Today was Moldova’s National Wine Day. That sounds as though the day started with wine, which would have been perfectly understandable in Moldova, but reality was considerably less glamorous. Our Saturday began at 06:00, dealing with the usual collection of things that have accumulated while we are still living between houses. After that we drove into Chișinău to check the progress of the renovation. Only once all of that was out of the way could we move on to the considerably more attractive part of the programme: going into the centre of the city and surrounding ourselves with wine, food, smoke, people and the general organised chaos of one of Moldova’s biggest celebrations.
The house visit was important, though, because we are finally reaching the stage where I can say that the renovation is almost finished without immediately feeling that I have tempted fate. The inside is essentially done. There are still a few small adjustments here and there, and we are waiting for the wardrobe to be delivered and installed, but the main interior work is finished. After months of builders, decisions, dust, materials, changes, more decisions and the apparently infinite number of small details involved in renovating an old property, we can finally see the end. The remaining work is mostly outside. The timber skeleton for the covered area is already standing, the roofing and wall materials are there waiting to be installed, and the floor still needs something considerably better than simply remaining as bare cement. If everything proceeds approximately according to plan — a phrase I have learned to use cautiously during any construction project — we should finally be moving in by the end of October. I really hope so.
Meanwhile, I am already finding more work for the contractor. There are two rather unattractive wooden sheds outside that I originally regarded as temporary nuisances, but they can actually become extremely useful storage. My idea is to repair and seal them properly so that we can keep plastic storage boxes inside without worrying about dampness, dust or animals. There are plenty of things that we do not need inside the house every day but still need somewhere sensible to keep: fruit and vegetables from Vita’s parents’ property, bottled water, preserves, household supplies and wine. Also wine. And probably some more wine. The more time I spend in Moldova, the more I suspect that designing sufficient wine storage is not an optional part of domestic architecture.
From practical jobs to the centre of Chișinău
Once the practical part of the morning was finished, we could move on to more ordinary Saturday activities. While we were in the centre, I also took the opportunity to look at what is happening at the theatres. This is something I want us to start doing properly once we are settled. There is no particularly good reason to live in the centre of a capital city and ignore its theatres simply because I cannot yet understand the language. My Romanian is still nowhere near sufficient for a play, my Russian is not a language I particularly want to rely upon, and Ukrainian would be completely beyond me, but that is almost part of the attraction. Sitting through performances will at least force my ears to become accustomed to the rhythm, pronunciation and sounds of the languages around me. Understanding every sentence can come later. For the moment, simply participating in local cultural life seems more important than waiting until my Romanian reaches some imaginary level of perfection.
But the real destination was Moldova’s National Wine Day. This was the 25th edition, held in the Great National Assembly Square and extending along Ștefan cel Mare Boulevard. More than a hundred wineries were participating, including both the large names that are impossible to miss in Moldova and very small producers that I had never encountered before. There were long rows of white tents, tasting stands in almost every direction, tables and benches under large umbrellas, music, people carrying their tasting glasses and the unmistakable smell of food being cooked over charcoal. The official slogan this year was “Wine That Unites Us”, which sounded like marketing when I first read it. By the end of the afternoon it seemed rather more accurate than I had expected.
Wine everywhere. Meat everywhere. Paradise.
Good Lord, what a marvellous experience. There was wine everywhere. There was food everywhere. There was meat everywhere. Whole pigs were slowly turning above beds of charcoal, smoke moving across the street while the skin became progressively darker and crispier. Other stalls had racks packed with skewers, sausages and large pieces of meat roasting over open fires. At another stand I found beautifully packaged Moldovan sausages. Everywhere I looked there seemed to be another grill, another bottle or another producer wanting to explain what was in the glass. Wine, meat, more wine, more meat. There are moments when one has to stop pretending to be sophisticated and simply acknowledge the obvious: this was paradise.
The atmosphere was equally important. It was busy without feeling hostile, crowded without becoming unpleasant, and full of people who appeared genuinely happy to be there. Families, older couples, groups of friends, winemakers, tourists and people who had clearly come simply because this is what one does on National Wine Day were all moving between the stalls. We talked to producers, tasted different wines and discovered some very small wineries that I now want to visit separately. One of those conversations has already produced another story of its own: a tiny family winery whose owner works professionally in IT and makes wine almost as a second life. Another bottle we encountered today produced yet another story about Moldovan sparkling wine. This one festival has generated several completely different posts because every few metres there seemed to be another person, bottle or idea worth remembering.
