The Unhappiest Country

One sunny morning, as I lounged in the Café Eisenstein, located in the Black Sea town of Odessa, an article in a local newspaper grabbed my attention: “Moldovans are the Unhappiest People in the World.” Having just completed a work assignment in Russia and the Crimea, it was hard for me to believe that neighboring Moldova was even unhappier than Bulgaria and the Ukraine.

Apparently, according to the World Values Survey, whose researchers interviewed tens of thousands of people in over 60 countries during the past decade, I had picked some of the unhappiest places on the planet to visit. Only 51% of Russians were said to be happy; Ukrainians: 48%. With the happiness rates of Bangladesh and Nigeria coming in at 85% and 81%, respectively, my interest was peaked. How could it be that the rather European Republic of Moldova, whose main export is wine and champagne, tipsy in at 44% – the absolute bottom of the scale?

If money was the root of happiness, then why were other countries with low annual incomes, like Brazil, so content at 83%? Even a whopping 93% of Filipinos said they were happy with their life. Perhaps the climate has something to do with it, I reasoned. All the fairly satisfied, aforementioned countries have an enjoyably sunny climate year-round. Could the brisk Moldovan winters cause ample mood swings? (Were citizens polled in winter instead of summer?) That theory was quickly dismissed when I noticed that the winner – the happiest place on Earth – was Iceland, 97% of whose Nordic citizens proclaim that they are blissful.

As a citizen of the United States (where reputedly 94% of us are happy), I suddenly found myself interested in visiting Moldova. Would my happiness level drop by 50% upon traveling through this Switzerland-sized republic?

I bought a soft seat bus ticket from Odessa to the Moldovan capital of Chisinau (which Russian locals call Kishinev), over one-hundred miles away. Cost? Just $3. So far, I was still happy.

I arrived early at Odessa’s Tsentralny Avtovokzal (Central Bus Station) for my 11:10 am bus (no assigned seats for this price). As 11:00 am approached and no bus arrived, I ventured back into the terminal to inquire about a possible delay. “Nyet… no 11:10 am bus today,” I was informed.

It entered my mind that perhaps Moldovans are sad because no one can get there.  (And, without knowing Russian or Moldovan, one couldn’t even inquire about a bus.)

“Aha! Just when is a bus to Kishinev?” I asked.

“Information costs here, dyevushka. One Hryvnia” [the Ukrainian currency].

“I’ll only pay up if there is going to be a bus today,” I yelled in Russian through the tiny hole in the glass service booth (conveniently positioned at waist level).

“12:50. Another one at 3 pm. Leaves from outside. Stand #5.”

I was once again energized. If buses were scheduled to depart every few hours, than Moldova must surely be a popular destination.

As people approached, I stood my ground in front of the line at Stand #5. Noticing a longer line amassing at neighboring Stand #6, I went up and asked a man, wearing some sort of official-looking Ukrainian cap, if he knew about the Bus to Moldova. It turned out that Pavel Viteazulovich was the driver of the bus to Chisinau, and he let slip that he would shortly drive the bus (now parked in the back of the station) into Stand #7.

As the door opened in front of the teeming hordes, I managed to hold my ground and scramble into a front seat. I asked the somewhat war-torn looking Pavel Viteazulovich (later learning that his patronymic in Moldovan means “brave”) how many stops there would be along the way. “Slishkom mnogo” (“Too many”) was his only reluctant retort. Wedged in between a bevy of sniffling babushkas and whining children, I seemed to be the only (smiling) foreigner aboard. Could it be possible that most of the travelers here were Moldovan and already unhappy?

Since the scenery upon leaving Ukraine was of endless, flat green fields speckled with cows and the occasional grazing goat (and with at least a four-hour ride ahead), I decided it was time to read what little information I had collected about Moldova. Historically, the eastern part of the Kingdom of Romania was known as Bessarabia. The Russian Empire annexed this territory in 1812. It never evolved into a prime vacation spot – but it was distinguished as the site to where Alexander I exiled the poet Alexander Pushkin in the 1820’s.  Later in the 19th century, the area basically shuffled back and forth between independence and Romanian control. Then, after WWII, under the terms of the Paris Peace Accord, Romania had to relinquish the region to the Soviets. It was dubbed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

During the Soviet period, Russian was declared the official language, and the Cyrillic alphabet was even superimposed on the Moldavian language, which previously had been written with Latin letters. The first secretary of the central committee of the Moldavian Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, never much liked Moldavians. He personally organized the deportation of over 100,000 of them (about 7% of the population) to Siberia in 1949-1950.  Russians and Ukrainians were also given special bonuses to settle in the area, in order to dilute local ethnic groups and assimilate the region into the Soviet empire.

