Tag: trip

From the richest to the poorest European country and back

29 November 2009

I had a short vacation in Moldova together with my friend Diego. Probably you are asking yourself “Why Moldova!?”. At least this was the reaction of all of my friends when I told them that I had planned a trip to Chişinău. To be honest, despite the fact that I am already back from the vacation, I am not sure what to answer to this question. 🙂

As far as I am concerned, I just wanted visit an eastern European country, possibly an ex-USSR one. The idea was to explore an area of Europe that was culturally and economically entirely different from what I am used to. After several discussions with Diego about which country to visit, Moldova caught our curiosity, and there we went.

I have to admit that I knew little about this country before going there, and two things impressed me the most. The first is, unfortunately, the poverty. The time seems to be frozen in the Nineties there. The average monthly salary in Moldova is around 2500 MDL (150 EUR) while in Norway is 30000 NOK (3500 EUR). Of course, life is cheaper in Moldova than in Norway, but even normalising the salary to the cost of living, the difference remains staggering.

The other thing that left me puzzled is the lack of linguistic and cultural identity. Moldovans belong to the Romanian ethnic group. The official language in Moldova is Romanian, although natives speak a Moldavian dialect which is slightly different from the original Romanian. However, Russians and Ukrainians constitute a large ethnic group in Moldova. Russian is then the default second language at all levels of education, and everyone in the country can speak it fluently. Oddly enough, local Russians refuse to speak Romanian and oblige native Moldovans to speak Russian. Walking around Chişinău, I heard more conversations in Russian than Romanian, which is quite sad. Maybe this is a superficial analysis of the integration problems, but what kind of cultural identity is this?

I learned a lot from this “very original” trip, especially to give value to the things I am lucky to have in my life. Being at home with all the comforts seems like a luxury now. I hope I will always remember about it.

Norge-Italia-Norge-Россия

6 August 2008

This year for the first time I had to apply for 20 days vacations… It made me realise even more that I am a full-time worker now. 🙂

Planning my vacations was not easy. I wanted to go home in Italy, but at the same time, I wanted some action somewhere else in the world… And I had to make it fit with some deadlines at the University. The final choice was the following: Italia at the end of June, and Россия—it just means Russia, but I could not resist writing it in Cyrillic :)—at the end of July.

A journey to Italy always gives me a mixture of contradictory feelings. On the one hand, it is pleasant to come back to my home-sweet-home after a long while: family, friends, sun, sea, tasty food, good wine. On the other hand, the provincial mentality of some Italians can easily piss me off.

My hometown is not that big, and I did not do that much there except sunbathing and swimming. But at least one day I was brave enough to hike the Gran Sasso mountain up to the top (2912m). This was the most exciting moment of my vacation in Italy, and I have to thank Antonio for being my guide.

If the first vacation was calm and relaxing, the next one was thrilling and exhausting. I visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, together with Diego and Federico, probably the best—or the worst depending on the point of view—travelling companions I could ask for.

St. Petersburg is a lovely old-fashion city, similar to other Eastern European capital, but still with a Soviet touch. Full of art, it was a good place to practice photography. Moscow is metropolitan and dynamic, somehow too big for my taste, but magnificent. Exhilarating nightlife, even though we had only a couple of chances to experience it. It is hard to compare these two cities, they are considerably different, but I was fascinated by both.

One thing I noticed is that Russian women dress up on more occasions than many European women do. Even to go for a casual walk, a Russian woman could wear high heels and feminine dress. A hardcore feminist might have the wrong impression that women do this because they are objectified, but Russian women themselves explained it this way: “We only live once; I want to look and feel at my best”. I could not agree more. 😉

What else can I say? I will probably be back in Russia one day! I uploaded pictures from my trips. Check my Flickr photostream, and do not forget to leave comments!

До свидания.