I Don't Really Have a Sweet Tooth, but.....

.... I Used to Like Desserts

Time was we would go out and eat a three-course meal, today it is usually main course only (though in the Time of Covid we have not been out since we took up that nice Rishi Sunak’s invitation ‘to eat out to help out’). Part of the problem is the increasing size of pub main courses, but most of it is our increasing age – we just can’t eat like we use to.

So, this post is a celebration of all things sweet. It is not quite a fond farewell, we are still in 'one dessert, two spoons' territory, and of course there are many occasions where the casual purchase of something small and sweet is deemed appropriate.

My dessert at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant, Padstow (2007)

So where to start?

Portugal, Obviously

Why obviously? Because we have spent a week or two in the Algarve every October this century, and would be there right now if our flight had not been cancelled by the Curse of Covid.

The Algarve to us means, first and foremost, sea-food, fresh from the briny and expertly cooked, but a meal should not stop there.

Dessert menus generally involve a large glossy folded card produced by a manufacturer of synthetic desserts and ice creams. Stuck somewhere on the card there will be a small, sometimes hand-written, list of desserts for grown-ups, many of which will have been made in-house. Ever present is pudim flan, a rich eggy caramel custard, which is perfect when you have too little room for anything heavier. Sometimes it is just perfect.

Lynne and a pudim flan, Martin's Grill, Carvoeiro

Many residents of the dessert menu are equally at home with a morning coffee - another of the pleasures of Portugal and the reason why each trip is traditionally followed by a diet.

Coffee and Cakes, Ferragudo (2012)

An assortment of bolos (cakes) and tartes (translation unnecessary) are made from local produce including (but not limited to) almonds, figs, carobs, oranges and apples. The cakes will always be made with one egg more than would be normal elsewhere and are universally wonderful.

Different cakes (and cups) but at the same place in 2011

Apple Cakes

Portuguese apple cake is moist, flavourful and lovely. Elsewhere apple can be a little dull, though Lynne’s Dorset apple cake is always a delight and a French apple tart can be a thing of beauty. So is Moldovan apple cake – who knew there was such a thing? We made it our lunch in the ambitiously named Eco-resort, actually a clutch of traditional painted houses, in the village of Butuceni. Butuceni sees few visitors – it deserves more (click here to find out why).

Lynne and a Moldovan apple cake, Butuceni Eco-Resort

Pasteis de Nata

Our favourite and most frequent accompaniment to morning coffee is the pastel de nata (literally, if misleadingly, ‘cream pastry’)

Cafe con leite and a pastel de nata

Baked fresh every day – the supermarket version is cheap but a shadow of the real thing - the pastry is crisp and flaky, the filling rich with vanilla and egg. It can be enjoyed anywhere, but I know of nowhere better  than the Pastelaria Fabrica Velha in Carvoeiro, one of our favourite Algarve coffee spots.

I will also briefly mention Lord Stow’s Garden Café in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, just across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong. (Click here for our visit and ‘Lord Stow’s’ unusual back story.)

Lord Stow's Garden Café, Coloane, Macau

Lord Stow’s egg tarts are based on the pastel de nata; the pastry is first class, but they look a little too tidy and the oversweet filling lacks the subtlety of the real thing. Expanding from the Garden Café, Lord Stow bakery franchises can now be found in several east Asian luxury hotels.

Lord Stow's egg tarts, Coloane, Macau

SE Asia (and Mexico)

Vietnam

Having reached Macau we shall stay in Asia. There are many sweet foods in China, but there are no desserts because there are no courses. Dishes are ordered, arrive when they are ready and are shared by everybody.

The same is not true in Vietnam which has its own distinctive style. Finishing a meal with soup seems odd to us, but why not? In Hanoi (click here) our first dinner ended with che bo bo, a soup (though che means ‘tea’) described on the menu as a sweet southern dessert consommé.

Lynne and Nhu (representative of Haivenu Travel) at the Ly Club, Hanoi - we had not quite reached the dessert soup yet

At the other end of the country, Ngon is a Saigon institution. The huge restaurant is housed in a colonial mansion where tables fill the entrance hall, atrium, courtyard and every ground floor room. It was packed with office workers, students and suburban ladies on shopping expeditions; everybody, it seemed, headed for Ngon at lunch time.

Fortunately, we had a booking and a waiter led us confidently through the throng to the only spare seats in the building (for the full story click here). Sweetness is all-pervasive, so making good desserts is easy, but sublime desserts are rare. At Ngon, my glutinous rice balls swimming in a ginger and coconut milk sauce presented a combination of flavours and textures that hit that mark. I had difficulty grasping the idea that, for the locals, such delights are ordinary everyday food.

