I have a friend who visited it and came back with one of the funniest post-Cold War stories I know. It's representative enough of this stuff that I'm going to recount it, even though most of its value resides simply in being funny.
So my friend is a very nice and friendly guy, who travels all over the world. He speaks Romanian well, but not too much Russian. The border checkpoint, naturally, was manned only by a few friendly folks who spoke nothing but Russian.
He shows them his papers, and they manage to understand each other only to the extent that he explains he wants to visit Tiraspol, and that he's a tourist. All of this mostly in sign language.
So this guy apologizes, tells my friend to wait, and goes off through a door in the back. Almost an hour later, he returns with someone who speaks a little Romanian. My friends explains the whole I wanna visit Tiraspol, I'm a tourist thing all over again. More discussion and paper checking ensues.
Another hour later, the two guys leave again, and return with a third soldier. This time, someone who speaks excellent Romanian. The whole explanation gets repeated. They finally give him the visa, wish him good luck and safe journey -- and one of guys pats him on his shoulder and apologizes.
Sorry, man, he says, you look like a nice guy and I'm sure you really are a tourist. But you have to understand, when someone shows up at the border and claims they're a tourist, we usually find out he's definitely not a tourist.
Edit: every other event of his trip was equally funny, except it involved no public authorities :). From what I've heard, Tiraspol isn't too bad a city -- but do remember this is basically still a Soviet state. I'm sure it's very bad if you piss of the wrong person.
Yeah, that was my experience going in too - took about six hours at the border to get two cars through - and if it hadn’t been for my wife who speaks fluent Russian, it would’ve been no dice.
Tiraspol feels like many post-soviet cities, and reminded me of Volgograd - the only real difference is the ubiquitous and contemporary soviet imagery.
Oh, we did - had a box full of pot noodles, and various Union Jack branded tat - you’d be amazed at how far a touristy biro and tiny tin of biscuits will get you.
On the other hand, it sucks when you’ve spent six hours buttering up an entire border station, and then the shift changes, as happened when trying to get into Uzbekistan just after a bombing in Tashkent. Ended up having to sleep in a brothel in a Kazakh border town, as the border was truly closed, and after 30 hours of wakefulness we were ready to drop - and the nearest hotel was in Shymkent.
So my friend is a very nice and friendly guy, who travels all over the world. He speaks Romanian well, but not too much Russian. The border checkpoint, naturally, was manned only by a few friendly folks who spoke nothing but Russian.
He shows them his papers, and they manage to understand each other only to the extent that he explains he wants to visit Tiraspol, and that he's a tourist. All of this mostly in sign language.
So this guy apologizes, tells my friend to wait, and goes off through a door in the back. Almost an hour later, he returns with someone who speaks a little Romanian. My friends explains the whole I wanna visit Tiraspol, I'm a tourist thing all over again. More discussion and paper checking ensues.
Another hour later, the two guys leave again, and return with a third soldier. This time, someone who speaks excellent Romanian. The whole explanation gets repeated. They finally give him the visa, wish him good luck and safe journey -- and one of guys pats him on his shoulder and apologizes.
Sorry, man, he says, you look like a nice guy and I'm sure you really are a tourist. But you have to understand, when someone shows up at the border and claims they're a tourist, we usually find out he's definitely not a tourist.
Edit: every other event of his trip was equally funny, except it involved no public authorities :). From what I've heard, Tiraspol isn't too bad a city -- but do remember this is basically still a Soviet state. I'm sure it's very bad if you piss of the wrong person.