some food and play music all afternoon so Rod and I went to check that out yesterday. There were probably 15 or so people there chatting in French, German, English and occasionally Romanian and Russian. They had made some great food that was all vegetarian/vegan and the instruments there included bass, guitar, nai, violin, bass flute, regular flute, piano, and more. We played some Irish and Moldovan songs as well as a Macedonian melody that Rod taught us by ear. It was a really nice afternoon with a group of very cool, relaxed people.

After that we went to Bob and Beth's for more food. Beth cooked some delicious chili and cornbread. The chili was definitely the spiciest food I have had in Moldova. Eastern Europeans don't really do spicy as a rule. I think this meal would have killed my host family. We definitely enjoyed it though.

I'm helping with some grant and report writing at the CAP today, will be at Winrock tomorrow, and am going to visit the NGO Interaction in Transnistria on Wednesday with Matt. I also have to start preparing for the Fulbright seminar in Bulgaria because I need to plan out a presentation on the social and cultural integration issues surrounding the issue of immigration in Moldova that I'll be giving as part of a panel discussion.

Biden visits Chisinau

I’ve been so busy lately that I don’t really have the energy to write all about Joe Biden’s visit to Chisinau so I will let this article and video speak for itself and then just give some of my impressions. You can watch the whole video of his speech and get a good idea of what the event was like.

http://traduno.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/joe-biden-visited-moldova/

Needless to say, this event pretty much shut down Chisinau. It was crazy getting in and Liz and I had to be squashed in a mob of people for over an hour before we could get our Ids checked and make it to security. We managed to create some space for ourselves to breathe for a little while by stepping in the mud surrounding a tree on the sidewalk because there was no way any of the Moldovans were going to get their shoes dirty. This stressed me out as well but fresh air and a smidgeon of personal space was the priority at the moment.

The rest of the event was fun. There was live music for a few hours before Biden came on stage. This was a very Romanian-heavy event which makes sense since the tone was completely pro-Europe. No one sang in Russian and I didn’t hear much Russian in the crowd while we were trying to get in. Biden gave a good speech but didn’t say much that was groundbreaking or unexpected. It was a little funny when he said “You know, Moldovans have something to be proud of…” and I wasn’t expecting that this pride was supposed to come from the fact that Natalie Portman’s grandmother and Rahm Emanuel’s grandfather were both Moldovan. I guess that’s impressive. Here’s a picture of me and Liz with some Moldovan friends we made because the girl wanted me to send her my photos from the speech.

Another important issue that arose from Biden’s visits to Moscow and Chisinau concerns the future of Transnistria. I was a bit surprised that he was so confident that Transnistria’s future must lie in the confines of the Moldovan border. It’s just hard to imagine that happening anytime soon. I guess the idea is that if the US and the EU help Moldova to become a prosperous country with lots of economic opportunities than Transnistrians will want to be a part of it to reap the benefits. I ran into a couple of students from Transnistria when I was trying to get to the Chisinau Assistance and Protection Center (that’s a whole different story) and they agreed that Transnistrians would want to be Moldovan citizens if they saw that the situation there was really that much better. At any rate the politics surrounding Transnistria are very, very complicated and it’s certainly not up to the general population of the region to decide its fate so we’ll see what happens.

Nice Try Madrid

Spain tried really hard to push me over to Team Western Europe, but no dice. Although Madrid really blew me away and I enjoyed every minute of my 3 day vacation, I felt myself missing the craziness of Eastern Europe. I felt some serious culture shock when I arrived at the airport in Madrid. I haven't traveled to too many places where I was totally clueless about the native language. The 1 semester of Spanish I took in middle school wasn't cutting it and whenever someone would ask me a question I would respond "Da...oui...si" and look like an idiot. This was a little better than when I first got to Germany and would respond "Da" since in German that means "over there" and saying this made me look very confused.

