Ripple

I think of our lives as ripples spreading out as we pass briefly through this world - interacting with other ripples, for better or worse. As the ripples spread long after we have dropped beneath the surface, we should strive to send out positive energy, love, humanity.

Moldova - What about the Food and Drink?

Those of you who have followed this blog for a long time (helloooo - is there anybody out there....)will know that I am a bit of afoodie so you may be surprised that I have not reported on Moldovan food after my recent excursion there -  fear not, I will not disappoint you!

First observation is that Moldova shows the influence of the Russian diet on the one hand and the Mediterranean on the other - one reflecting its geographical location in a southerly direction whilst the other is more to do with having been part of the USSR. This is most apparent if you go to a supermarket where roll-mop herrings and smoked fish products that would not be out of place in the Baltic countries bear equal shelf space with olives and similar Mediterranean staples. The open air markets seem to be more like farmers' markets in the UK with a rather limlited range of vegetables reflecting the season which at the time of our visit was grapes, plum tomatoes, celeriac,  peppers and of course beetroot.

Restaurants reflect a similar mixture of regions with Italian pasta dishes and some more Russian items but there are a few Moldovan items such as polenta with chicken on top or cheese. Likewise in the supermarkets you can find Khefir, a natural flavoured or fruity yoghourt drink which I used to make when we lived in Ireland. Also in the line of strange fermented but not very alcoholic drinks, I was delighted to sample Kvass. The recent history of Kvass gives the lie to anyone who imagines a soft drink can't be political because in a reaction against Cocoa-Cola - symbol of US culture, many people in the former USSR have turned back to traditional soft drinks such as Kvass. Cocoa-Cola's reaction? They have been buying into the Kvass brewing industry - of course! Kvass is a malty tasting drink which though fermented from rye bread, is minimally alcoholic due to lactic acid producing agents similar to Kombucha - so a slightly but pleasantly sour drink - at least to an Englihman familiar with Bitter (beer).

Here is a picture of the sweetcorn which having been dried, will go to be ground up into polenta  - this from Vera's mothers farm.

And here is her mother's cellar full of preserves...

Lastly, on our passsage home via Bucharest (Romania) we saw the most wonderful shop selling everything to do with tea from all over the world. I dont often covet small objects of desire but these (cast-iron?) Japanese tea pots do it for me. (As used by the beautiful registered companion in the sci-fi series "Firefly"!)

posted by: Frewin at 11:17 | link | comments (6) |
moldova, kefir kvass

Re-regulation

It will be agreat relief when the current world economic crisis is over not least because we won't have to listen to religious speakers of every denomination on the BBC's "Thought for the Day" giving mini sermons on Greed and Debt. They're right of course but it will be a relief nevertheless...

I am going to throw my penny worth into the debate but on a slightly different tack. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, the news was all about the "balance of payments", the "trade surplus", the "National Debt" and of course their inevitable corollary - "Public Spending Cuts"! We had in Britain, two clearly different political parties - Labour who were in favour of Nationalised Industry and the Conservatives who believed in Free Enterprise. Yet both parties managed the economy in terms of the above items and indices.

Of course it was under the Conservatives here and the Republicans in the US that Thatcherism and Reaganomics gave full reign to the market is King so deregulate everything and let the matket govern everything. So the deregulation of banking allowed banks to be free of the need to back up their lending with such things as gold and instead lend on the back of borrowing of their own. We have all heard a million analyses of how this led to the doors of "sub-prime" mortgagees whose debt was - it turned out - underpinning the whole credit system of the entire world. How crazy is that?

So what is needed is a new business model for banking that is not based on debt. Also that doesn't incentivize young hotheads to risk other peoples money with huge cash bonuses. What is needed is management! Because what we lost when we let the banks create the money supply based on credit based on credit based on credit, was management of money on all levels. Where previously, governments saw that their people were spending too much on gewgaws from Hong Kong, they adjusted the interest rates to discourage imports and encourage exports, they encouraged individual citizens to put aside savings and not live beyond their means. Offered the free-for-all of credit and consumerism, we the people have gone mad with greed and become thriftless - its probably not so much a moral issue as a deeply rooted human instinct - eat when you can as you never know where the next meal's coming from...

So world governments are apparently following the lead of Gordon Brown - a thrifty Scotsman - in solving the banking crisis by buying (unwilingly on both sides) a large share in the banks. Its not exactly the reversal of de-regulation and its not quite the Nationalisation of the banks either but it does bring governments back to the role they should never have given up, that of really managing the economy with prudent policies and steering us citizens away from frittering our money on nonsense. Perhaps to use public projects to create money instead of borrowing in a way that turned out, in the end, not to be endless...

posted by: Frewin at 11:15 | link | comments |
credit crunch

More of Moldova

So what was different about Moldova?

Well not the weather - not when we were there anyway! The first day we arrived in Chisinau, the capital, it rained about 10 inches in twelve hours! I know because there was a bowl outside the window which filled up twice. The main road into town was 3 inches deep at one intersection - not that it slowed the traffic significantly... after that it was grey and occasionally drizzly until our last day when it shone for the church wedding.

As a former Communist state, the inner city is ringed with tower blocks that are now beginning to show their age and or poor concrete fabrication. Vera is not alone in saying that things were better under communism and indeed you can see the lack of maintenance everywhere. Every block has generously appointed children's play areas and it must once have been beautiful. Vera says that they would have had work days at school when they all went out and cleared rubbish or planted bulbs but all that has gone by the board under capitalism. Wages and pensions for ordinary people are much less whilst food prices have gone up. As you travel through the country, there are closed down factories and co-operative farms and all the infrastructure is crumbling.

