Chapter 12 - Transnistria
Hi Everyone,
This is another excerpt from "A Winter's Day".
It's about a little known place called Transnistria.
I hope you enjoy it.
Regards
Robin
Chapter 12- Transnistria
The distance from Odessa to Tiraspol is about 110km.
Tiraspol is the capital of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic better known as Transnistria.
It’s not far but the drive will take anything from two to four hours depending on how busy the border post is and who you know or what you are willing to pay for passage into this “backward” nation.
Avi had lost count of the times he’d been on this road; he literally knew it like the back of his hand. The drive is calming and almost therapeutic in nature. He could just switch off for a while till he hit the border and had to put on his game face.
A self proclaimed independent state since 1992, Transnistria is not recognized by the UN or any other established country for that matter. It has a parliament and a president in Igor Smirnov. After the Soviet collapse in 1990 separatists saw their chance and annexed part of Moldova with the silent help of the Russian 14th Army stationed there.
The Russian Army also left 40 000 tons of assorted ammunition and weapons: light infantry weapons, tanks, missiles, Alazan radio active rockets, suitcase bombs and dirty bombs. There are many other weapons reportedly being sold and in storage in Transnistria.
Officially it’s very hard to report on a country that doesn’t exist when you are dealing with an entity that is not answerable to a higher power.
Transnistria has also got factories fitted to manufacture arms, which they used to stock their own army admittedly. They largely deny selling ammunitions to other countries now.
It’s been said that AK-47’s also came out of those factories in their millions.
This “country” has enough fire power to start a serious nuclear holocaust; while it’s “guardians” in Russia idly stand by strong and silent.
For Avi, Tiraspol was like a working holiday, guns and whores.
He’d been around long enough to feel safe enough in this clandestine state.
He had his old KGB connections that were making a good living selling the Russian weapons left behind which they acquired at no cost. The Transnistrian KGB was now linked to the Russian FSB which replaced the old KGB when the former Soviet Union fell.
The network held up for Avi who used his old friends new found autonomy to expand his business into Africa and Asia.
His old friends ask even less questions these days more worried about cash values they can draw than where and who would use these weapons they were peddling.
Geo-politics mattered less than creating an income as agents of death for their beloved non-country.
Even being just over a hundred kilometers away in Odessa was a benefit for Avi. He’d be called on occasionally to act as agent and transfer cash and arms on the Transnistrian’s behalf with established clients that wished not to travel further than Odessa for technical reasons.
There are very few reasons to enter Transnistria, especially if the border patrol only issue three hour visas, the time it takes to drive between the furthest points of the borders. Once your passport had its banana republic stamp in it you could be accused of a few things especially if were from West/ Central Africa or certain parts of the Middle East.
Avi used a fake passport but real Euros to gain immediate access to Transnistria.
This was another reason people of the old guard liked Avi, he didn’t bring gun running tourists that like to ask stupid questions or poke their noses in places they didn’t belong.
Nothing he buys comes back to them either.
Mind you Avi is smart enough not to offer his clients suitcase bombs, dirty bombs or nuclear warheads.
It’s one thing to own a nuclear weapon; it’s another thing to sell it to someone that really wants to use it. And that shit is traceable, never mind the fact that they haven’t been properly looked after for over twenty years.
Avi also realized that with his clientele the chances were that a nuclear weapon would be most likely used against his motherland, Israel. Nuclear weapons are not a market to dabble in when your friends are your state’s enemies and your friend’s friends are also your enemies. His friend’s enemies were also his friends on occasion…?
It’s a complicated web Avi has chosen to weave.
Twenty plus years of supplying factions and terrorists in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Liberia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Somalia, Nigeria, Congo, DRC, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Gaza, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Northern Ireland to name some of the countries he’s had business dealings with directly or indirectly.
To read more, please follow the links on Goodreads.com
Robin G. Alexander
http://www.amazon.com/Winters-Day-Bin...
You can also follow me
on Twitter
@RobinGAlexander
or on
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-...