At any rate, the real culture shock came from how spotless everything was and how much everything made sense. I first noticed this with the metro system. Cultural differences that were harder to get used to included the fact that people eat dinner around 10 or 10:30 in Spain and when you're at a tapas bar or something and you're done with your trash you throw it on the floor. Another difference is that you can't smoke inside anywhere in Spain anymore. They don't even have any of those little smoking rooms in the airport like they do in most places. This means when you go out to a bar or club you don't reek of smoke for days after like you do in Moldova. Kind of nice actually.

The hostel I stayed in was glorious and my trip was worth it just for the nice shower. My American compatriots in Moldova know what I'm talking about. The place was also in a great location so I could walk to all the main sights. I met up with my friend Chloe on Friday night, who is finishing up her master's degree and is spending the year in Spain (her program is based in Brussels). We went out to dinner at 9:30 and I got there a little early despite getting lost in the rain so I sat for a few minutes by myself and observed the rambunctious group of American study abroad students sitting in the corner. Then Chloe arrived with a friend who used to work for her dad (who I know from my internship at the embassy in Bulgaria) who is joining the Peace Corps in Africa someplace soon and is taking a long vacation in Spain because her boyfriend is Spanish and lives close to Madrid. We had a really interesting conversation about the work we have all done for various NGOs and international organizations and both of their parents have worked in Eastern Europe so we had a lot to talk about. After dinner, we went back to Chloe's apartment and met all her roommates. It was like a scene out of "L'Auberge Espagnole" (The Spanish Apartment) if anyone has seen that. She lives with a Mexican guy, a German girl, an American guy, a Spanish girl, and a French girl. We sat around for a while talking and I didn't get back to my hostel until around 6 am.

The next day I got up and walked around sightseeing until I made it to the Prado, which is one of the most famous museums in the world. It was very impressive. The Rubens paintings were my favorites. Just tons and tons of masterpieces. After that, I did some more exploring and then met up with the other Moldova Fulbrighters Melissa and Rebecca at Kate's place. Kate is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Madrid who went to college with Liz, another Fulbright ETA who was busy visiting Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan so she couldn't join us. Kate's apartment was similar to Chloe's and consisted of an equally international group. We went over to an apartment where some other Fulbrighters are living and met a ton of new people. One of them, Sammy, went to Bates so Lisa if you're reading this I believe you know her. She played field hockey with Heidi. Small world. Another guy there went to Amherst so we know a lot of the same people too.

After that we met up with one of Kate's Spanish roommates and his friends and went to a club. The music there was pretty interesting. At one point they were playing songs from Grease. We got pretty excited about this for some reason. The Spanish people did a really intense coordinated dance to one of the Spanish songs that reminded us of Moldovans getting up in a bar or club to do the hora. We didn't join in on that. Again, I got to sleep around 7 am.

I just have too much to write about so I'm going to skip to the best day, which was Monday. The sun was out, it was 60 degrees, and we had a super precious afternoon in Retiro Park and out on the pond in a rowboat. We packed a picnic of bread and cheese and strawberries and laid around for a while then decided to take a boat out on the pond nearby because it looked like too much fun to pass up. Luckily Melissa is an athlete so Rebecca and I didn't have to do any of the work. After that, we went to the museum the Reine Sofia that has a ton of Picasso and Dali paintings. Loved it.

All in all, the trip was fantastic. I definitely want to go back to Spain someday. For now though I'm happy to be back in Moldova. Joe Biden is visiting tomorrow which is a really huge deal. He's speaking on the square of the Opera which is right by my house so I'm lucky I won't have to deal with the traffic. There are already enormous American and Moldovan flags covering the facade. The next post will most likely be about his speech. We'll see how it goes and what the reaction is from the press and everything. He was meeting with Medvedev yesterday I believe and discussing the Transnistria issue. Maybe there will be increased efforts to resolve this problem.