In the former imperial city of Hue, in Vietnam's narrow waist, we were treated to an 8-course imperial banquet. The food was all right, no more, but the presentation of each course was memorable. The dessert of sweetened red bean paste formed into fruits was one of the most inventive, though of course the fruits all tasted the same, regardless of colour or shape.

Fruits made from Bean Paste, Placid Garden Manor Restaurant, Hue

Malaysia

Malaysia is a great place to eat, but desserts are not a high priority. Cendol is a sort of national dessert available everywhere from 4-star hotels to street food stalls; the price varies, but the quality is much the same. It consists of shaved ice with coconut milk, green coloured rice noodles, a few red beans and a lot of unrefined palm sugar – simple, but pleasing.

Lynne eats cendol at a street food stall, Penang

Durian is popular from southern China southwards. The big, green spiky fruit smells like a chemical toilet left out in the sun, but if you can ignore that, and it is not easy, they taste wonderful (allegedly) – as the locals say ‘smells like Hell, tastes like Heaven.’

Green durian and red dragon fruit, Banh Thanh Market, Ho Chi Minh City

Malaysia is peak durian territory. There are shops entirely devoted to durian and the pastries and confections made from it. One-bite durian puffs are an easy way to approach the challenge, but the ‘one-bite’ is important. Attempting two bites deposits a surprisingly large slick of durian slurry over an extensive area (as well I know). The smell is repressed by the cooking and the flavour is actually quite pleasant.

The one-bite durian puff, Malacca

Emboldened, we tried a durian ice-cream on a stick in Kuala Lumpur, and actually enjoyed it.

Durian ice-cream. Are we beginning to develop a taste? Central Market, Kuala Lumpur

Ice Cream

So, having reached ice cream, here is a brief rant.

Ice-cream parlours figured large in my youth, or at least Borza’s on the prom in Porthcawl did. I know others remember Borza’s fondly as the last time I mentioned them complete strangers contacted me asking for further information. Unfortunately, all I know is that the Borza’s moved on, those that didn’t can be found in Porthcawl cemetery, just across the path from my grandparents.

In the late 1950s Borza’s did few flavours, but they did the most exquisite creamy-textured vanilla - a vanilla nut sundae was a once-a-holiday treat (well it cost 1/9d!*). For Borza’s, vanilla was not a synonym for ‘plain’ it meant ice cream flavoured, quite strongly, with actual vanilla. To get an ice cream that good today you have to visit a high-end restaurant where they make it in-house. (Click here for the Walnut Tree in Abergavenny).

Since then ice cream has diversified into a host of mostly synthetic flavours and lost its texture. Some American makers have gone so far astray that ice cream has become merely a filler of the interstices in pots of crumbled brownies, cookie dough or honeycomb.

Ice Cream in Mexico

Rant over, now please join me in a leap across the Pacific from Malaysia to Mexico.

To complete a street food lunch in Puebla, 100 km south of Mexico City, we ventured into an ice cream shop. We had rarely seen such a vast array of flavours.

Ice-cream choices, Puebla

But it was not the number that amazed us, it was the flavours themselves. With our rudimentary grasp of Spanish we could see the usual suspects, strawberry, chocolate, rum and raisin, even vanilla tucked in the end. But what about vino tinto? As an ice cream? And queso (cheese) or queso con zarzamora (cheese with blackberries) or chicle (bubblegum)? Our local guide helped with the translations, but even he could not render maracuyá or guanabana into English, so that was what we chose.

Eating ice-cream in Puebla

We enjoyed both. Maracuyá was familiar though we could not quite place it, guanabana remained a mystery. We googled them later; maracuyá is passion fruit, so we should have recognised it, and guanabana is soursop. No? Nor me. It is, apparently, a spikey, vaguely pear-shaped fruit that grows on an evergreen tree throughout the tropical Americas. Its flavour, according to Wikipedia is a combination of strawberry and apple with a sour citrus note. It makes a decent enough ice cream.

Now, back to Asia

India

Mava

Mava or khoya is made throughout the sub-continent by stirring gently boiling milk until its consistency approaches a soft dough. It can be sold like that…

The Bhirandiyara Mava Center, Gujarat

… and the result is surprisingly sweet.