In the centre of Chisinau, all the big international stores have modest outlets Benneton etc. and presumably these serve those who have grabbed power and the purse strings but the ordinary people go to markets for food and other goods. In search of accesories for the wdding, Vera took us to the biggest open air market I have ever seen - a thousand stalls at least - all clothing related and partially sorted into specialist "streets". Here is the street of wedding dresses and below is a woman who just sells veils and tiaras to hold them on. Then there are whole stalls of artificial button-holes...

And finally I couldn't resist photographing this stall of wigs.

posted by: Frewin at 11:11 | link | comments |
moldova

Cliches, Comparisons and Reflections

I am sure there is a quotation about the point of travel being to show you different lives and cause you to reflect on home when you arrive back there but I just can't lay my hand (or Google's) on it but nevertheless, that is what it does for me.

When abroad you you constantly think "that's different from home" and when you return, you carry impressions of far away places which you ruminate on and sense the new expanded version of your world somewhere beyond the horizon.

So there's nothing worse for the excited traveller than to find somewhere new to be just as expected or exactly as imagined and so one cliche that really bugged me on our recent trip was that of the phrenetic driving abroad - in both Rumania and Moldova! Poor signage, lack of road markings and the general level of traffic contribute, but it is really the drivers' aggressive attitudes that  create the sense that one is a participant in the chariot race in Ben Hur so that one instinctively pulls one's arms tight in as if it will help...

The worst incident was in Bucharest - there are trams and cars are supposed to keep off the tram lines and give way to them which in all fairness is not possible on narrower streets. However, our taxi driver, having been "belled" by a tram behind us and halted by traffic in front, got out of his cab and brandished a knife with accompanying insults at the tram driver!

Imagine landing in a country to find that everyone drove with Buddhist calm - an exercise in creating good karma. Now there would be a unique and refreshingly different travellers tale!

Below is a shot of one of the main plazas in Bucharest showing the traffic and also worth noting are the ubiquitous and massive advertising hoardings. Although inkjet printed onto see-through plastic fabric, these adverts cover apartment buildings with no regard for the inhabitants light. I wondered what it might be like looking out through a giant eye or being not clasped too but living within a giant breast or somesuch. I also include a picture of a Russian Volga car which we rode in in Moldova - thirty years old and still going strong - they built cars to last in those days...

posted by: Frewin at 11:16 | link | comments |
moldova

Trains, Planes and Weddings

Yes! Weddings plural! I have been to Moldova to attend two weddings of the same couple - they order these things differently in Moldova - and have returned with traveller's tales, reflections and hundreds of wedding photos and not as many of other subjects as I would have wished of which more later.



The story begins some two years ago when Barbara's son and my stepson for some 25 years, met a beautiful eastern European girl through his job in recruitment. It turned out later that she had been here illegally for some 6-7 years and too soon into their relationship, a jealous former boyfriend and her manager at work, had turned her in to the authorities and she was arrested. After a heartrending two months in prison, a kind judge (female), released her on condition she lived with us until immigration should arrange her deportation back to Moldova. Since then, Ben has been travelling to Moldova as often as he could afford to see Vera and eventually they decided to marry and will now discover whether she will be allowed to return to England as his wife. If the answer is no, they may have to wait till her application for a Rumanian passport is granted which should allow her to return as an EU citizen.

I should explain where Moldova is and where it has been!
Moldova was once part of Rumania, one of the most recent countries to join the European Union but over-run by the Russians during the 2nd World War, it became part of the USSR until its collapse when Moldova declared itself independent. It is squeezed between Rumania and the Ukraine and unlike them, doesn't quite reach the Black Sea so has no port to the rest of the world. With only agricultural resources - principally excellent wine, moldova is beholden to Russia for power and Russia and the EU for to be allowed to export its wine which favour is too restricted to allow the country to climb out of its status as the poorest country not quite in Europe and no longer in the USSR. Post Communism, corruption is rife - the government not being merely in bed with the "mafia" - it is the mafia! So although Moldova did not want to return to being part of Rumania, the latter offered the inducement of Rumanian passports to all Moldovans who care to apply for them which means that Moldovans too will have access to working throughout the EU.

How do you get to this far flung corner of not quite Europe/ not quite Asia? Well Air Moldova is very expensive - £400 each whereas flying to Rumania and taking a sleeper train - even with a night in a hotel on the way back, cost only £625 - on paper at least. Various scams worked on us innocents by station porters and taxi drivers pushed the costs up a little but in their position we would probably do the same...

All in all we had a ten day trip including the travelling but the week leading up to the wedding was hardly a holiday as there were so many arrangements to be made for the wedding that we were madly rushing round Chisinau - the capital of Moldova - helping Ben and Vera to finalise plans. We were joined by Barbara's ex-husband - Ben's father and his wife - plus Ben's sisters so there was a reasonable contingent from Britain. Because of all the rushing around we didn't have much time to see things except en passant so I don't have as many pictures as I would like but I shall share some of those I took here in forthcoming posts along with my thoughts on the trip. Despite the chores, a chang is as good as a rest and we returned rested on some level!

But to conclude for now, I should explain about the two weddings. Even if you elect to get married in church in Moldova, you must first get married in a registry office and produce the Civil Certificate before the church will perform its ceremony. The picture above is of the registry office with its beautiful caved backdrop and a warm and human ceremony whilst below is the church where the ceremony was graced with the most beautiful 4 person choir on the only truly sunny day we experinced in Moldova - to be continued...

posted by: Frewin at 07:02 | link | comments (7) |
moldova