Moldova-Historic with Vampires and Werwolves (Moldova)

Member Name: Cammij

Product:	Moldova
Date:	08/06/01 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful, great weather, good wine

Disadvantages: Werwolves, Vampires, No running water

So I am laying around in Moscow, Russia not Texas, and my wife and her mother decide that they want to go to Moldova to see my wife's aunts. Two of them had married Moldovan men back when the evil empire was still in business and they had raised their children and had a pretty colorful life in this exotic strip of mountain breeze between the Ukraine and Romania. All I knew was that Moldova made wine and they had recently shook down the west to buy all their Jetfighters the Soviets left behind or they would sell them to IRAN.
I didn't know where Moldova was. Now amongst my generation of males the only polite way to tell somebody where somethings general location is, is by giving them the name of the territory in the classic game "Risk" that the point in question exists in. So those of you that use Risk as their basis of geographical reference. KEYWORD "Besserabia" Thats where it is. Furthermore we were going to a city called Beltsy with about 160,000 people with 8 dollars between the lot.
Apparently these relatives had once been compratively rich by Soviet standards but now they were broke. They had travelled all over and lived well off these two brothers, who had married two sisters, and they worked running some wine company. Like I said they had money and one of their daughters became one of the top pop singers in Moldava (remember they have a population of 4 million so that really is no big deal). Now these poor people didn't even have enough money to have heated water and use electricity much despite the fact that electricity is like almost free in former communist countries (except California). One of these sisters has since gone to Italy to work just to make hard money. Even though she is Russian-like 64% of the population speaks this broken Italian language with each other that sounds like Mexican migrant farm workers trying to talk to gypsies (also of which Moldavia has a few)- and while the culture is Slavonic the
language is Latin.
So we fly from that Airport in Moscow that starts with a "V" not the nice one that we fly into that starts with "S". Then we catch this rickety old bus until I say no and find some poor guy with a beat up old lada to take us where we are going for like pennies.
So we go out to this old castle looking joint that at one time had been run by monks to make church wine or something, then Stalin took it from the church and made it into a collective farm and now it was independent but no one had money to buy good wine and they lacked the supply chains to foster an export market.
It was like going back into a time machine, it was just so wild how backward we went. It was beautiful, peaceful serene and it was just fantastic to be up theer in the mountain air, with all the grapes. Until I couldn't get a dial tone to try to get online, and beyond that I look outside and see a damn wolf just standing there looking at their set up, kind of like a big fat morbiidly obese person looks at a menu. I am like, time out, this is a bunch of crap, that is a wolf. Now one rule of thumb when travelling that I have always abided by is that when in a questionable place (Siberia, Serbia, South Afrika, or South Boston) always arm yourself to the maximum armaments permitted by law, then go one step further by getting the next weapon, not the bait of the switch and bait, the black market is employing, because why bother having what everyone else has? If it is legal, its standard, and I always want to be a step ahead. I am proud of my ROTC training and training in the Airforce but I am not a combat trooper per se and I won't want to rely on instincts and training in place of high caliber high cyclic rates of fire.
So I freak when I see this wolf. I tell my wife I need a gun, and these Moldovans are all like understanding. The guy, Slava, walks in the other room and rummages around and comes back and hands me a Romanian mad
e Ak-47 with two 30 round clips and walks away like he had just went and got me a cup of coffee.
so I ask about these wolves and they start telling me they run around like Rabbits and furthermore there are werwolves. I think they are using some wacked term, and get them to clarify, they indeed claim there are werwolves around. Now this is getting ugly, here I am in a country where I can't get online, speak the language, know where in the hell I am at, and now there are monsters. It isn't like Moscow where if you get in a bind you can find a cop somewhere and hand him 20 bucks and your passport and probaly at least get a ride to the embassy. There isn't an option like that here.
So then they start saying that their area is unique because not only do they have werwolves but they also have a type of vampire where you have to cut his heart out and burn it to kill him. Now I am livid. But I wasn't really worried about the vampires as the Red Cross won't even take my blood (all the tattoos and truthful answers to their screening prevents me from giving blood) so I doubted a vampire would prey on me. So we have some supper with our vodka and make ready for bed. Then them wolves start in with their howling. I was getting jumpy. So I go out with my AK-47, which I have been hauling around to no effect. Part of the coolness of hauling around an assault rifle is most people give you a look that says they are acknowledging that you are carrying an assault rifle. These people just ignore the fact that you are packing. I go outside because I am going to cap a wolf. I run straight into some running thing and all I feel is fur. I couldn't get a dead angle in time. I go over on my ass and have this thing on top of me. I just start wailing away and get this werwolf in a half guard (a Sambo/Brazilian Jiu-jitsu position), I am still on bottom and this monster tries to stand up. I am able to hook his knee and I go for a knee bar, and I crank the holy
hell out of his leg (for those of you who aren't into Sambo or Brazilian JuJitsu- just trust me, I am flailing around on the ground with this bastard) Meanwhile I am relishing the fact that I laid on a hell of a leg bar, wondering if I am being bit, wondering if I will have rabies.
So everyone hears this commotion and runs outside. Slava picks up the Ak-47 and starts screaming and then Luda runs up with like the crank top part of a butter churn and just cracks my opponent in the head, out cold just like that. So now I get to collect my wits. I am a new guest in this place, a "wealthy sophisticated American", I am standing here in ripped shirt and housepants which I had just filled full with a big helping of borscht induced terds that I just didn't manage to contain with proper bowel control when I got tackeled by a werwolf in the middle of some Godforsaken wild country I had never really heard of until 2 days earlier. So I also pissed myself in the course of events and then I look at my werwolf, he is a middle aged man wearing like a sheep fleece coat that is all grey and dirty. He has wild tussled hair and a beard so it really is understandable what happened to me. Now he is howling too, beacuse he is basically had his ACL ripped out of his knee. So since we can't call the police they lock the guy up in the potato cellar and give him a bottle of rotgut vodka.
Now keep in mind, how as a grown man do you gracefully ask, "Hi, I just creamed my drawers with fecal matter where and how would I wash up with your facilities". Did I mention the part about no hot water? It was a drag. I ended up being embarassed for the next two days but it was a good trip. I caught some trout in a stream and we enjoyed the weather, mild climate and great wine. Slava even gave me a couple boxes more of shells to squeeze off. Turns out that I actually got some certificate and mild award for catching this guy who had been going around stealing chick
ens and stuff. I guess he was just like the town drunk or whatever and finally when he "Attacked" an "American Tourist" his time was up for being a petty crook and they were able to do more than put him in the drunk tank. I would have liked to look into the unique place a little more and see how this combinatioon of having both werwolves and vampires in close proximity works out. But go to Moldova if you get a chance it really is a neat little place.

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