Lynne eating Mava, Bhirandiyara

Gulab Jamun

But it is also the basis of several sweets and desserts, my favourite being Gulab Jamun. Mava is rolled into balls, which are deep fried in ghee at low temperature until they are golden brown, then soaked in a light syrup, sometimes flavoured with cardamom, rose water or saffron. I have eaten many, but never photographed them, so I have borrowed this one from Wikipedia. In my experience they are rarely as elegantly presented as this.

Gulab Jamun with Saffron
Photo by Prakrutim, reproduced under CC Share-Alike 4. 0

Nimish

Nimish, a speciality of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, is another dairy based dessert. Double cream, icing sugar, rosewater and saffron are stirred together and topped with pistachios and silver leaf. The silver leaf has no gastronomic purpose, but the cuisine of Lucknow is the cuisine of Nawabs, so everything must look opulent.

Nimish at Lucknow market

Served here in an eco-friendly bowl of pressed leaves, it was sweet and lovely and slipped down very easily.

Nimish, Lucknow market

Turkey

Another westward skip brings us to Turkey. South-East Asia and India possess two of the world’s great cuisines and although few would say the same about Turkey, the country has, by my count, made three major culinary contributions; one is the donner kebab, the other two I like very much.

Turkish Delight

Turkish Delight, lokum in Turkish, really is a delight and Istanbul has whole shops dedicated to it.

A whole shop full of Turkish Delight, Istiklal Cadessi, Istanbul

The concept is simple, a gel of sweetened starch is cut into cubes and dusted with icing sugar. The ‘delight’ comes from the inclusions (dates, pistachio, hazelnuts, walnuts) and flavourings (rosewater, bergamot, orange, lemon). Other inclusions and flavourings are possible. It is not covered in chocolate like Fry’s Turkish Delight, which is a very poor approximation to the real thing inside.

Baklava

Baklava may have been developed in the imperial kitchens of Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace. Layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and bound with syrup or honey make a rich dessert entirely suitable for an emperor – and pretty much anyone else. It has always been a favourite of mine, but in the only photograph I have of baklava, it is already half-eaten (I wonder why?).

Light lunch with ample sugar - Baklava, Turkish Delight and sweet Turkish coffee, Istanbul

United Kingdom and Ireland

Leaping athletically across the rest of Europe, we arrive home.

Posh Desserts

Sugar is such a dominant flavour that desserts can be a problem for high-end restaurants where subtle flavours are important. One solution is to create a variety of textures, as in this dessert from the Michelin starred Loam in Galway. Called 'Strawberry, Juniper' it involved strawberry ice cream, shards of juniper meringue, sweet pickled cherry, lovage sponge, coconut butter, white chocolate mousse, white chocolate bonbon, hazelnut crumb and a hint of smoked hay. All the elements, some very small, made their contribution providing a variety of textures and flavours beneath the dominant sweetness.

Strawberry, Juniper - Loam, Galway

Another is to go architectural as in this henge of fruit and meringue from the then Michelin starred Box Tree in Ilkley.

Dessert, The Box Tree, Ilkley

Despite my garish lighting effect (it is as good as I can get it) this mille-feuille of raspberries with lemon curd and elderflower was very pretty.

There are fewer problems lower down the pecking order. While banoffee pie and tiramisu have become ubiquitous, there has also been a renaissance of the traditional British pud.

Bakewell Pudding

Nothing sounds and feels quite as traditional as a Bakewell pudding (and I mean ‘pudding’ not ‘tart’, but that story is complicated - click here for Bakewell and Haddon Hall). A two-person pudding in the ‘Old Bakewell Pudding Shop’ eaten at 11am (and not quite finished) kept us going until dinner at 8.

A Bakewell pudding for two, served with cream and custard(!)

The jammy, almondy, marzipany flavour of the not quite egg-custard was toe-curlingly lovely, at first, but it was so sweet that even this wonderful flavour became cloying surprisingly quickly.

Sticky Toffee Pudding (STP)

And finally a mention for Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding. Sadly, the only photo I have is of the factory in Flookburgh, 2½ miles from Cartmel, where STP has been made since demand outgrew the resources of Cartmel village shop. It seems wrong that a factory-made pudding that can be microwaved in minutes should be so good, but it is.

Cartmel sticky Toffee Pudding factory, Flookburgh

And finally, finally

That would be a dull picture to end on, so here is my dessert at the Makphet Restaurant in Vientiane, (the capital of Laos, as I am sure you know). Makphet exists to take children off the streets and train them for careers in the hospitality industry, so a worthy charity as well as a fine restaurant.