International Relations Course and Russian Ambassador at IRIM

Yesterday I attended my first class as a student at the Institute of International Relations of Moldova (IRIM) where I’m teaching the negotiations course. The professor that asked me and Chris to teach that course gave me information about courses related to my interests that are taught in Russian. The office assistant gave me one piece of paper that had the professor’s name but no hint of the course subject and listed the times the course meets but not the room number. The other piece of paper was for another professor’s courses and listed what I think are the titles of specific lectures and the times and dates when those lectures will be held. The dates and the corresponding days of the week listed, however, do not match up so I think I have to do some more investigating before I can check those out.

At any rate, the course I went to yesterday was “The History of International Relations.” From the information I received, this course was meant to be held from 5:10-6:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. In reality, however, the lecture lasted until 8:00. There were only 5 of us in the class so it felt very seminar-like except for that there wasn’t any discussion. Part of this might have been because the professor was trying to catch me up on the material that they had already covered. It’s possible that this bored the other students. The guy next to me was blatantly texting the entire time. Not even under the table. Anyway, the professor talked, without notes, for the entire time. The lecture focused on the end of WWI and the Genoa Conference of 1922 but the professor went off on several tangents as well. It was a bit difficult for me to understand everything he was saying but I tried especially hard to take it all in when he was talking about the United States just in case he might ask my opinion on something or give me a reason to feel like I needed to defend my country. He was very positive about the US, however, so that wasn’t a problem.

I think the most interesting topic that came up was the fact that so many Germans went to work in factories in the Soviet Union after WWI. The Germans weren’t allowed to build tanks or do any kind of war-related work in their country and were under strict monitoring from the French. The Soviet Union needed help with its goal of rapid industrialization. So, the two countries helped each other out. Skills that were important for war preparation did not atrophy during this time among the Germans who helped the Soviets by working alongside them. There were a lot of Americans working in the factories as well because of the Great Depression. I remember reading a really interesting book written by a US citizen who worked in one of those factories but can’t think of the name of it now.

I really liked the professor of this course and he is clearly a fountain of knowledge. He was an engaging speaker as well. He told me that the Russian ambassador to Moldova would be speaking at the school the next day and that I could attend the lecture. I thought that sounded like a cool opportunity, so I went. I sat in the back which was unfortunate because there was a lot of noise outside the door and it was hard to hear at times, but I could get the gist of what he was talking about most of the time. Most of the topics you would expect to come up, including the Russia-US missile defense system clash, the situation in Transnistria, the price of gas, the European integration of Moldova, and the political instability in Moldova that is annoying the Russian government as much as everyone else. I saw some students from my negotiations course at the lecture so I’ll ask them what they thought was most interesting tomorrow.

Martisor: The End of Winter? Questionable.

Tomorrow, March 1^st, marks a holiday in Moldova and Romania known as “Martisor.” The idea is to celebrate spring and the rebirth of life after a hard winter but it’s still looking like winter out there right now. It felt more like spring a few weeks ago. At any rate, vendors have been selling Martisor pins on the street for a while now. They come in lots of different shapes and sizes but always have the colors red and white. My Romanian teacher explained to me one of the legends of Martisor which is, in short, that the evil winter witch puts up a fight with the beautiful lady Spring because he always wants to stick around longer. The winter guy cuts Spring and her warm red blood falls on the fresh white snow. The snow starts to melt from this drop of blood and soon Spring has taken over. That’s the gist of it. This website has more info.

http://www.marisha.net/martisor.htm

In other news, the weekend was once again very eventful and I’ll give a couple highlights. On Friday night I went to a concert at a very beautiful theater in the center of Chisinau. The Moldovan folklore orchestra was accompanying contest entrants who were singing Romances in Romanian. The music was pretty good, but the outfits the women were wearing were just out of this world. Any description I give can’t really do them justice, but I’ll say at least that one lady who was probably in her 50s was wearing a floor-length red dress that was all sequins and sparkle. Almost blindingly bright. Another dress looked like something that would cover an Easter basket. I think that’s how Melissa described it. It was pale yellow and just kind of full and fluffy and sheer looking. There were some pastel flowers up top if I remember correctly too. I wish I’d had my camera.

