Traveling to the “Worst” Country in Europe

I want to be honest here and start by saying that I don't love the title of this story that much. Not because of a BS pretense that every place in the world is equally amazing, but because I do truly believe that one's opinion of what the best and worst place in the world is is so subjective, mostly to one's experience with its people. Recently however, the most common question I get asked in unfortunately 90% of my interactions is what is my favorite place I have ever visited. I don't like this question because I don't have an answer. I've been fortunate enough to travel to obscure places, from the least visited country in the world to the most boring town in America, and have found a disproportionate amount of kindness, openness, and hospitality in many of these lesser visited places. And so choosing one place over another simply doesn't make any sense to me. As I recently moved back to Europe, this led my curiosity to eventually google the strange question of what does the internet believe the worst country in Europe is? And I landed on multiple websites with unfortunately the same answer of Moldova. Now the answer to why is obviously difficult. As the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, a power grab led to lots of corruption in the country and a very challenging time for Moldovans with countrywide economic strain. This led to a lack of government funding for wages, housing, and infrastructure for decades, which resulted in many of the streets and buildings becoming decrepit, and over one third of the entire population leaving in the past 30 years. And so as an attempt to once again hopefully prove the opinion of the internet wrong, we decided to fly to Moldova for three days and see what unusual adventure we could find. To commemorate our travels from last year to Transnistria, the country that doesn't exist on a map that is technically located inside the borders of Moldova, I brought my friend Eric who speaks fluent Russian. I'm very excited that I get to go to supposedly the worst country in Europe. As we celebrate Seeker's Day for this entire week and an incredible seven years of creating stories on this channel, our all-time bestsellers on steepdiscomfort.com are all 30% off right now for only the next seven days with the code SEEKER at checkout, which will be our only sale of the year. We decided to bring back one of our most memorable strangers we met on the street, Stefan from Sweden, who agreed to swap lives with another stranger from the U.S. three years ago to join us. Today when I woke up, I was looking in my wardrobe, but I want t-shirt lift and the t-shirt says Seek Discomfort. And so with a dream team assembled, we were extremely excited to discover what Moldova had to offer. Yeah, we're the only foreigners going here right now. Everyone's staring at us. A nice little tourist map, I think it'll tell us exactly what we need to do here. Oh dude, it says absolutely nothing. Look at this beauty. Oh, how lovely. Here's our hotel. What the hell? Look at this. Well, our Moldovan adventure officially begins. As soon as we step out, there's like all the buildings with graffiti on them and like brand new buildings right here. Every block or so, there's like a pretty big abandoned building. I see a lot of European flags, the flags of the EU. So why are there flags? Are they trying to become a part of the EU? Future. Great, thank you for sharing. They're trying to become a part of the European Union, but they're not, they haven't been accepted yet. We have absolutely no plan right now. We are literally just trying to just walk around like an entourage. We are just looking to meet Moldova, basically. And although we walked out of the door of our hotel with the only plan of finding the rusty Soviet amusement park the city still has, we could never have predicted that the person we were about to meet next was going to completely transform our trip. Do you want to ask this guy? He's telling them his own life story. It's crazy, he was just walking. We stopped him and now he's like ready to be our best friend and tell me his whole life story. He's singing in the background now. You're the great listener I ever met, Eric. You've been listening for two hours. We were just asking if there was an amusement park and we got stopped for an hour and a half. Why is none of this on the internet about Moldova? This is really nice. So beautiful. Said it was like the worst place on earth, man. So beautiful. Look at this little plaza. Oh, this is the pickup. What are you doing? Where did he come from? He's the ghost of Moldova. He appears everywhere. He just came from nowhere. He wants to show us something. Okay. So this wonderful man, Mikhail, is just taking us somewhere. He's not taking no for an answer. And he's like, I'm going to show you some stuff. Where are we going? This place is called Drunk Cherry. Okay. I said, what should we order? They said we only have one drink. Wait, is he not joining us? No, he's going to have coffee. He's going to have coffee? Yeah, because it's 11. I think we've just met the most spontaneous elderly man in Moldova. And while Eric was listening to Mikhail's entire life story, we got recognized by two Moldovan subscribers. I didn't know we had people that knew us in Moldova. Who give us some insight into what the youth think about Moldova's future. With our last president, he was like very like communist and with like Russia. Like he really wanted to blend our countries together back to the USSR, yeah. But like our new president, she's so amazing. With the leadership we have right now, if we continue on this path, we'll definitely... Like we just got elected to be like hopeful in the future to be part of the European Union. Not all brainwashed, we're not all pro-Russians, pro-Putin. There's a lot of us that like actually want change and actually hope for the better, yeah. Wow, I'm getting like goosebumps over my entire body. You can like record us right now. What is happening in Mikhail's story? Oh, he's telling me a lot of stuff about his military career. This is what happens when you go to places that nobody