In the late 1970s, thanks to my girlfriend Liliana, I found out that Soviet Moldavia was just a stolen second part of Romanian Moldavia, where she was born.

We began to go there reqularly, to visit one half of her dividend family, her father and ninety-year-old granny.

My feeling was that time stopped some time at the 19th century in Moldavian countryside. A few things reminded you of modern times, or rather Ceausescu´s dictatorship – a giant military tank-making factory near the capital city of Iasi and prefabricated block of flats for its workers. In the small village of Satu nou, where her uncle Nikolaj lived, who was an orthodox pope, houses were built of clay bricks with dirt floors and roads everywhere were made of dirt. There was poverty with everything that belongs to it.

At the break of the 1970s and 1980s you could not buy anything but bread in shops. People had to make, grow, barter or pinch everything they needed. I saw pigs, hens and geese kept on prefabricated
houses´ balconies. People made wine and distilled vodka at home.

But, whether I visited a monastery full of popes or a poor countryside family, I was always welcomed with a great hospitality, opennes and friendliness.