Top dessert, Makphet, Vientiane

Coconut ice-cream, fresh, sweet pineapple, cane syrup and a dusting of chilli powder. All my favourite flavours on one plate (although if they could have stuck in some ginger….)

*For the benefit for youngsters under 60, that is Old Money; one shilling and nine (old) pence – the equivalent of 8½p. That was expensive, in the 1950s when you could go round the world for half a crown and still have change for a fish supper.

A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris) Part 1: Pre 1900

Triumphal Arches - What is and What is Not

This is the third iteration of this post. The original, published 01/04/2014, was ‘Four Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris). The second, 29/06/2018, included newly collected arches, but also omitted Lutyens’ India Gate from the earlier post on the grounds it was a War Memorial, not a Triumphal Arch.

Defining a Triumphal Arch is difficult. Some arches called Triumphal have no associated triumph, and then there are Monumental Gates and War Memorials which can look very similar.

Although retaining the title, I have chosen a new and more inclusive definition for these posts (there are now two of them, this one and post-1900). For the purposes of this blog an ‘Arc de Triomphe’ is an arch with no structural purpose. This definition includes war memorials built in arch form – like the India Gate mentioned above and also Monumental Gates as long as they were built to be symbolic i.e. not city gates built as part of a wall, even if the wall has long gone. Another qualification of inclusion is that I have been there and taken the photograph.

Almost all modern arches owe a debt to the Parisian Arch, because it was (almost) the first modern Arc de Triomphe; but it was not, of course, the original. Like so much in Europe, Triumphal Arches are a Roman idea.

Classical Arches

None of my modern arches are in Paris, so none of my classical arches are in Rome.

In order of construction they are:

Hadrian's Arch, Gerasa, Jordan

Built 129 CE Visited 10th of November 2019

Jordan

There site of Gerasa (modern Jerash) in northern Jordan has been inhabited since prehistory. The city, though, was founded by Alexander the Great who breezed through in 333 BCE, or by one of his successors. The Romans arrived in 63 BCE and Gerasa became part of the Roman Province of Syria. Set in a relatively fertile area, with iron-ore deposits nearby the city could not but thrive. In 106 CE it became part of the Province of Arabia and became even richer thanks to the Emperor Trajan's road building programme. The start of the 2nd century saw much new building and a new grid plan, and then the honour of an imperial visit. Trajan, who had been responsible for much of Gerasa's recent prosperity, died in 117, so it was Hadrian who made the visit in 129, and thus the Triumphal Arch bears his name.

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash/Gerasa

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

Built 165 CE, Visited April 2006

Libya

We visited Libya in 2006, the home of two well preserved/restored Roman arches. The Arch of Marcus Aurelius in Tripoli was built to commemorate the victory of Marcus's adopted brother, Lucius Verus, over the Parthians. It seems a thin excuse for building an arch so far away from the events, but perhaps he felt in need of a monument.

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

Built 203 CE, Visited April 2006

The ruins of Leptis Magna lie 130 km east of Tripoli. Septimius Severus, Rome’s only African emperor, was born here in 145 CE. He became emperor in 193 and ruled until he fell ill attempting to conquer Caledonia, and died in York in 211. He is honoured by an arch in Rome commemorating his victory over the Parthians (it seems Lucius Verus failed to finish them off) and this one in his home town.

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

The Modern Link

Napoleon in a Toga, Bastia

France

After the Romans, triumphal arches went out of fashion until the days of Napoleon who rather fancied himself as a latter day Roman emperor. The wonderfully camp statue below is in Bastia the capital of northern Corsica. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, the capital of southern Corsica – is it possible that Bastia was taking the mickey out of their rival’s favourite son?

Napoleon in a toga, Bastia

Planning the Paris Arc de Triomphe started in 1806 but it was not completed until 1836 by which time some of the shine had come off Napoleon’s triumphs. That did not deter the Parisians, nor indeed many others, as where Paris led the rest followed. St Petersburg has one (1829), as has New York (1892) and Mexico City (1938). London hopped on the bandwagon early, the Wellington Arch in Green Park dates from 1826 - though before I began researching triumphal arches I had never heard of it.

Modern Arches pre-1900

For 20th and 21st Century Arches, see Part 2

So, in order of construction....

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Built 1765 Visited 30th July 2014 and subsequently

United Kingdom

The Napoleonic era may have re-invented Triumphal Arches, but my first example is an outlier. Built 4 years before Napoleon was born, it was a product of the 18th century fascination with everything classical, even when they misunderstood the context.