Understandably, it probably did not take long for Moldavians to become a very morose bunch. It was not until four decades later, in 1991, that they finally got the chance to celebrate their country’s independence. Today, the Republic of Moldova (not to be confused with the eastern part of Romania, which is known as Moldavia) is completely landlocked (but has lots of lakes, like Switzerland), and stretches east, from the Romanian border to the Dniestr River and the Ukraine (see map). During the 1990’s, as democracy swept through the land, Moldova was also granted ‘Most Favored Nation’ trading status by the U.S. Moldovans embraced the capitalist spirit and had more access to consumer goods than at any other time in their history. When, in 1998, the king of Moldova’s Roma community, Mircea Cerai, passed away, he had already made arrangements in his will to be buried with his spiffy new computer, mobile telephone, and bar stocked with bottles of his favorite vodka. It certainly appears that he regarded his transformed Moldovan lifestyle as a match made in heaven.

As I was pondering this thought, the bus suddenly lurched and came to an abrupt halt. I glanced out the window and noticed uniformed police scurrying out of a dilapidated concrete building. These were some serious-looking dudes, and had old Kalashnikovs strung about their shoulders.  In Russian, they ordered everyone off the bus, and we were escorted into a small, drab customs hall. “Stand HERE in single line,” a young officer commanded. I guessed we had reached the border.

Smiling as I approached a rather glum-looking official, I showed him my small bag of clothes, two bananas and a box of Ukrainian cereal.

“You have nothing else?” Not looking at all satisfied with my goods, he didn’t want to believe me.

“Well, I’m drinking this Coca Cola Light,” I gestured with bottle in hand.

“No cigarettes?”

“Nyet, I don’t smoke.” (Since everyone here smokes at least two packs a day, I was obviously pegged then and there as a liar.)

While the official was deflecting my attention, his chain-smoking assistant quickly snatched up my subversive copy of Vanity Fair with Brad Pitt on the cover. Could it be that there were just too many people smiling within its pages? Was it over the quota limit of allowable pearly whites? Clearly, trying to import too many signs of happiness was strictly forbidden.

As I waited back in the bus, a paragraph in my thin Moldovan travel guide jumped out: “Simply getting around is a pain in the neck. Patience, tolerance and a low expectation of service are key factors in keeping down stress levels.” Mm? I began to formulate another theory that perhaps many of today’s unhappiest countries had lived under the yoke of communism. With a low expectation threshold and no comfortable work environment, they had probably never even experienced happiness in their lifetime.

I was turning this over in my mind when, after another half-hour of driving, a new bunch of surly-looking border guards stopped our bus. This time, a few determined fellows trudged up to our bus and began searching the storage areas underneath it. They unscrewed panels and whole compartments, and I learned that they were checking for possible stowaways. Happiness could sure defy logic, I reasoned. “Why in the world would anyone try and sneak into the unhappiest place on earth?”

“Well, we’re not really yet in Moldova,” Pavel ‘the Brave’ explained. “This is the border of the self-declared Republic of Transdniester. You can see why I’m so unhappy as a bus driver with having to cross these borders all the time; I even have to pay off the guards to let the bus through.”

While waiting for the uniformed gentlemen to screw everything back together, I stood outside and glanced down the potholed road that continued on over a bridge. In the distance, I could make out a sign, written only in Russian:

STOP! Trespassers will be SHOT!

No small wonder that the travel guide also mentions that hardly any tourists make it to Moldova. Was this whole area just dying to be unhappy?

The self-declared Republic of Transdniester incorporates a narrow strip of land situated along the eastern bank of the Dniestr (Nistru in Moldovan) river, where remnants of the Russian population live (Romanian descendants settled the western side). This region, one of the world’s last surviving Communist bastions, has its own currency, police force and capital city (in Tiraspol). For over a decade, Transdniester has also been trying to gain its independence from Moldova. Believe it or not, (and this very well scraps my theory of Soviet socialism having been a breeding bastion of unhappiness), the major wish of Transdniester is to return to what they consider the happier days of the Soviet Union. [See article, page 52.]

