Since I am a defacto representative of the U.S. government, the embassy here does not encourage us to travel to Transnistria but they do desire to move this territory into greater Moldova via diplomacy (thus they want to spread goodwill). The diplomatic relationship is sticky because the U.S. will not recognize them as an independent state (which they claim for themselves) and the diplomats are often denied entry because they will not present a diplomatic passport to the Transnistrian boarder guards.
Before crossing the Dnister river there is a town called Bender (Bendery) which has a lot of historic significance as an important checkpoint into the Russian territories. A famous fortress is there and this area (although on the west side of the river) is also control by Transnistria.
We were fortunate to travel Andrey, a fellow Fulbrighter, who is a Russian-born U.S. citizen, and he arranged our sight-seeing excursions. It would have been a difficult day for me to navigate on my own in terms of understanding the history as all signs are in Russian (in contrast to Romanian in Chisinau), and all tour guides have to be prearranged. We had a really interesting tour of the Bendery Fortress, the construction of which was begun in 1538 by a Turkish Sultan. It became a major site for battles during the following centuries as the Ottomans battled the Russians and the Russians battled the Romanians, etc. It is a major access point to the Black Sea in this region.
Below Andrey and I are saluting beside the busts of several famous Russian generals.
We also toured a cemetery in Bendery that memorialized many of the Russians killed protecting this region for the past two centuries.
After leaving Bendery, we traveled a few miles across the river to the capital city of Tiraspol. The first thing you notice when driving in is the large, state-of-the-art soccer stadium for the Sheriff football club. Sheriff is a very wealthy Moldovan business man. After the soccer stadium, what you see is a lot of loyalty to Russia, including many t-shirts that say "I love Russia," and, most especially, the large statue of Lenin outside a government building right near the main square.
The other main tourist destination is the memorial for the victims of the 1990-1992 war with Moldova proper. It is a beautiful area that is flanked by a wall with all the victims names on one end of the "mall" and a Russian tank on the other end.
In various accounts that I have heard or read about visiting Transnistria, I was told of going back in time to the days of the Soviet Union. In my brief visit, it was interesting to see the Russian focus everywhere but as one of my colleagues stated it feels a lot like other cities in Moldova. The main difference is that in Chisinau and Tiraspol both cities are modernizing but one is doing so while trying to keep relics of its Soviet past while the other is trying to get rid of that past.
The two flags speak to those differences as well (Moldova on the left). It was a very interesting trip, and look into how a rogue state functions. In some ways, it felt like the only people who really care if Transnistria remains separate from Moldova are those in the police/military. Andrey talked to several people we met, and none of them seemed to want to talk much about being an independent country.
As least now I've been to a rogue state...it should be on everyone's list.
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