You know, when this year started, I realized that it was going to mark 10 years since I had left Romania. And since I “only” lived in Romania for 10 years, I had to ask myself: am I still more Romanian than everyone?

Well, as it turned out, it didn’t take long at all for me to get my answer.

Don’t Mess With My Doggos

It was some time near the end of January when I decided to take my dogs out for a walk. This was still winter, so I had a coat on, but I do remember it being pretty mild weather.

The normal route I take involves walking down a small residential street which then ends and becomes a gravel/dirt road that goes directly to the river.

One of the reasons why I like the residential street is that there are no cross streets. In other words, you can’t get to anywhere else in the city from here, so all the vehicular traffic is either local residents going to/from home or things like taxis coming to pick up someone.

Between the street’s narrow design (and lack of sidewalks) and the fact that it’s one big cul-de-sac, the vehicles tend to drive rather slowly, which is great when you’re trying to navigate a pack of dogs down the street.

On the day in question, however, everything started when I saw car roaring toward us at high speed. In fact, I remember a cloud of dust being kicked up behind the car, which I initially took to be a BMW (note: the car of choice for hot-headed young men around here) but later found out it was an Audi.

Either way, the car was really flying at top speed toward me and my doggos on this narrow street. So I raised my voice and shouted something angry about quit driving so damned fast.

I thought that was gonna be the end of it, but it only escalated from there.

Ugly Words

Frankly, after I yelled at the guy, I just expected him to drive past us.

Instead, however, he slammed the car to a stop and rolled down his window. I proceeded to yell “ugly words” (which will be explained below) at him in English, and the driver, a guy in his early 30s, proceeded to yell “ugly words” at me in Russian.

Since neither of us knew what the fuck the other one was saying, the “argument” only last a few seconds. I then turned away and began walking off with my dogs.

Where it turned really ugly was when the guy hopped out of his car, ran up to me, and then punched me in my face, knocking me to the ground. This caused me to drop all the leashes, and my dogs, I am sorry to report, refused to rise up in my defense, preferring instead to take off and enjoy their newfound freedom.

After that, I realized I had a difficult choice to make. Clearly, this guy was having a bad day indeed if he was willing to physically assault total strangers just because they yelled an angry word at him. And it was obvious that he was spoiling for a fistfight once I got to my feet.

Am I a good street fighter? Heck no, I’m not. But I did outweigh him, and I was pretty sure I was stronger than him, so maybe I’d prevail if we got into a fight.

The problem was that, afterwards, when the cops inevitably showed up, it’d be a case of two people fighting in the street, which probably would mean both of us would be charged with a crime.

But if I didn‘t strike back, I would remain the innocent victim, even if it did make me feel like a coward. Keep in mind that I’m having to make this choice within seconds of being punched in the face.

The guy kept yelling at me, but I took the second option, so I stayed far enough away to be out of the reach of those fists. What shocked me next was when he got out his phone and called the police, and it was clear that he considered himself to be the victim!

So we danced around for 10 minutes or so, and then the cops finally showed up. And there were all kinds of lengthy conversations in Russian with the guy that I didn’t really understand, but none of the cops spoke any of my languages, so we were at an impasse for a good long while.

Finally, we worked it out where I was able to take my dogs home, and then I’d go down to the police headquarters in Tiraspol by riding with them in their riot van.

More Pridnestrovian Than You!

There are lots of interesting details I could share about what I saw and heard down there because I’m pretty sure I’m the only foreigner who has seen so much of the inside of the Tiraspol police HQ. I even got to look inside a cell at one point, but I don’t want to get distracted from the thing I came here to tell all of you today.

I will say this, though: not once but TWICE, I had to correct a police officer when they told me “Transnistria” when they attempted to use their super basic English with me. And I’m like, no, dude, it’s Pridnestrovie, and then I started asking myself, holy shit, am I more Pridnestrovian than the cops at the friggin’ Tiraspol headquarters? LOL

Anyway, back to the relevant bit.

After a whole lot of bureaucratic bullshit and messing around and all kinds of other stuff for an hour or two, it came time for me to write my formal statement about the matter. And since I can’t obviously do it in Russian, how were we going to do it?

The cops all wanted to send out for an English translator, which I knew would take forever to arrive, plus the person would probably not speak English all that well.

So I insisted on giving my statement in Romanian because hell yeah, why not? Who else in the history of PMR has ever done that? It was such a baller move that even though my face was hurting pretty bad at that point, I was grinning big-time.

To be clear, there are three official languages in PMR, one of them being Moldovan. I am in full agreement that Moldovan is a different language than Romanian (something highly contentious in Moldova and Romania), but I knew a Moldovan speaker would be able to understand me if I spoke Romanian, so I technically insisted on giving my statement in Moldovan. And since that’s one of the official PMR languages, they couldn’t refuse me.

Making a Statement

It took some hemming and hawing around before they found a cop who spoke Moldovan. And then we started talking, and he literally said, “You’re speaking Romanian, right?” and I said, “Yep” and then we got along like gangbusters.

Making the whole thing even more surreal and hilarious, I had to help him a couple of times, including when he said, “Eu translez” (I’ll translate what you’re saying into Russian) and I had to go, um, no, it’s “Eu voi traduce” LOL Clearly his Moldovan was a little rusty, but wow, good times, man, good times.

So yeah, I explained what happened in Romanian and he then orally translated into Russian while another cop wrote down the Russian words on the official witness statement paper. And when he asked me what I yelled at the driver before he stopped, we had this hilarious back and forth because it was all English cusswords, so we settled on the phrase “ugly words” (cuvinte urâte) as my official testimony.

And then once that was all written out, I signed at the bottom. But I also handwrote a sentence in Romanian along the lines of “This is all true and accurate to the best of my knowledge.”

So there you go, suckers! There is now an official police statement in the Tiraspol HQ written in real-deal (Latin alphabet) Romanian. Ha!

Which, by the way, makes me the only person on the planet to have written out police statements in Romanian in three different countries.

The police statement in Romania was written on behalf of my illiterate homeless friend who got jumped by some thugs, and the police statement in Moldova was reporting my neighbor for abusing her kid (quite a sad story).

So there you go, I guess I still am more Romanian than you.

I’m certainly the most Romanian person in Tiraspol. And if anyone ever tries to tell you bullshit about how you can’t speak Romanian here, um, tell ’em to fuck off. Because I’ve now got it officially in writing, yo!

For the Record

Since there are a lot of dingbat fascists who will read this post hoping to find some dirt on me, let me be absolutely clear – I was never charged with a crime for this incident. Duh. The other guy, however, was found guilty and had to pay a fine (and it’s now on his official police record, which is serious business in this part of the world).