Sunday April 26 - Chisinau

Sunday, April 26 In the morning, before our departure, we meet with Oleg Manaev, who is one of the founders of a new organization--the Independent Institute of Social-Economic and Political Research (NISEPI). He attended the Oxford conference last year, and he has various proposals for Dr. Levner and the Library of Congress (see summary of visits). We then travel to the Minsk airport, and its time to travel to Moldova. (One of the most pleasing--and unexpected--aspects of this trip was that all flights departed within 30 minutes of scheduled departure, despite what I heard before leaving the US. This is apparently in part because the number of flights has been severely cut to more closely match the number of available aircraft.)

We arrive on Moldova on our Air Moldova flight (with Captain Petrov). At the bottom of the stairs we are met by a member of the "politsiia" (all the local "militsia" in the republics I visited have been renamed "politsiia) who checks the passports of the male passengers--an attempt to screen out possible Russians trying to sneak into Chisinau from the Dneister region, apparently). Generally, however, entry from one former republic to another is completely free. At the airport, we are met by Lidiia Gutsu and Rodika Kostash of the Academy of Sciences library. This is extremely courteous of them, since today is Easter. We are driven to the our hotel and agree to meet with them again tomorrow (which is also an official government holiday).

Once established in the hotel, Dr. Levner and I proceed to walk through the center of town, down the recently renamed bul. Stefan Cel Mare. It is almost hard to believe that the Cyrillic alphabet was once used here--there is nothing by signs with the Roman alphabet on the buildings. Unlike Minsk, which in many ways felt like a trip back in time (Lenin still stands in the square, even if they have taken his name off the street), here they have done much to remove overt signs of Soviet rule. Lenin is gone. Also, many plaques that marked signs of "RussianMoldovan friendship" have been vandalized and/or removed. We reach the park near the statue of Stefan eel Mare, where a meeting of sorts is taking place. Dr. Levner, not having been briefed to stay away from such gatherings, heads on over to see what is going on. The entire business is taking place in Romanian, and concerns activities by Russians in the Dneister and neighboring areas (they are gathered around a poster that has in the middle of it a large shell fragment). It occurs to us that this may not be a great place for Russian-speakers such as ourselves, and we return to the hotel. In one positive sign, most of the publications that we see in the kiosks are familiar to us as a result of the LC collecting efforts.

At the hotel we discover that the signs that indicate the restaurant is open to 10 is in error--there is a "Chrezvichaenoe polozhenie" (state of emergency), after all. We didn't realize that, although the amazing number of "politsiia" on the street should have given us a clue. Everything closes at 8 PM-everything. My supply of granola bars and jar of peanut butter thus keeps up from starving (this being the first meal since breakfast in Minsk, following the Levner diet).

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In retrospect, it was remarkable that this trip happened since the situation in several of the visited countries was nominally a "state of emergency" - looking back now, I don't understand why it wasn't called off by someone.

This was another amazing example of the gracious nature of the librarians who received us. It was purely bad planning on my part to visit at this time, with Easter in particular but also several former Soviet holidays that could or might result in problems with visits and doing business.