visits. Everyone is just excited to see that people are visiting. Mikhail, I'd be for that guy. Why? I don't know, he said we don't need that guy. We've just arrived at one of the main monasteries of the country. I was asking him like if he knows that guy that he clearly has beef with. And he's like yeah, that guy like he tries to get money from people and he always hits him with a stick. Because he's like get away, like stop messing with my thing. And Mikhail didn't want you guys to get scammed by the dude. Grandpa's eating some food. How's grandpa doing? And he goes the song is good. I just found out his family story. His whole family were in a car got hit by a truck. Wife, his daughter and her husband like they all died in the same in one car accident. The craziest thing. His wife, his grandson, daughter and her husband. But like he's like doesn't really want to like frown upon that because it's been a long time since this happened. So yeah. He's like the guy from up. He's really an adventurer. Completely taken away from him. He told us early he loves to go on road trips to like different places when he gets bored. And totally bailed on his plan today to join us. After spending the morning getting to know Mikhail, we said our goodbyes. We're not gonna say goodbye. We're not gonna say goodbye guys. We'll see each other later. Ventured off again in the search of the old Soviet amusement park we were looking for at the start of our day. Oh this is it. It looks very abandoned. I would be shocked if any of these rides are still working. Holy s**t. Is this one safe? Can we do a quick lie detector test on her? This is the rustiest ride in this entire place. My mom is gonna ******* kill me. Look at this seat. Like I'm really, really scared of heights. You're shaking, you're shaking. Oh my god, we're so high right now. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. How long, how many times is it gonna go? Oh my god, we're not doing this though. That's all Stefan. Safe? I really don't wanna do this. Whoa, that goes fast. Oh my god, dude. Oh my ******* god. He is flying. Oh my god. I wanna go home. Well, the park is closing. We survived another abandoned Soviet amusement park. On our way out of the park, we happen to meet a family of Ukrainian refugees. How has it been? Still under attack. My parents and my wife's parents are at home as well. We have apartments there and this apartment is ******* just now. It can be bombed by one shot. Hopefully, man, hopefully. This is my younger. This is my older one. Oh f**k, that hit. So real, man. Their family like walking here and experience all this pain. So you saw this suffering in the world, right? For no reason at all, like it's just so unfair. So let's keep spreading love, guys, right? Yeah. It's crazy to think about though. I didn't realize the amount of stress that Moldova probably has because if the war expands, it comes here. I came here. Wow, how do you live here? I think we're gonna go in here, right? I'm fine, basically. I have a good job, a good salary. It all depends on the desire. Yes. Thank you. That's it, bye. Goodbye. Good luck. It's strange because there are Ukrainians here, there are Moldovans. And then we just met a guy who grew up in Russia and lives here. This conflict must be super strange because there's so much overlap, right? I really didn't expect Moldova to be such a melting pot, you know? But it is really, it makes it like a very special country, actually, at the moment, right? So it's a real fan club here in Syria. Family watching? So much energy, this is a lot greater. Well, definitely, yeah. Welcome to Moldova, yeah. Yes, I'm everywhere around the world. It's just always the most positive, kind and open-minded people. It's crazy, it's crazy. We thought this was just a brief encounter with a subscriber, until moments later, this happened. Let's f***ing go, let's f***ing go! What are we doing? We're gonna have fun. Fun? Yeah. Let's go, baby. I'm gonna learn some culture. Did you just abandon your friend? No, I just sent him to home. There are some nights when we start filming and we don't really know what we're filming. This is one of them. We've arrived. This is very different than what it was earlier today. Moldova in three. One, two, three. Moldova! Where did he come from? He was just standing behind me in the middle of the street. He likes to touch the mic. Tell him that we're happy he's here. He said, I'm really happy I found you guys. Can you be our adopted grandpa? He said you can call him grandpa. Grandpa! The thing is, we literally don't have his contact. We just keep running into him. He doesn't have a phone. Are we going to the beach with him tomorrow? I think so. Talking to Mikhail, I can't fully understand what's going on, but he kind of seems a little bit like a nomad. Like, he doesn't really have a place to stay. Tonight he's going to the doctor because he's got an issue with his foot, so he was just gonna sleep at the hospital. But we invited him to stay at our hotel tonight and he was like, yeah, maybe, let's see how the night goes. Also, something that I forgot to mention so far was that at midnight, it would actually be my birthday. And o'clock, it just struck 12. Happy birthday to you! We just met some really nice girls, and Mikhail is giving Stefan dating advice. He's like, yo, if you're going to talk to girls, you've got to entertain them. You've got to tell them stories. We're going to Joe's house tonight. And where is it? Joe. Joe? Who, Joe Mama? When you go out in other countries, sometimes they're like, ah, tourists are here. Here, it's like, tourists are here! It's like an attraction. It's like, let's find out where they're from. Like, bro, come with us! Let's go party, bro! Ha, you thought that was an ad, didn't ya? It's not. It's a part of the video. You can't skip this part. Let's try to skip it. Well, they could skip it. Please don't do that. Move forward. Please, please let's, please let's. Today marks seven years of Yes Theory. And today's Seekers Day, which is something we've been celebrating in the past three years, where we put all of the best sellers from seekdiscomfort.com 30% off. It's the only