The Temple Family became rich from sheep farming. In 1683 Sir Richard Temple started building the first Stowe House. His son, who married into more wealth and became Lord Cobham started work on the garden. Over the next few generations as they married into more and more wealth, and acquired more names and more titles, they built one of the finest houses and the finest garden of its type in England.

And a great garden needs a great entrance. The Corinthian Arch was built in 1765 at the end of the long drive.

The Corinthian arch at Stowe, photographed from half way down the drive

Visiting great gardens was popular in the 18th century, but the casual visitor did not enter through the arch, they were diverted via the family’s New Inn. The same is true today, the road swings right to the National Trust car park behind the (not so) New Inn. Once inside, you can approach the arch on foot.

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe

The arch represents a triumph over the ‘little people’ – anybody who had less money than the Temples – which was just about everyone. Arrogant and high handed they kept on spending and in 1848, four generations after they had been the richest family in the country, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (I said they collected names!) eventually spent them into bankruptcy. The rest of the British aristocracy smirked quietly.

Arcul de Triumf, Chişinău

Moldova

Built 1841 Visted 24th June 2018

The modest capital of Moldova has an appropriately modest triumphal arch, 13m high and sporting a clock that would not look out of place on a railway station.

Arcul de Triumf

There were 12 Russo-Turkish Wars, the first 1568-70 and last World War One which ended the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Designed by Luca Zauşkevici the arch commemorates the Russian victory in the 1828-9 version of this fixture. It was built to house a 6.4t bell made from melted down Ottoman cannons originally intended for the cathedral bell tower (the predecessor of the one in this picture), but it would not fit. It strikes the hour with a rather unmusical ‘dunk’.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

Spain

Built 1888 Visited 29th March 2008

A whimsical piece of modernista architecture with Islamic-style brickwork, Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf was designed by Josep Vilaseca and built in 1888 as the entrance to the Barcelona World Fair.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

The arch represents no military triumph, real or imagined, and the sculpture on the front frieze is called Barcelona rep les nacions (Barcelona welcomes the nations). It was a marginal inclusion under the previous criteria, but I felt it represented an altogether healthier expression of national (in this case Catalan) pride than any of the other Arcs de Triomphe.

Moldova (4): Transnistria, a Day Out in a Non-existent Country

Transnistria: A Hankering After the Good Old Days of the Soviet Union or a Model for Brexit?

What and Where is Transnistria?

After three days in Moldova we set off for a day out in Transnistria. As the geography of Moldova is not generally well-known (and that may be an understatement), here is a map.

The position of Moldova in Eastern Europ

All the Moldovan posts have contained versions of that map, but it does not mention Transnistria, so here is another map.

Moldova and Transnistria (or Transdniestria)

The officially unrecognised Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, aka Transnistria, is a 400km long strip of land across the River Dniester from Moldova (de facto) or from the rest of Moldova (de jure). It achieved independence after a five month long war with Moldova in 1992.

That answers ‘where’ and ‘what’, ‘why’ is more complicated and is appended at the end of the post.

Crossing the Transnistrian Border

Transnistrian national flag

Driving south-east for an hour or so brought us to the border outside Bender. Since the July 1992 ceasefire agreement, Russians control the buffer zone; N is unworried by that, seeing them as guarantors of continued peace. Russian officers with caps the size of dinner plate strolled around looking reassuringly relaxed.

Formalities took place in a portable wooden office. We completed a basic form, showed our passports and were given permission to enter (ie a slip of paper to be surrendered on leaving). Not being internationally recognised, Transnistria did not stamp our passports.

Bender

It was quick and low key, the process being identical for N and Leonid. Leonid drove us the short distance into the city, parking within view of the second biggest grain silos in Transnistria (tourist attractions are few and far between!).

Sheriff supermarket - and those grain silos, Bender

The Transnistrian Rouble (or Ruble)

Money-changing, N informed us, is on the top floor of the supermarket opposite. We then had a memorable discussed about how much we would need. ‘You will want lunch,’ N had said, ‘a souvenir, maybe a fridge magnet, and you might like to send some postcards, $10 should be enough.’ Those may not have been her precise words, but that was the precise number. ‘10 US dollars each?’ I repeated, wondering if that could possibly be enough. ‘No, $10 between you.’ ‘Including lunch and a beer?’ ‘Yes.’

One Transnistrian Rouble - a currency unrecognised outside this small non-country - is worth almost exactly the same as a Moldovan leu so 10 US dollars bought a little over 150 Roubles. N showed us some Transnistrian coins, multi-sided plastic tokens, straight out of a toybox.

