Day trip to mysterious Transnistria

How to visit Transnistria? Is it safe? How to cross the border hassle-free? This is a story about our day-trip from Odessa to Tiraspol in October 2017.

Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldovian Rebublic, is a self-proclaimed state in eastern Moldova, bordering the Dniester river and Ukraine. It is an autonomous territorial but considered as part of Moldova, since it is unrecognized by any of the UN member states. This country, that declared independence back in Dec 2nd 1992 but still does not officially exist, has its own government, flag, currency, military and police.

Transnistria area has a long history under Russian empire and Soviet Union, and still today there are lot of Soviet symbols visible. The relatively few tourists that are visiting Transnistria, are usually eager to see those reminders of past times, but Transnistria is not just some stagnant Soviet museum.

Actually the capital city Tiraspol (the second largest city in whole Moldova) looked like a ”normal” Eastern Europe city with quite lively city life. To our surprise, for example the fleet of cars was more modern than in the neighboring countries. Economy in Transnistria is rather mixed, and income inequality is notable, average monthly salary being somewhere around 200 $ per month.

Horror stories and out-dated information

Lot of tourists visiting Moldova or Ukraine near the border of Transnistria are interested in visiting this strange country, but many still skip it due to horror stories about problems with border crossing. Just by googling it, you can read about how people have been interrogated for hours, demanded to pay considerable bribes, or even had their passports destroyed.

Finding any official information sites about how to visit the country seems next to impossible. What we could find out, was that there has been worse times, when taking bribes was more a rule than an exception, or so it seems. However, nowadays attention has been paid to the activities of the border guards, and there have been wide campaigns against bribery.

Our original plan was to go to Ukraine from Moldova through Transnistria with our car. However, we found out that there are some customs fees for foreign cars and also a road tax to be paid. In addition, we read too many stories about flagging cars down for inspection when driving in Transnistria. So we decided to play it safe and save few dollars by making just a short visit using public transportation. That is easy by bus either from Chisinau in Moldova or from Odessa in Ukraine, among some other major cities. Considering it now, we maybe should have been bold enough to just go with own wheels to see if there actually are some problems with that still today… but hopefully sharing the experience of using public transportation is helpful for bigger part of travelers.

We made our day trip from Odessa, and there was not a single problem whatsoever. Worse thing was that we were somewhat uncertain of the reliability of the bus schedules, and thus didn’t have time to visit the city of Bender or any other part of the country, just Tiraspol.

To get to know Transnistria better, you should spend at least one night in the country, and nowadays that is possible without any extra hassle, since all visitors get a 24 hours permission to stay without registration. Longer visit should be easy as well, you just need to take care that you get registered in the migration office in Tiraspol.

Bus trip from Odessa and crossing the border to Transnistria

We took a 8:20 Chisinau bound morning bus from Odessa Privoz Bus Station next to the city center (Novoshchepnyi Riad vulytsia 5). Bought tickets from a small booth (with sign Kacca, meaning counter / ticket sale) and got directed to a minibus parked in platform 9. You could buy the tickets beforehand and even online, but at least in early October there was no problem to get a place just 5 minutes before departure.

To our surprise the bus did not head straight towards Tiraspol, but just to another bus station in Odessa (Avtovoksal Odessa, Kolontaivska vulytsia 58), from where the journey continued at 9:10. It took a couple of hours to reach the border, and the road was in unbelievable bad shape… not sure how our poor Tiida would have survived it in one piece.

After reading all those horror stories from internet, we were a bit nervous when arriving at the border. But it turned out to be oh so nice and easy. In Ukrainian side the border guard got onto the bus and collected our passports, and few minutes later brought them back with exit stamps. Our bus driver took care that those foreigners who were going through Transnistria to Moldova also got another stamp; entry to Moldova. Transnistrian border office does not provide that stamp, so if going through, take care that you will get the entry stamp also.

On Transnistrian side of the border our passports were again collected, and all luggage was security checked. Nowadays there is no need to fill in any entry form yourself, since the entry card is printed for you by the border officials. We were asked about our address in Transnistria, but since we were just on a day trip, we did not provide any, just said that it’s a day trip. However, there was some address printed in our entry cards, so it seems that it’s mandatory to have some address to get the 24 hour permit to stay. To make it smooth, you could just check out an address of some hotel beforehand, and then write it down for the border guard, even if not staying the night. We got the passports back quickly (with no entry stamp), and after that you are free to move around in Transnistria, just take care not to lose the entry card (or your passport of course).

Exploring Tiraspol

The road from the border to Tiraspol was somewhat unusual; there was a long stretch, like 15 kilometers, straight as an arrow and lined by evenly planted trees. Nothing else around but just flat-lands and some fields.

In Tiraspol, we arrived at combined bus and train station about a kilometer out of the city center. Bus station is on the left side of the building, and there is an exchange office also (only local currency is accepted in Transnistria, so you’ll need to change). Inside the station you can find all timetables clearly stated on the wall (in Cyrillic alphabet), and a ticket booth where you can by the return journey. Also bus tickets had to be paid with local Rubles (Oct 2017), even if we had read beforehand that also Moldovan and Ukrainian currencies are accepted.

We found Tiraspol as a nice, even somewhat sleepy city, that looks smaller than it is. All that ”soviet-hype” that you find in internet is a bit of an overstatement. Of course there are some Soviet-era buildings and stuff, but it doesn’t determine the whole city (and those are not that uncommon sight in other cities in Eastern Europe either). If something was unusually eye-catching, it was the Russian flags next to Transnistrian basically everywhere.

If you have time, it is easy to visit also the city of Bender with its’ handsome citadel right next to Moldovan border. Just hop in a trolley bus (number 19) from the main street (Strada 25 Octombrie), the journey to Bender takes around 20 minutes. We headed back to Odessa by 15:45 bus, but there would have been still one bus leaving later, at 19:10. Back in the border we didn’t even need to exit the bus; just handed our passports with the entry cards to a border guard, and got them back in no time, and then they were again collected and stamped in Ukraine side. Also this time the bus driver took care that those coming through Transnistria from Moldova got proper exit stamps before entering Ukrainian side.

Sum up and prices

Of course our story is just one example of visiting Transnistria, but for us it felt really safe and totally problem-free to cross borders. Hopefully the current situation will remain, and bribing won’t be of a problem for visitors to come. It is advisable to check the latest security situation in advance (from official sites, not just by reading the experiences of fellow-travelers in the past).

Check out the picture gallery to get some idea how Tiraspol looks like, and next time when in Eastern Europe, why not to go and take a look yourself!

Costs of our day trip from Odessa

• bus ticket from Odessa to Tiraspol: 3,7 €
• lunch in Tiraspol (½ pizza with beer): 2,3 €
• 1,5 liter bottle or Transnistrian brandy, Kvint: 2,4 €
• bus from Tiraspol to Odessa: 3,4 €

Staying a night (or longer) in Transnistria / Tiraspol

Book your accommodation, at least for the first night, in advance, for example from Booking.com and write the address down for the border officers. There are several places starting from 15 EUR hostels / camping to high end hotels like Hotel Russia and CityClub for over 100 EUR per night.