Moldova is notable for being a European country that almost no one knows anything about. Obviously I’m joking, but I’m also kind of not joking. The claim that no one knows about Moldova is backed up by cold hard data (and by challenging anyone to point to it on an unmarked map). Moldova is Europe’s third-least visited nation. Monaco even receives almost three times more visitors annually than Moldova, and it’s only two square kilometres in size.

If Moldova isn’t well known, then the breakaway region of Transnistria is off the unknown-scale. I’d never heard of Transnistria before today, but it’s a small breakaway state that is internationally recognised as part of Moldova. It was formed in 1992 after a brief civil war and still uses Soviet symbols like the hammer and sickle to this day. 

Wine is Moldova’s largest export and apparently Moldova is home to the world’s largest wine cellar. Mileștii Mici’s wine cellar is a converted limestone mine and it stretches for a staggering 240 km and holds around two million bottles of wine. You won’t be surprised to learn then that Moldovan’s consume more alcohol per capita than any other nation in the world except for Belarus.

Weird, I can still remember writing the Belarus post, and I was suitably hungover.