And, because apparently tasting wine and looking at roasting pigs was not enough entertainment, at some point I also ended up wearing an enormous white traditional fur hat. I am not entirely convinced that it improved my appearance, but it certainly improved the photograph. There are times when resistance serves no useful purpose.
493 people became a grapevine
This year the organisers had also decided that merely organising the country’s largest celebration of wine was insufficient. Moldova was going to attempt a Guinness World Record. I initially understood it as people forming an enormous bunch of grapes, but the actual record was more elaborate: the world’s largest human image of a grapevine. The attempt was successful. A total of 493 people were positioned according to a pre-approved design in the Great National Assembly Square, creating a human grapevine approximately 39 metres long, complete with its root, central stem, branches, leaves, grape bunches and tendrils. An official Guinness World Records adjudicator was present and confirmed the record during the event itself.
It is a wonderfully Moldovan record to establish on National Wine Day. Other countries can spend their national celebrations arranging enormous flags or assembling thousands of people into geometric patterns. Moldova used nearly five hundred people to become a vine. Somehow that feels entirely appropriate. It is also a reminder that wine here is considerably more than an alcoholic drink sold in bottles. It is agriculture, history, export industry, tourism, family tradition and national identity all mixed together. You do not need to be particularly interested in wine to understand that once you have spent enough time here. Today simply concentrated all of it into a few streets in central Chișinău.
The best conversation of the day contained no wine
Yet one of my favourite moments had almost nothing to do with wine. Vita and I had stopped to take a photograph together when a little boy, about seven years old, came over to me. He took my hand and started speaking English. There was no hesitation and, once he realised that I understood him, there was certainly no stopping him. He was absolutely delighted. He explained that he had learned English through the Internet and suddenly here was an actual foreigner standing in front of him with whom he could use it. His English was astonishingly good for a child of that age, especially considering how he said he had learned it, and we had a genuine conversation rather than the few memorised phrases I initially expected.
His mother was nearby and appeared to be going through the familiar parental combination of shock, embarrassment and uncertainty that comes when your small child has confidently attached himself to a complete stranger and begun a conversation. Vita and I felt exactly the opposite. We were delighted. Here was a seven-year-old boy who had learned enough of another language through his own curiosity to recognise an opportunity to use it, and he had enough confidence to walk straight up to somebody he did not know and try. Why would I want to discourage that? We talked to him, listened to him and let him enjoy the fact that all those words he had learned from a screen actually worked in the real world. Of all the conversations I had during a festival involving more than a hundred wine producers, this may have been the one I will remember longest.
There was something else in that little encounter that I increasingly recognise in Moldova: people talk to each other. Children talk to strangers. Producers stand behind their stalls and explain what they make. Somebody notices that you are foreign and asks where you come from. Conversations begin without appointments, introductions, networking strategies or any obvious objective. Of course I am still an outsider looking in, and there is much about this country that I do not yet understand, but these small interactions are becoming part of what makes living here feel increasingly natural to me.
Every day a little more at home
By the end of the day we had done an extraordinary amount without originally setting out to do anything extraordinary. We woke at six, dealt with house matters, inspected a renovation that finally looks close to completion, thought about storage sheds and outdoor flooring, looked at theatre programmes, walked through the centre of Chișinău, drank Moldovan wine, talked to winemakers, watched whole pigs turning above charcoal, witnessed a country celebrate a Guinness World Record, took ridiculous photographs and had an unexpectedly good English conversation with a seven-year-old boy.
And somewhere amongst all of that, I realised again just how happy I am to be here.
I have lived in different countries and spent enough of my life moving between cultures that I do not romanticise the idea that any place is perfect. Moldova certainly is not. There are power cuts, bureaucracy, infrastructure problems, unfinished construction, things that work in ways I still do not understand and a language I have only begun to learn. Our own house renovation has supplied more than enough reminders that ordinary life continues regardless of how interesting a country may be. But none of that cancels out days like this. In fact, perhaps the ordinary problems make days like this more real. This is no longer somewhere we are visiting for a holiday. We are building a home here, arguing about floors and wardrobes here, storing vegetables and wine here, planning evenings at the theatre here and gradually learning the people and places around us.
National Wine Day was spectacular, but the wine itself was only part of the reason. It was the atmosphere, the food, the conversations, the small producers, the families, the absurd quantity of meat, the child proudly testing his English and the sense that Moldova was celebrating something that genuinely belongs to it.
Every single day I love being here a little more. What an amazing place. What amazing people. And what an absolutely amazing day.
Public event details and the Guinness record were checked against official or contemporary Moldovan sources. The descriptions of our house renovation, the conversations and encounters during the day, and the personal opinions and conclusions expressed here are my own.
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