Best Regards
Robin
This is another excerpt from "A Winter's Day".
It's about a little known place called Transnistria.
I hope you enjoy it.
Regards
Robin
Chapter 12- Transnistria
The distance from Odessa to Tiraspol is about 110km.
Tiraspol is the capital of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic better known as Transnistria.
It’s not far but the drive will take anything from two to four hours depending on how busy the border post is and who you know or what you are willing to pay for passage into this “backward” nation.
Avi had lost count of the times he’d been on this road; he literally knew it like the back of his hand. The drive is calming and almost therapeutic in nature. He could just switch off for a while till he hit the border and had to put on his game face.
A self proclaimed independent state since 1992, Transnistria is not recognized by the UN or any other established country for that matter. It has a parliament and a president in Igor Smirnov. After the Soviet collapse in 1990 separatists saw their chance and annexed part of Moldova with the silent help of the Russian 14th Army stationed there.
The Russian Army also left 40 000 tons of assorted ammunition and weapons: light infantry weapons, tanks, missiles, Alazan radio active rockets, suitcase bombs and dirty bombs. There are many other weapons reportedly being sold and in storage in Transnistria.
Officially it’s very hard to report on a country that doesn’t exist when you are dealing with an entity that is not answerable to a higher power.
Transnistria has also got factories fitted to manufacture arms, which they used to stock their own army admittedly. They largely deny selling ammunitions to other countries now.
It’s been said that AK-47’s also came out of those factories in their millions.
This “country” has enough fire power to start a serious nuclear holocaust; while it’s “guardians” in Russia idly stand by strong and silent.
For Avi, Tiraspol was like a working holiday, guns and whores.
He’d been around long enough to feel safe enough in this clandestine state.
He had his old KGB connections that were making a good living selling the Russian weapons left behind which they acquired at no cost. The Transnistrian KGB was now linked to the Russian FSB which replaced the old KGB when the former Soviet Union fell.
The network held up for Avi who used his old friends new found autonomy to expand his business into Africa and Asia.
His old friends ask even less questions these days more worried about cash values they can draw than where and who would use these weapons they were peddling.
Geo-politics mattered less than creating an income as agents of death for their beloved non-country.
Even being just over a hundred kilometers away in Odessa was a benefit for Avi. He’d be called on occasionally to act as agent and transfer cash and arms on the Transnistrian’s behalf with established clients that wished not to travel further than Odessa for technical reasons.
There are very few reasons to enter Transnistria, especially if the border patrol only issue three hour visas, the time it takes to drive between the furthest points of the borders. Once your passport had its banana republic stamp in it you could be accused of a few things especially if were from West/ Central Africa or certain parts of the Middle East.
Avi used a fake passport but real Euros to gain immediate access to Transnistria.
This was another reason people of the old guard liked Avi, he didn’t bring gun running tourists that like to ask stupid questions or poke their noses in places they didn’t belong.
Nothing he buys comes back to them either.
Mind you Avi is smart enough not to offer his clients suitcase bombs, dirty bombs or nuclear warheads.
It’s one thing to own a nuclear weapon; it’s another thing to sell it to someone that really wants to use it. And that shit is traceable, never mind the fact that they haven’t been properly looked after for over twenty years.
Avi also realized that with his clientele the chances were that a nuclear weapon would be most likely used against his motherland, Israel. Nuclear weapons are not a market to dabble in when your friends are your state’s enemies and your friend’s friends are also your enemies. His friend’s enemies were also his friends on occasion…?
It’s a complicated web Avi has chosen to weave.
Twenty plus years of supplying factions and terrorists in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Liberia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Somalia, Nigeria, Congo, DRC, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Gaza, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Northern Ireland to name some of the countries he’s had business dealings with directly or indirectly.
To read more, please follow the links on Goodreads.com
Robin G. Alexander
http://www.amazon.com/Winters-Day-Bin...
You can also follow me
on Twitter
@RobinGAlexander
or on
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robin-...
Best Regards
Robin
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