The Forum in Moldavia would be held on March 31, so we planned to arrive the 30th of March. Because Moldavia isn’t participating in the Carnet ATA pact, we knew that we would have to go through a special customs procedure. Since we couldn’t find any information on this procedure we contacted another Belgian company with a subsidiary in Moldavia. They assured us that it wouldn’t be tough to cross the border. But when we were all set to go to Moldavia we heard that the opposite was true. To be able to arrange everything, we decided to stay in Bucharest for another day.
 
The host Ormotex in Chisinau, the capital of Moldavia, tried to arrange as much as they could, while in Belgium they also tried to get us our documents we needed. But since it was weekend, nothing could really be done. So we stayed in Bucharest for another night. The next day, Ormotex found out that we needed special contracts and permits and that they were actually afraid that we might not be able to make it. Another day in Bucharest…
 
Monday morning we decided to start driving because we would need about eight hours to drive the 380km to the border. When were on our way, we got a call: they needed a contract between Jaga and Ormotex, a bank guarantee, a list of everything that  is loaded in the truck including the prices of every subject…Stefan Smets (Jaga Belgium) took over the case and after 15 phone calls and 32 mails with Moldavia, he arranged every paper and licence we needed. Thanks Stef!
 
Lots of problems at the border….
At 21.15 we arrived at the border of Romania/Moldavia. We had to show the customhouse officer the road emblems of which you need one every day you drive. We drove for two days and stood still for four days, but the customhouse officer got suspicious. He checked the distance we drove with the fuel in the tank and concluded that we needed to pay 45.00. We didn’t agree and explain the situation to the man. He said that we might cross the border for 10.00 and that we had to go to the passport control. We left the EU so we gave the next customhouse officer all our papers, he looked at us a few times and then went to some office, door closed. He came out after fifteen minutes, with our papers but it turns out he filled in the wrong form, torn and labelled. We could only hope that this wouldn’t have any far-stretching consequences because every paper has a number and we only had a few. Magda explains the man what went wrong and one hour later we were allowed to drive through with the right papers and stamps.

We drove though ‘no men’s land’ between Romania and Moldavia, not the best place to spend the night, so we decide to drive to the Moldavian side. After the passport control we needed to report at the police. Because our European ‘green card’ isn’t acknowledged here, we had to buy one. In the middle of the night we followed a police officer to.. who knows where. In a little office we a had to buy an insurance for two weeks (20 Euro). We hope that will do. Then we had to go to ‘Dec-Trans’, the toll office that had been chosen by the Moldavian host to arrange all our papers. These should be okay, but they were all in Chisinau, and not at the border.

When arrived at the Dec-Trans, they indeed had no papers.. The lady, Virginia, who helped us, suggested to go to bed (it was two o’clock at night) and that she would arrange the rest tomorrow morning. When we arrived at her office the next morning, she was still there. She works for 48 hours and is then free for 3 days… Rough workweek! She spoke English very well and helped us through the whole procedure: packing lists and contracts are faxed from Chisinau to the border, the truck was weighed to get a transport license (130.00). The customhouse officers just didn’t understand why such a big truck only brings 400kg inside and the whole police and customhouse officer corps wanted to take a look inside our Experience Truck. We played the guides in our truck to show everybody in pairs the inside of the truck. Then we had to pay another 37.00 for declaration and 20.00 for, we don’t even know what, we got all our papers and could drive into Moldavia! It’s 12.30 and we had to drive straight to Chisinau’s customhouse to declare our stuff.
 
 
  
Going out of Romania… this went pretty well…
 
 

 Papers.. stamps… all we need…or…???
  
 
Going to Chisinau
We drove to Chisinau through a gray, poor looking landscape. The roads are in good condition, so that ‘made our day’. The national export product of Moldavia is wine, Magda actually thinks it’s a pretty good wine! We drove along enormous vineyards. Entire families were working on the vineyards, baby in the buggy, grandma on a stool….When we arrived in Chisinau our GPS stopped working. We called the host and they came to pick us up and brought us to the customhouse in Chisinau.  When we arrived there at 16.00, we happily gave them all our papers. At 17.30, a friendly young man came to tell us that the personnel here only works till 17.00h so that we had to come back tomorrow around noon. But the Forum is at 12.00!! We made a few calls, decided to park our truck on the closed customhouse car park and went to our hotel.
  
 

  
 
Forum & more customhouse problems
We made the plan that Johnny would go around 10 o’clock to try to do everything he possibly could do, while Magda would prepare the Forum. Also we started to worry a little bit: if it’s this hard to get IN the country, how will we ever get out!?
 
April 1st: it’s 11.00 o’clock, nothing happened yet at the customhouse and Johnny started to think about going ‘in transit’, which means that we will cross the country but won’t be able to take anything from the truck. This meant that we would be safer, but also had to do the Forum without any material, just the laptop….The customhouse officers got a little nervous and they called Valeria in for help. She arranged that we get, of course by paying, our stamps at 12:02.
Magda and the hosts form Ormotex decided to postpone the forum a few hours so that we would have enough time to prepare everything. About 50 guests arrived and the Forum was a success for our new client Ormotex. The Truck arrived at 12.30 and at 13.30 everything is ready. Tomorrow we will have to go to the customhouse again, ‘check out’ and then we will go to Odessa.. That is to say, if we will be able to leave the country.
 
  
 

 Our experience truck in front of the Forum-location (finally!)
 

Building Bridges: Trucker Magda, the hosts from Ormotex,
Jan Kriekels, Valeria (Export Jaga)
 

 The hosts Victor Cunev and his wife
 

Again: Ormotex hosts
 

 

 

 Visitors of the Forum
 

 Building Bridges: Jan Kriekels with host and new Jaga Partner Victor Cunev from Ormotex

 
About the city
 
Chisinau
The Western part of Moldavia is part of Romania and the Eastern part belongs to the Republic of Moldova, while the Northern and South Eastern parts are territories of Ukraine. Chisinau is the capital city of Moldova. It is the largest city of the country and its political, administrative, economical and cultural centre. Its name comes form the Romanian word ‘Chisla Noua’, which refers to a spring in the corner of Pushkin and Albisoara streets around which the city was originally build. Chisinau is considered to be one of the greenest cities in Europe with it’s many parks, lakes and the trees growing in almost every street. Nowadays, the capital has over 700.000 inhabitants. A huge growth since the population counted only 600 inhabitants in 1174. 
 
Movie about the city: