All (too) quiet in Chișinău
Valea Morilor Lake (All images belong to Author)
At the start of the winter break, I took a brief trip to Moldova's capital, Chișinău. In doing so, I was hoping to get a clearer understanding of the country's current unease. Caught between Western and Russian influence, Moldova has in Maia Sandu a pro EU president (and population, for the most part) but is also host to a full-blown Russia-friendly breakaway region in the form of Transnistria. Not long after my trip, the EU announced the beginning of accession talks with both Moldova and Ukraine on the same day. The two countries are often mentioned in the same breath, with many fearing that Moldova would be the Kremlin's next target were it to succeed in Ukraine. Based on this tumultuous backdrop and on my previous experience living in Tbilisi, Georgia, where the pro-European population's anger at Russia is often visceral, I expected from Chișinău a similarly charged atmosphere. All signs suggest that it sits, like Georgia, at the precipice of two vastly different futures, one under the banner of Russia and one of Europe.
My first night in Chișinău, however, offers little sense of existential geopolitics. I stumble across a stand-up night in a bar. As I walk in, a comic is performing in Russian. Based on my time in Tbilisi, where the locals and Russians often do not mix when it comes to nightlife, I assume that this must be an event for the Russian diaspora. Punching decidedly down, the comic jokes that he has nothing against beggars asking for money in the street, but contests that they should at least have the courage to not be shy about it. I assume that locals would label this kind of thing 'imperial arrogance' were they here. But as it turns out, they are. A second performer takes the stage, this time delivering his set in Romanian, Moldova's official language. I don't know what's being said, but based on the air humping, the stand-up hasn't exactly moved to a more enlightened plane. Russian and Romanian speakers have come together for an equal opportunities display of tasteless comedy.
Later on, a man called Vadim working at a bar further down the road explains this laissez-faire atmosphere. In Chișinău it's 'Russian season', he claims. He must mean this in terms of a relaxed attitude to the language rather than a spike in tourism–the city centre feels empty. Whatever noise that pedestrians and motorists are able to kick up is insufficient to drown out shopfronts and markets playing an unending loop of 'Last Christmas' covers, or, at night, the squeaking from above of what I can only imagine is an impressive bat population. The staff in this bar are locals, but, like most of the city's residents, they speak perfect Russian. I later learn that parts of the country speak it natively. It strikes me that I had no real basis to view that first comic as a symbolic representative of Russia. He may have been raised around the corner. Boundaries continue to blur as Vadim and his colleague happily flit between the city's official Romanian name and its title under the Russian Empire, Kishinev. The anti-Russia government recently announced that the capital's airport abbreviation, which still reads KIV, will be done away with. But as concerns everyday parlance, there seems to be some leeway.
As the days pass, I grow deflated by this quiet, street-level apathy that doesn't cohere with the righteous anger against Russian influence that Western headlines promised. Another night leads me to another bar; if I spend my evenings any other way, the city's eerie silence would likely wear on me. A local man gives me restaurant recommendations and treats me to some nastoika, a liqueur popular in the former Soviet Union. We get on to politics and he impresses onto me that nobody sitting in the bar with us has any confidence in politicians. As regards President Sandu, he asks with casual misogyny how somebody who doesn't have a family can be trusted to run a country. I don't know where to begin with that one, so I just accept the free nastoika.
In certain places, though, faint battle lines are drawn. One day I come across the Europe Café, an information centre designed to support the European Union's influence. First impressions aren't promising. The lights are off on the ground floor, and there's no activity aside from an unattended monitor projecting a YouTube playlist through speakers. I walk in, naturally, to 'Last Christmas'. I head upstairs and am met by a member of the café team called Valerie. She gives me a tour of the small space, explaining that it's a quiet spell at the moment and that in coming weeks the venue will be host to speakers and events. She takes me through the obstacles to Moldova's EU accession, referring among other things to the stubborn 'red' regions in the rural north and south of the country. In these areas pro-Russian Communist and Socialist parties still perform well at election, which Valerie likens to a person unable to get over their ex. There are enough issues at play here that I don't even get onto the Transnistrian elephant in the room. But Valerie seems unperturbed, and claims she is ultimately optimistic that by the end of the decade Moldova will accede. This quiet enthusiasm doesn't quite amount to the image of Moldovans manning the barricades that I expected, but it's a welcome change from the prevailing atmosphere.
My taxi ride back to the airport stubs out this optimism. My driver lambasts the standard of living in Moldova, and although he wants to see EU membership, he believes that Russia would sooner invade the country than let that happen. He vents his anger at the country's widespread corruption by cursing the polished SUVs on the road ahead of us. As we move out of the city, I catch sight of the Romanița tower, a former Soviet collective housing building that I sought out a few days prior. It's named after a kind of daisy in Romanian, a reference to the petal-like appearance of its unconventional facade. The building, though still inhabited, was not in good shape, with the shopfronts that once occupied the ground level long since boarded up. Were I to bring up the tower to the driver, he'd no doubt work it into his fatalistic commentary.
The Romanița tower
He instead directs my attention to a building site. He tells me with a disdainful tone that a 'moldavskoe selo' is under construction. The Russian literally means 'Moldovan rural village', though that's not quite what I'm looking at. I ask if he's referring to an agricultural site, and he confirms. I suggest that surely this is a good thing, to which he gives shrugging assent. With the vexed delivery of 'moldavskoe' he somehow connects the farm site with his broader national lament. Perhaps he means to say that new industry offers little solace against the fate that he has already accepted for his country. Or perhaps he means something else entirely–I've learned over the past few days that it can be hard to locate a black-and-white narrative in this city even without trying to second-guess someone's delivery. Whatever grief this parting comment expresses, it does so with characteristic Chișinău quiet.
I may have simply caught the city in a lull. Both pro and anti-government protests occurred sporadically in the months before my visit. But as it stands, the apathy (and pockets of enthusiasm) that colour my stay will have to make way for something stronger. Whether it arrives first in the guise of the European Commission or the Kremlin, change is on its way, and this small country will have to struggle for its fate.