I also went to the Malina Cocktail House a couple of times this weekend. It’s my new favorite place in Chisinau. It’s pretty small and set inside this bridge that’s connected to one of the shopping centers so you look out over the street. It’s nice and warm inside with pink lighting and raspberries everywhere (because of the name) and there’s a faint scent of hookah. Very relaxing atmosphere, except of course there is house/electronic music pumping constantly because, hey, we're in Eastern Europe after all. I like it though.

Moldovan sex-trafficker arrested in Florida

I noticed a headline in the Komsomolskaya Pravda this morning (a Moldovan Russian language newspaper) about a Moldovan citizen being arrested for implication in a sex-trafficking ring in the United States. Here’s an article about the arrest from an Orlando paper. I find it really interesting that she’s now seeking political asylum in the US. I’m going to see if I can find out on what grounds she’s applying. Apparently the traffickers recruited non-US citizens through a website to come to the America to work in the sex trade and found clients through Craigslist and Backpage.

OrlandoSentinel.com

Russian sex-ring suspects appear in federal court

By Amy Pavuk, Orlando Sentinel

4:03 PM EST, February 18, 2011

Several people suspected of working in a Russian sex trafficking ring in Central Florida appeared in Orlando federal court Friday.

The first of those to appear was 25-year-old Tatiana Belinschi, who was recently indicted and arrested on charges ranging from racketeering to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

The 27-count indictment, unsealed this week, accuses Belinschi's ex-husband, Roman Caraiman, and Alexandr Postica of recruiting women to work as sex workers at massage parlors around the United States.

Federal authorities said Caraiman imported people from Russia and sought to bring women from other countries to the United States, all to work in the sex trade.

None of those indicted by the grand jury are U.S. citizens. Belinschi is from the Republic of Moldova and told the court today she is seeking political asylum.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bishop Ravenel told the court the evidence in the case is strong. The investigation involved undercover calls, wiretaps and surveillance.

The group's suspected criminal activities occurred in Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and Miami, he said.

Several of the suspects were arrested outside Florida, including Postica and co-defendants Saida Babaeva, 28, and Alina Priadko, 24.

Ravenel said in court authorities believe Caraiman fled to Europe.

Four others named in the indictment made court appearances Friday: Kateryna Krykovlyuk, Elena Shashurova, Vlada Blisciuc and Irina Luchina. They each face one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.

Also indicted are: Elena Abushinova, Aleksandra Liubina and Natalia Fedorova.

The indictment alleges that the 12 worked together in a commercial sex business in Orange, Osceola and Hillsborough counties since at least July 2009. Their activities continued through this month, the charges state.

Caraiman, Belinschi and Postica are accused of using at least one website to recruit non-U.S. citizens to work in the sex industry in America.

Authorities said Caraiman and Belinschi placed ads for massage services on the classifieds websites craigslist and backpage, so they could solicit customers.

Nine of the suspects paid a portion of their proceeds to Caraiman, who then shared his money with Belinschi and Postica, the charges state.

Ravenel said after Belinschi was arrested, she confessed to the crimes.

The prosecutor told the judge Belinschi is too great a flight risk, and noted that she fled from a criminal case in another state.

Ravenel said Belinschi is unemployed, unauthorized to work, and the enterprise was significantly dismantled.

But public defender James Smith argued conditions could be set, such as electronic monitoring, that would guarantee Belinschi appears for future court dates.

He noted that she has a daughter, who is now in state custody.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Dietrich ruled in favor of the government's request to keep Belinschi at the Orange County Jail.

"I find serious risk of flight," he said.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-russian-sex-court-20110218,0,202513,print.story