One Transnistrian Rouble (worth about 5p)
Alexander Suvarov (more later) on the front, the WW2 Chitcani Monument on the back

Шериф (Sheriff). Who Runs Transnistria?

The supermarket is one of a chain belonging to ‘Sheriff’, a company, founded in 1993 by two former members of the special forces. Sheriff also owns (among other things) TV and radio stations, a publishing house, a mobile phone network, an advertising agency, a construction company, a distillery and several bakeries. Transnistria is a democracy, of sorts, but leading members of the government and their relations have senior positions in Sheriff, and vice versa and with their newspapers, TV and radio stations the company can influence both the elections and the elected.

Bender's Military Historical Complex

Outside the supermarket is Bender’s triumphal arch (see A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe). There were 12 Russo-Turkish Wars, starting in 1568-70 and finishing with the First World War which finished both the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The Arch commemorates the Russian capture of Bender Fort in 1806 but was originally erected in Chişinău and was destroyed, with much else, in 1944; this is a 2008 replica. The major result of the 1806-12 war was the Russian Empire’s gain of Bessarabia (approximately Moldova and Transnistria), so the arch is a message, or warning, from the Russian orientated Transnistrians to the Moldovans and their European ambitions.

The Arch of Bender

The nearby Military Historical Memorial complex, also dating from 2008, is guarded by a statue of Grigory Potemkin. Later rather upstaged by the battleship that bore his name (films have much to answer for), Potemkin rose from relatively humble beginnings to become the commander-in-chief of all Russian land and sea forces, and the lover of Catherine the Great. Locally, he commanded the Russian forces in two successful wars against the Ottoman Empire (1764-74 and 1787-92) and was governor of South Russia.

Grigory Potemkin, Military Historical Complex, Bender

The military graveyard beyond contains the remains of soviet soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War (or World War II, as we call it)…

Military Historical Complex, Bender

…but there is also a memorial to 489 victims of the 1992 war with Moldova.

Memorial to those who died in the 1992 Moldovan War, Bender

Bender Fort

A short drive took us to Bender fort.

Stephen III (the Great and Holy) of Moldavia (a rather larger principality than modern Moldova) built a wooden fort at Tyagyanyakyacha in the 15th century as a defence against Tartar raiders. The Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent took the town in 1538, renaming it Bender, which remains its official monicker, though it is know as Bendery in Russian and Ukrainian and Tighina in Romanian (if it was my choice, I would go with Tighina!). The stone fort is of 16th Ottoman origin.

The Russians attempted to take the fort several times in the endless series of Russo-Turkish Wars, succeeding in 1779, 1786 and 1806 (and losing it in between).

Bender Fort

Baron von Münchhausen was an officer of the besieging Russian Army in the 1735-9 war. After retirement he became a minor celebrity by telling outrageously tall tales of his military exploits. Even more exaggerated tales appeared in fictional form but the author (now known to be Rudolf Erich Raspe) used Münchhausen’s real name so could never claim authorship for fear of a law suit. Other stories by other authors were later added to the oeuvre.

Baron von Munchhausen

The Russians wanted to know Ottoman plans, so von Munchhausen welded a seat onto a cannon ball and had himself fired across the River Dniester and into the castle. After a little spying he fired himself back. The cannonball is on display beside von Munchhausen’s bust.

Lynne and von Munchhausen's cannonball, Bender Fort

We walked past busts of the Great and the Good of Imperial Russia…

A sample of the Great and the Good of Imperial Russia, Bender Fort

...and entered the fort.

Entering Bender Fort

There is little inside except a small museum (with a large school party).

Inside Bender fort

The gatehouse…

Gatehouse, Bender Fort

…was open. In Ottoman times the first floor was a mosque and the mihrab can still be seen…

The ghost of the mihrab of the ottoman mosque, gatehouse, Bender Fort

While the top - effectively a minaret - provides views across the Dniester to von Munchhausen’s firing position…

Von Munchhausen fired himself from just the other side of the River Dniester

…the new church behind…

The new church behind Bender Fort

…and down into the Russian military base.

Russian base, Bender Fort. It is not very interesting, but you rarely get a chance to photograph the inside of a Russian base

Bender's Old Railway Station

Bender’s former railway station is not far away. Вокзал (Voksal) is Russian for station, the word derived, in a roundabout way, from London’s Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, while Гара (Gara – like the French ‘Gare’) is Romanian written in Cyrillic. Romanian is a romance language; in Moldova they have reverted to writing it in Latin script, not so in Transnistria.