After crossing the bridge, we came to a third check-point, this one commanded by the Russian Federation. After a bloody civil war between Moldova and its breakaway Transdniesterians in 1991, Russia dispatched peacekeeping troops to the region. They are still stationed along the unofficial border. Here, they merely waved us through. I supposed that after making such a valiant effort in getting this far, we all deserved to cross ‘unofficially’ into Moldova.

Things were actually looking up as we finally pulled into the capital of Chisinau. After taking nearly eight hours to cover one-hundred miles, every passenger appeared ecstatic to have simply survived the ordeal. The first thing I couldn’t help but notice was the large neon sign flashing Happy Meal on a nearby McDonald’s restaurant. Pulling out my map, I strolled down the main street and headed south, towards the imposing dark stone structure of the Hotel Chisinau. Inside, at the lobby’s service desk, a convivial young woman politely inquired where I was from. When I presented my passport, she responded with a sigh, “Oy, we must sadly charge you the most.” This did not at all sound auspicious. “And why is this so?” I inquired. “Because you’re a foreigner. And it costs to be a foreigner here.”

It turns out the world’s unhappiest country has a three-tiered pricing plan. Moldovans pay the cheapest rate. Members of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, which is the former Soviet Union, minus the Baltic states and Georgia) fall into the second (higher-priced) category. A golden foreigner weighs in at twice that cost.

“The room is 300 leu a night,” the reception girl said [about $20]. “But, if you stay more than one night, we can give you a slight discount of at least one dollar off.”

“Does the room have hot water?” I thought to ask.

“Oy Da,” the girl was happy to report, “between 8:30 and 10:45 every evening.”

She then took my passport, saying I had to register. It seemed that Chisinau made sure that every precious tourist was accounted for.  “This may take awhile. I have never registered a real Category Three foreigner before,” the girl nervously admitted. “I just started working here two months ago.”

Aside from the fact that I had not yet spotted another Category Three visitor, I reckoned that any capital city always had something to offer. Even though Chisinau was heavily bombed during WWII, its historic center still retains a provincial, Old-World charm. The street scene was a mixture of classical European architecture and lingering Soviet concrete drabness, recently superimposed with colorful billboards where half-naked, happy-go-lucky beauties advertise products imported from the decadent West. The younger generation had cell phones, computers and skateboards, and the flair of the Moldovan language certainly exuded a European joie de vivre. The inhabitants of Chisinau certainly didn’t appear any less happy than, say, those in Odessa or Geneva.

As I circled around back towards the bus station, I noticed that the southern end of Mitropolit Varlaam Street was made up entirely of a huge central market, where thousands gathered to stake out a space in which to hawk their wares. It was a lively atmosphere, where wrinkled grandmothers stooped over cardboard boxes of home-grown potatoes, gypsies flogged carpets from Istanbul, pretty young things peddled bras of every proportion, and toilet paper was offered alongside nail polish and sausage selections. (Perhaps the sandpaper-like quality of the toilet paper got a local grumpy now and then?) As each old-world shopper haggled for the choicest 21st-century bargain, the best of both worlds energetically swirled together like the pink cotton candy being mixed by a young girl on her family’s small electric spinner. I stopped at an ice cream stand and bought a Dove bar from a toothless babushka.  She grinned in a manner that, if she had had teeth, would certainly have been a smile.

Returning to the main street, I came to the Cricova wine-outlet store. In Soviet times, Cricova wines were considered some of the best in the entire Soviet Union. Right outside the capital, Moldova even has its very own “underground” wine town, where vast cellars of over a million bottles of wine and champagne are accessed by a labyrinth of underground streets. In the store, I could get a bottle of champagne for less than $2. A bottle of red wine, dating from 1965, could be mine for a mere $25. With over five million bottles of wine produced each year, local shoppers could easily boost their sagging spirits by stocking up on alcoholic supplements.

