Moldavan National History Museum

I find the artifacts from WW II and the 1990s here moving. There is no narrative content, in Romanian or otherwise.

To the left is a uniform described as being from the Romanian army, to the right a uniform of the Soviet navy. Take a look at the photographs on the wall. I leaned against the opposing wall for a bit, there being no benches or chairs, and just pondered this composition and the historians who arranged it.

This grouping is one of several that speak volumes about the position of the population of Besarabia. I was really pleased to be in this museum.

The section on people sent to the gulag reminded me of museums and my relatives in Lithuania.

When I got to the Transnistria section a docent came by and asked if I’d paid for a ticket for photographing, which I hadn’t, following some misguided feeling that taking pictures with my cellphone isn’t „photographing“ the way a professional with an SLR would be for some commercial use. Museum guards also do not seem like they would be receptive to this reasoning, especially when I don’t speak Romanian. I looked at the effects of this guy a couple years younger than me killed around the Dniester and I thought of the Americans I know who can’t get the frigging date right on their leaflets. Love trumps hate, man. I’ve got to say I have more confidence in the moral arc of my index finger curled around the trigger of a semiautomatic rifle.

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