A Soviet Reunion

Welcome back to the G&BEU. Don't worry if you're not in on the lingo of the super fans yet, to you and me that just means the 'gingerandbankrupt Expanded Universe™️', an imaginary blockbuster where Putin is Thanos, Soviet badges are the infinity stones, and Thomas plays... well... Thomas.

Our fascination for the Soviet Union's fallout had been moulded and even fully mythologised over the past year; travels in no less than seven of its former provinces had charmed us with the chiselled cheekbones of Lenin's cult of personality, and bustling bazaars vending a rainbow of relics dripping with the colour of propaganda.

We'd identified our next target a few months prior: Moldova, the perfect place to pilfer pin badges and penny-pinch for pastime, with cheap flights-a-plenty and flea markets-a-plentier. In many ways, it wasn't likely to be our typical trip, Moldova isn't exactly a playground of mountains, its top attractions on TripAdvisor probably include a neglected cemetery and a pack of stray dogs.

It had been a few months since our last escapades in a post-Soviet Russosphere. Thomas had just returned from three hardcore months on the Isles of Scilly, where he'd consumed 41 flavours of ice cream, and almost been swept into the Atlantic while investigating both the science of seal ecology and the physical limits of brain freeze. I, on the other hand, had been conducting my own fieldwork, namely how many duvets can be inserted into a single duvet cover before finally being able to feel my feet again during the cold winter nights (current findings are 23 togs and counting).

After our Soviet reunion at Gloucester Green station, we Trotsky'd onto a coach bound for London Luton and began to pick at our skulls (not pickaxe them, that's so 1940 Mexico) as we attempted to figure out what exactly we'd be getting ourselves in for.

We'd never properly broken FCDO advice before (apart from that time we wandered within five kilometres of the Kyrgyz - Tajik border during minor armed skirmishes while climbing Lenin peak, which hardly feels relevant now), but Transnistria, it turned out, was categorically a no-go. Mr Starmer himself appeared to be tutting and wagging his fear-mongering (or Keir-mongering) finger at us through the internet, reminding us that there'd be no consular support if things were to go pear shaped.

"Didn't you know about all of this when we booked it?" Thomas exasperated. I chuckled, pretending I hadn't packed only half an hour earlier, now vividly imagining my future as a personal prisoner to Putin, wheeled out only to perform humiliating dances and fight Siberian tigers while balancing vodka martinis on my forehead.

A quick Google search revealed that even saying "Transnistria" in Transnistria could apparently earn you 14 days in prison, which is objectively a wild strategy from the tourism board (but more on that later). At this point, I panicked, remembering that I am *technically* an employee of His Majesty's Government, and started frantically scrubbing any information I'd ever revealed about myself publicly, even deleting my LinkedIn and hiding my Strava profile (wouldn't want the border guards knowing which soldier could outrun me in a 5k if it came down to it).

At the airport, I experienced what I can only describe as nostalgic dread; Wizz Air, Luton, and a trip involving Romania was a combination we'd already survived once, and I'd still never received therapy from the first time. In a spiralling bout of pre-trip paranoia, I then became convinced that airport security would classify hummus as a liquid, and seize my dinner like big meanies. Thus was born the 'sacrificial hummus', as we choked down two tubs, immediately and in full, eyes darting for high-vis jackets as we held up the queue to security. Security, once we did reach it, got much more intimate with Thomas than it did with me. A guard launched into an exploratory pat-down, possibly probing to see where in Thomas's digestive tract he was hiding the hummus.

Once through to the departures lounge, I figured that this might, potentially, be a good trip for travel insurance, and began loading up my options. The only provider that covered Transnistria was a website called 'Battleface', which already felt like subtle foreshadowing. Before purchase, it had just three questions:

1. Will you be armed during your trip?
2. Are you over one month old?
3. Do you pinky promise not to join any militias while out there?

Pretty iron-clad policy then, and being on my best behaviour, I accepted (by which I mean, Thomas accepted on my behalf, as I scrambled to scour my work's travel guidance, where I somehow managed to reset my account's verification with Thomas's phone number). Around this time, Chris messaged Thomas with the warm, supportive advice to just "bribe whoever it takes" while in Transnistria. Good thing we speak no Russian, I thought; maybe we could woo them with a magic trick instead (like 'got-your-nose!').

The flight itself flashed by in a jiffy, my entertainment being the man next to me, a confused old chap. His brain was so utterly cooked that every thirty seconds, he'd hover his finger over his phone, open a random app, stare at the loading screen in airplane mode, before closing it, then repeating over and over again. Poetic really, a closed loop of dopamine despair.

Emerging into Moldova, we breezed past passport control, beneath slick airport branding and the wildly optimistic slogan 'Dream, Fly, Grow'. Between Thomas inexplicably likening himself to ancient Carthage and an ATM taking five minutes 'initiating the microprocessor', we turned back to find the airport wrapped in a thick fog. Sodium-orange light bloomed weakly into the mist and the tarmac glistened with a precipitate sheen, transforming the airport from a transport hub into the sort of place where secrets are exchanged in murmurs.

Somewhere in the gloom, we met our taxi driver Dina, a man of tall, thin posture and an air of mild criminal ambiguity. Modelling his leather coat and flat cap, he led us decisively to the underground car park before realising, halfway down the lift that his car was, in fact, back exactly where he'd first found us. Once installed in his unmarked vehicle, he took us hurtling through the city, skirting a police blockade like it was just a suggestion. "If stopped," he urged (in his broken English), "must say we are friends!"

We finally bonked on the front door of our hotel at 1am. The door creaked open and the receptionist appeared in his pants. We were grateful he remembered them (and us).Baca lagi