I decided to spend my Friday evening dining out and trying one of my newly purchased bottles of Cricova Cabernet. I walked by the Star Track Disco, located not far from the Chekhov Drama Theater. The Irish Dublin Bar was right across the street, and I also noticed the Mexican El Paso Cantina (aha, were Mexicans the ones trying to sneak across the Trans-Dniestr border?), Indian Tandoori, Chinese Shaolin, and the Jewish Café, La Buñuel. Many traditional Moldovan restaurants also dotted the scene. I ended up in the Cactus Saloon, where a waitress in Wild West attire, came to take my order dressed in a red fringed shirt, baby blue bandanna, Denim mini-skirt and white cowboy hat.  Plastic green cacti, bedecked with tiny twinkling lights, radiated from every corner.

For less than $5, I had a delicious three-course meal. By 11 pm, I was the last and only wild Westerner to close the place. At one point, almost all the waitresses made a fast getaway by wrangling a waiting taxi that sped off with the bucking broncos into the hazy Moldovan night. They were certainly hot to trot, and I wondered what kind of nightlife there was in a capital situated not far from the non-buzzing Republic of Transdniester (where happiness surveyors had not even bothered to visit).

With a full moon shining over Moldova, I decided to track down an Internet café and, after several blocks, I came upon a sign for The Matrix. Outside, in the dark, I made out a bunch of parked cars that had scores of hip-looking young people leaning against dirty chrome bumpers. The Cactus Cowgirls were even here. As I began to walk down steps toward the basement bar, a young woman, dressed in tight-fitting, pink leather pants and black-spiked heels, scurried up as quickly as she could and warned: “Oy, don’t go there,” as she pointed down towards the entrance. “The police there, away, away!”

It seems some guys in silver uniforms with blinding flashlights had found a way into The Matrix, and the surprise entrance had produced a bit of bedlam. Hundreds of cigarettes glowed in the darkness, like a bevy of fireflies. With each of the crowd’s inhalations, I began to make out the faces in the crowd. Lo and behold, they all appeared to be women. Midnight in Chisinau and I had stumbled upon the capital’s “get hooked up” lesbian café. Who would have thought that the city had such a gay community?

Since Moldova turned out to be much more enigmatic than I had anticipated, I decided to get an official perspective on its happiness potential by dropping in on the American ambassador. Heather Hodges has lived for four years in Moldova, and is greatly impressed with the friendliness and warmth of its people. “But,” she said, “Moldova has only been independent for a little over a decade, and, its transition from a centralized to a market economy has seen the country’s overall economy drop to barely one-third of its 1989 size.”

Four years ago, Communists were elected to power in Moldova on a pro-Moscow platform, but today they are trying to do away with Moldova’s excessive dependence on Russia. In April, 2005, the pro-Western president of Moldova, Vladimir Voronin, won reelection in Parliament, consolidating a shift by the country toward closer ties with the United States and the European Union. Voronin is against the separatist Transdniester region and the breakaway government insulated by about 1,200 Russian troops. Moscow views its forces as peacekeepers, but Voronin has now demanded their withdrawal.

Hodges informed me that Moldova, with a population of 4.4 million (two-thirds of which live in cities), had been the most densely populated region in the former Soviet Union – nearly 30 inhabitants per square kilometer. Moldovans make up 65% of the total population, Russians and Ukrainians 25%. Other ethnic groups such as the Roma and Turkic-speaking Gagauz (the self-governed republic of Gagauzia with 150,000 people is located to the south) make up the remaining 10%. “Today, corruption is the biggest problem that Moldova faces,” Hodges said. “It affects the economic situation, democracy and human rights. The embassy is also working closely with the government to combat the trafficking of women and children, which is a big problem here.” For the average Moldovan, economic conditions are terrible. Nearly 90% of Moldova’s population earns the equivalent of only $2 a day. To get a broader lay of the land, Hodges said, I should visit the surrounding countryside.

So, the next day I decided to pay a visit to Orheiul Vechi, southeast of the city, where a fantastic monastery is carved right into a rocky cliff face. I got a seat in the back of a crowded bus, squeezed in between a few heavyset grandmothers, weary-looking men and some flashy young girls and their boyfriends.  At the outskirts of town, we began to pass fields of bright sunflowers – the country’s second largest industry after grapes. The land was virtually flat, sprinkled with a few rolling hills, and brilliant green fields extended as far as the eye could see. Agriculture represents nearly 50% of Moldova’s GDP. Farmers were still using plows pulled by horses, and harvesting crops by hand. Within an hour, I felt like I had journeyed a century back in time.