Here we are outside Bender's old railway station

The interior is evocative of its era…

Inside Bender's old station

…and outside there is a pleasing old train, but as a tourist attraction it needs some work.

Steam train, Bender station

We left Bender across the Dniester bridge. According to international law Transnistria is really part of Moldova, while Bender, on the Moldovan side of the river is really, really part of Moldova, except, despite what Google maps might say, it isn’t. During the 1992 war the Moldovans sent their three MiGs to bomb the very bridge we crossed trying to prevent Russian and separatist forces reaching Bender. They missed, which was fortunate; only 25% of Bender’s citizens are ethnic Moldovans while Russians and Ukrainians make up 68%; if they had succeeded the war would have been longer, the bloodshed greater.

Tiraspol

Tiraspol is 10km to the east. With 133,000 citizens it is slightly bigger than Bender and was once Moldova’s second largest city, now it is the capital of Transnistria.

25th of October Street is slightly shabby, slightly down at heel. I had not realised how the sight of someone carrying a heavy shopping bag has become so unusual at home - it makes this look like a picture from the past.

25th of October Street, Tiraspol

Beside it are more war memorials, one for the Afghan War….

Afghan War Memorial, Tiraspol

….and another for the Moldovan War.

Moldovan War Memorial, Tiraspol

While across the street is very different memorial, even celebration, of that conflict.

Tank monument to the Moldovan War, Tiraspol

The sign marking 28 years of Transnistria (first erected to mark the 25th anniversary and updated annually) resembled half-hearted Soviet era propaganda…

Commemorating 28 years of Tansnistria
See 'Why is there a Transnistria' to discover why this sign uses 1990 instead of 1992

…while the expression of love for Tiraspol was half-hearted western crassness.

I love Tiraspol

I read (somewhere?) that Transnistria was a shrinking, aging and impoverished society waiting faithfully for the return of the Soviet Union. ‘25th of October Street’ (the date of the 1917 Russian Revolution) and the statue of Lenin outside the parliament building suggests there is some truth in that…

Lenin outside the Transnistrian Parliament
(To avoid any confusion, Lenin is the bloke on the pillar, I'm the one wearing shorts)

…and Transnistria is the last country in the world with the hammer and sickle on its flag (see top of post). But Transnistria is not communist, it is a flawed democracy (maybe a mobocracy). Prince Grigory Potemkin guards the Military Historical complex while busts of worthies of the Russian Empire adorn Bender Fort. And it is Generalissimo Alexander Suvarov, founder of Tiraspol, and fighter of the Turks on behalf of Catherine the Great whose face is on the money. An equestrian statue of Suvarov stands in its own square by 25th of October street.

General Suvarov galloping towards a pedestrian crossing, Tiraspol

And if the hammer and sickle looks a bit dated. Transnistria has a secondary flag. You could so easily mistake for the Russian flag, the same coloured stripes in the same order, but the aspect is different, it is a tad longer and a smidgeon thinner - so totally different really.

Transnistria's other flag

As we walked through the back streets towards N's recommended restaurant she said ‘It is like the old Soviet Union, there is a sense of community. Nobody has much but they all help each other.’ We had encountered nostalgia for the Soviet Union on our Trans-Siberian trip in 2007 (particularly from Sacha in Listvyanka) but we had not expected it from a well educated young woman (N was 11 when the Soviet Union folded) who hoped her country will one day join the European Union (and was at a loss to understand why we had voted to leave.) Had she picked this up from her mother, once a leading member of the local communist party, or just fallen for the usual guff about the ‘good old days’?

Backstreets of Central Tiraspol

Parallels between Transnistria and Brexit

Either way, her remark, and the Transnistrian’s contradictory reverence for both the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire helped me understand their position. Like Brexit voters they are hankering after a past that never was and are perversely trying to invent it. Fortunately, they have the Russians to bail out their faltering economy. We have no one.

N’s father, if I might digress a little, was a football coach – indeed he still is, feeling no need to retire. Transnistria has two professional clubs, FC Tighana in Bender and Sheriff Tiraspol (I wonder who owns them?). Both play in the Moldovan League, indeed Sheriff Tiraspol have won it 17 times this century (leaving little for anyone else) and have reached the group stage of the Europa League on four occasions, but have yet to progress further. Like Brexiteers, Transnistrians want the advantages of being inside while remaining outside; unlike Brexiteers they have had some success. Most Transnistrians also have Moldovan citizenship, others Russian or Ukrainian, many have multiple citizenships. Not unlike the Brexit rush for Irish passports.

