This weekend we took another trip to Transnistria. For those of you who are new to the blog (or have poor memories), Transnistira is Moldova's "break-away" republic that caused a small civil war in the early 1990's. They declare themselves an autonomous nation, have their own passports and borders, the problem is that no nation on earth acknowledges their existence....except maybe Russia. Driving into Transnistria is like entering a time capsule dated from the Cold-War. Because we have Diplomatic license plates on our cars that indicate we are Americans, we are not exactly the most welcome guests in Transnistria and it is quite hard for us to get in. The border crossing (remember, they are not "officially" their own country) is crazy. Tanks under camouflage netting, armed guards ready for action; really, really interesting. Of course, you are not supposed to take pictures of any of this...
THE BEST part of the visit...which I am hesitant to divulge.....is that there is a textile factory in Transnistia which is a supplier for none other than Williams-Sonoma. Yes, we went to a factory store where we can get the same tablecloths they sell in the stores for a fraction of the price. I only bought a few because they did not have very large sizes, which I wanted, but they apparently are going to send some swatches to the embassy and cut them to order. Here are a few pictures of the patterns we saw:
Suffice it to say, I will be gifting tablecloths from now until forever. My final photo is an actual billboard that is all sorts of wrong!