I decided to broach the happiness question to people on the bus. A dark-haired man in his late 30’s revealed that he had left Moldova for two years to work in the Ukraine, so he could earn more money to support his family. The babushka, with her glimmering, gold-capped teeth, was very distraught: she only received about $40 a month from her government pension, and could not afford to buy food or medicine. She grew all her vegetables on her own plot. The younger people sitting across from me said they were now in school, but hoped to live in the capital and get a decent job, where they could earn over $100 a month. One of the boyfriends, whose parents were Russian, had never thought of leaving Moldova (or visiting Russia); he liked his life here. As in most of the former socialist countries, I found older people yearning for a return to the past, middle aged people desperately trying to adjust, and the youth having a more optimistic view of the future. In the midst of our conversation, all simultaneously indicated that my stop had come. La revedere, they waved, and I also gestured a heartfelt goodbye.

As the bus pulled away down the dusty road, I turned to find myself alone in a remote spot. The cliffs appeared a distant mile away. To get there, I had to cut through fields and mosey around grazing horses and cows. Climbing up a dirt path, I passed by an attractive young man dressed in dirtied work clothes and carrying a large sickle over his shoulder. As I neared the top, I could make out a bell-tower and yellow, painted church with a garden full of flowers. Along the cliffs, I discovered a small entryway that lead down steps into a small cavern smelling of incense and roses.

As promised, the cave monastery at Orheiul Vechi, dug by Orthodox monks in the 13th century, is situated inside a limestone cliff. Up until the 17th century, the monks slept on stone bunks carved out in a neighboring cave. During the Soviet regime, the monastery was shut down, but a handful of monks have returned and are slowly restoring the monastery complex.

The dark interior was lit by a mass of burning candles, and golden icons graced the walls. A hole at the opposite end of the tiny room led out to a magical view that encompassed the entire countryside. An Orthodox priest, dressed in flowing black robes with a large silver crucifix hanging around his neck, was performing a service; a few local villagers, including several young women with headscarves, were bowing in reflective silence. Moldova is 98% Russian Orthodox, and the church is still governed by the Patriarchate in Moscow.

Another monk, with a long ponytail and graying beard, approached me and asked where I was from. Father Alexei responded that he too was a foreigner and had come here from the Ukraine. He had lived in the monastery for nearly a year, and often slept on the stone slabs where his ancestors had meditated before him. “Since the fall of the Communist state, religion has revived,” he explained. “The older generation, who have completely lost their known world, take comfort in renewed faith; and, younger people now have the opportunity and challenge to construct a future as never before. Human beings are not only interested in bettering themselves economically, but morally and spiritually as well. I think ‘unhappiness’ stems from losing one’s own internal compass; and, in these uncertain times, we would like to help people find their way.”

I was never any less happy by being in Moldova. I found it charming and hospitable, like most European countries. I came to discover that happiness levels do not all depend on a higher standard of living, more reasonable climate or better food. Happiness is a perception, an outlook, a state of mind; the ability to experience joy and providence in one’s daily life. Bordered by Romania and Russia, Moldova has had the life sucked out of it through the ages, by everything from Dracula to despots. With the demons of past centuries deposed, the country can now freely participate in shaping its own destiny.

When I asked Father Alexei to give his opinion on the prospect of Moldova’s future happiness, he paused to reflect and then responded: “Moldova, like this monastery – which has been here for over 800 years – has been like a bear in hibernation. This country has just reawakened to crawl out of the darkness into a new era of restored vitality and optimism. It will take some time to regenerate. But now, at least, we have hope for a better life to come.”

As I exited the small chapel, I came upon a red-haired, freckled-faced boy, with big blue eyes, sitting alone on a stone step. With a large smile on his face, he held out a handful of thick beautifully braided flax, freshly cut from his family’s field. Taking the offering, I carried a reminder that this next generation of Moldovans is weaving a life from both its rich cultural heritage and open exchanges with the rest of the world.

As I sauntered past the monastery gates, a series of bells began to chime. Standing at the top of the bell-tower was the farmer whom I had earlier passed on the road. Now transcended into the black robes of a monk, he played a joyous chorus of harmony that rang out at sunset over the vast expanse of land below. We exchanged smiles.

For the first time in Moldova, I felt unhappiness – to be on my way.  RL