A Lunch of Dumplings

The unnamed restaurant was in a rambling wooden building with heavy beams, booths hidden away in semi-darkness and staff in traditional costume. We ate pelmeni, Russian spherical dumplings of minced beef with a cheese sauce, and pierogi (aka vareniki) Ukrainian pillow shaped dumplings stuffed with sauerkraut and sprinkled with fried onions. We shared the bowls which may have done little for our ‘five a day’ but were tasty, less heavy than they sound and were under our $10 budget. We might have been pushed if we had paid for our beer (a ½ litre of good quality draught beer was 50 pence) but N and Leonid kindly donated a couple of tokens earned on a previous overnight trip. The date stamp ran out today and they were working.

Lunch in Tiraspol

Afterwards we strolled through wide, scruffy streets,....

Strolling the streets of Tiraspol

...acquiring a fridge magnet, postcards, and Transnistrian stamps plus, as they are not recognised outside Transnistria, some Moldovan stamps - and we still had 4 or 5 roubles over! Shops were not easy to find, they hardly bother with signs or marketing – like the good old Soviet days – but they were there. And that was about it for Tiraspol..

Bender Fort on a Transnistrian fridge magnet

Back in Chişinău

Our return journey was uneventful, leaving Transnistria being even easier than entering. Back in Chişinău, we said goodbye to N who had been an interesting and informative companion, went shopping for presents and watched Sweden beat Mexico in the World Cup.

We dined at the ‘Robin Pub’ near our hotel…

Robin Pub, Chisinau

…. another establishment featuring dark wood, but this time elegant rather than rustic – pity there were so few customers. I enjoyed my pork with sour cream and mustard sauce, apple and fried potatoes, and Lynne her tagliatelle and mushrooms. We had another good value bottle of red and then, as it was our last night, an espresso and brandy. Moldova is proud of it brandy (divin in Romanian) and earlier N had recommended ‘Surprise’ a ten-year-old distilled by KVINT (owned by Sheriff!) in Tiraspol. It was undoubtedly the best brandy I have ever drunk that was not Cognac.

Coffee and 'Surprise' Brandy in the Robin Pub, Chisinau

And Back Home

Next morning Leonid took us to the airport where we bought some ‘Surprise’ [it tasted as fine back home as in Moldova].

KVNT Suprise 10-year-old Divin

When booking I had wondered if it was possible to fill a daily flight from Stansted to Chişinău. During the World Cup it certainly was – Chişinău is a gateway to Russia. The flight had been packed with England fans on the way out, Peruvians and Chileans on the way back – we wished them well for their onward journey - our long drive back to Staffordshire was tiny by comparison.

Moldova (and Transnistria) Posts

Part 1:Chisinau, a Modest Capital
Part 2:Purcari, Fine Moldovan Wine
Part 3:Orheiul Vechi and Cricova Winery
Part 4: Transnistria, a Day Out in a Non-existent Country

Why is there a Transnistria?

Below is a simplified version of how Transnistria came to be what it is.

In 1812 Moldova (including Transnistria) was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottomans. The area was largely Romanian speaking and attempts to Russify it met with only partial success.

In the chaos following the Russian revolution, Moldova west of the Dniester joined Romania while Transnistria became part of the new Soviet Union, becoming more Russified as industrialisation dragged in Russian and Ukrainian workers.

After World War II Moldova was also absorbed into the Soviet Union, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic having the same borders as current Moldova (including Transnistria). Transnistria, though, remained somewhat apart. Russians were the largest ethnic group and together Russophone Russians and Ukrainians formed a majority of the population.

In 1990 before the Soviet Union broke up, Transnistria declared itself a separate Soviet Socialist Republic as a pre-emptive strike against growing Moldovan nationalism. However, the Moldova that became independent in 1991 included a reluctant Transnistria. The immediate adoption of Romanian as the only official language provoked Transnistria to declare independence as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. A brief war (March-July 1992) caused 700 deaths, but once the Russian 14th Guards, stationed in Tiraspol, joined the separatists the result was inevitable.

According to international law the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic does not exist. Transnistria, Russian inspired Georgian breakaways Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and The Republic of Artsakh once an Armenia speaking enclave in Azerbaijan, all recognise each other’s independence, but no one else does. Although Russia has annexed Crimea and is working on Eastern Ukraine, it has supported but not, as yet, absorbed Transnistria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia.