Base in Chișinău and drive. Cricova to the north and Mileștii Mici to the south are underground cellar complexes, each half an hour out, booked ahead and toured by vehicle. Day two is Orheiul Vechi, the cave monastery in the Răut gorge. Day three is the Dniester: Saharna and Țipova in Rezina, and the fortress at Soroca. Two more days reach Comrat or Purcari. Come in May or September. Foreign ministries advise against travel to Transnistria.
Fun fact
Mileștii Mici holds the Guinness World Record for the largest wine cellar by bottles, registered in 2005 at more than 1.5 million. They lie in 55 kilometres of galleries within a limestone network of roughly 200 kilometres, all of it cut by quarrying. Cricova adds about 120 kilometres.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe first half is a statistic about GDP per head. The second does not follow. Moldova lacks a tourist industry. It has a cave monastery in a river gorge, two underground cities of wine, a fifteenth-century fortress on the Dniester and a Turkic-speaking south. Expect few English menus and no queues.
The realityUkraine's war is next door and shows here in electricity prices, refugee numbers and politics. It is not fought on Moldovan soil. Western foreign ministries treat the right bank as ordinary travel and reserve their warnings for Transnistria. Read the advisory and plan around what it names.
The realityThe language is the same and much of the food too. The twentieth century differs. Moldova spent it inside the Soviet Union, so most people over thirty speak Russian, the capital runs on Soviet blocks and boulevards, and there is a Turkic-speaking south and a breakaway left bank.
The realityIt was, for decades, until Russia closed its market to it twice. The industry rebuilt around export, and around ninety per cent now leaves the country, most of it for the EU. Four wine regions carry protected geographic indication, and serious producers bet on Fetească Neagră and Rară Neagră.
How to behave in Moldova
- Wine is hospitality, not a purchase. A guesthouse pouring its own is offering you something the family made, and refusing outright reads as a slight. Accept a small glass, say it is good if it is, and say you are driving if you are.
- Take something when you are invited into a home. Sweets, coffee, flowers in an odd number. Even numbers of flowers are for funerals across this region, and it is the sort of mistake that is noticed and never mentioned.
- Churches expect covered shoulders and knees, and women often cover their heads at monasteries. Scarves are usually available at the door. Ask before photographing inside, and never photograph during a service.
- Toasts are given properly and looked at properly. Meet people's eyes when you clink, and expect the host to speak first and at some length. It is not a formality anyone is trying to shorten.
- Politics is not small talk. Moldova is split over its relationship with the European Union and with Russia, and that split runs through families. Ask about it if someone raises it, and let them lead.
- Learn where the left bank sits in the conversation. For many Moldovans Transnistria is not an adventure destination but an unresolved thirty-year problem, and hearing a visitor describe it as a curiosity lands badly.
Famous Moldovan faces
Eugen Doga
Emil Loteanu
Ion Druță
Grigore Vieru
Dan Bălan
Radu Albot
Maia Sandu
Natalia Barbu
Maria Bieșu
Zdob și Zdub
Serghei Tarnovschi
Nicolae Juravschi
Nicolae Milescu
Zamfir Ralli-Arbore
Vladimir Beșleagă
Anatol Dumitraș
Must-try Moldovan food
Mămăligă
Firm cornmeal cut with a thread, served with sheep cheese, sour cream and pork.
Murături
Winter pickles: cucumbers, green tomatoes, watermelon, whole cabbages, from November.
Zeamă
Soured chicken noodle soup with dill and a hot pepper. The dish Moldovans abroad miss.
Sarmale
Pork and rice rolled small in cabbage or vine leaves and cooked slowly.
Tochitură
Pork cooked down slowly in its own fat and spooned over mămăligă. Sunday food.
Plăcinte
Pan-fried or baked pastries of sheep cheese, potato, cabbage, pumpkin or sour cherry.
Vertuta
Plăcinte coiled into a spiral before baking, and the version for a festive table.
Brânză de oi
Brined sheep cheese, salty and crumbling, grated over mămăligă. Sold by the block.
Colțunași
Dumplings of cheese, potato, meat or sour cherry, boiled and served with sour cream.
Cușma lui Guguță
Sour-cherry crepes stacked into a cone under sweetened sour cream and chocolate.
Must
Fresh grape juice from the press, sold at the roadside in September before it ferments.
Divin
Moldovan brandy, distilled from local white wine and aged in oak in the French manner.
Fetească Neagră
The native black grape, with dark fruit and firm structure. Moldova's export bet.
Rară Neagră
The lighter, more perfumed native red, often blended. It rarely leaves the country.