time of the year we put any kind of discount on Seek Discomfort, and it is a way to kind of say thank you. 30% is a lot. That's a big discount. That's like, if something was $100, that means I could get it for $30 instead. No, no, no, no. There are 300,000 people who have bought from Seek Discomfort in 180 countries. We keep running into people all over the world who wear it. It's just like an amazing tool for connection. Seek Discomfort allows us to have the freedom to go after the trips that we want to go after. So thank you for supporting us. It would mean the world to us if you go to seekdiscomfort.com right now, 30% off. So we highly recommend you go check it out right now. And I guess back to grandpa. We have two hotel rooms. He's going to take one of them, and the three of us will share one. How do you feel about this, Thomas? Continuing to remind me, Mikhail. Thank you. The hotel is going to be so confused. These three young tourists came. They went out until two in the morning, and they brought back a 74-year-old local grandpa. There's a bunch of bread in his bag. He's such a funny man. He just, like, takes life as it comes. Like, there's no level of, like, oh, I'm in this hotel now. Like, guys, this is a crazy thing. He's just like, okay, I sit here, and this is my life. This is my room. Like, he's just here now. Literally, he's a Kun Matata grandpa. He's just taking it as it comes. He's just butt-naked showering. Oh, he's naked? Sit here, sit here. Sit here. What is he saying? He's like, don't touch it, it's dry. Okay, here. Is this how you imagine your birthday? Yes, yes, yes. What the f*** is going on right now? I get it. No, it's for him, for him, for him. What a mess. He's like, we were supposed to be there hours ago. Mikhail hasn't had a phone this whole time. So, we haven't been able to reach him. He doesn't know what time it is. So, we're just gonna get him a phone. It's like he said, I used to, I used to want to call people. I just want to know the time. Yeah, that's all he wants. But he was also like, I'm gonna buy it. We were like, we'll get it for you. He's like, no, I'm gonna buy it. We're like, no, dude, let us get you this Nokia. Mikhail, you got a phone. It really does feel like he's the real life Up character, by the way. He's very sweet and kind of grumpy. Eric is like the little character and the little scout who like keeps trying to take care of grandpa. And grandpa's like, ah, whatever. He's super smart. I just can't piece his life together. See, I don't know what to do with that information. Sometimes I can't. So far, Mikhail's life was really one big mystery to us. So we decided to sit him down and ask him a few questions. I think trying to understand how does he survive? He says, I'm free. Can you ask him if he's comfortable telling us a bit about what happened to his family? Do they, does he ever miss them? Tell him like we know that pension here is not very high and whatnot. And we just wanted to help him and give him this letter. And he doesn't have to open it here. He has no idea, but we just gave him $500, which is 10,000 of the local currency. So you just gave him eight months of his pension. He won't know that until he opens. He probably has no idea. He doesn't probably doesn't even know that there's money in there. No, I don't. I don't think he knows. There's like a letter. Yeah. We're really grateful that you've been such a big part of our experience here. You're with us, grandpa. What is he saying? Literally, we're just following this man. We just asked him for directions to a park. And now our entire life depends on him. Yeah. Is this the right bus? We're going an hour away from here. What is he trying to do? Oh, he was trying to pay for our ticket. Hi, man. Anyone who's not a part of the boys can f**k off. This is the best birthday ever. Freaking crazy grandpa taking us around. It's the least visited country in Europe. With our beach adventure over, it was time to get Mikhail a fancy new outfit for a party at a castle that a stranger had invited us to tonight. We're in like a really nice Italian tailor right now. We're a little bit out of place. Let's get him a whole new outfit. However, with only three tickets to the event, we had to sneak in grandpa. Well, we've arrived at a traditional festival at a castle. That's really good. So we are here completely on our own without the people who invited us. Today is my birthday. And somehow I ended up at a castle in the least visited country in Europe, going along with the flow. And after four hours of enjoying the event at the castle, we once again lost grandpa. Where's Mikhail? Are we looking for Mikhail again? Mikhail! Where is he? Grandpa! Have you seen this old grandpa? Mikhail is lost. Grandpa's missing and he's had wine. That's not good. He might have gone down. Maybe he went down that way. Okay, let's cut through that. Thank you. I see him! He was on the dance floor. It's his birthday! Pops! Wow, you pet his head. It is fully comfortable that you pet him. I'm a complete stranger. All right, grandpa, we love you. Love you, man. He said, I love you. Yeah, he did. He said, I love you. Good night. It's officially day three with our grandpa Mikhail. And what I'm finding so fascinating about him is that he's always like telling us let's go. You would think that someone who's 74 and doesn't really have... He said this looks like a piano. He likes to observe. He's very observant. He says, let's go. He's telling us, let's march outside. He's going to throw it out. He dropped his ice cream. He can have mine. Did you have fun? Of course. He just fell asleep on the bench. He was so excited. He was like, you've got to read this thing. This is his organization that created this whole monument for this famous captain in the war. We actually couldn't have had a better guide to the city. I know. The dude knows everything. Grandpa was saying, missions are done. Everything on his checklist is over. Now if we want to just hit the bell here at the cemetery, then we can go home. We can do whatever we want. His job is done. Once this bell is rang, Mikhail's mission will be accomplished. He just fizzles away. He goes, oh, there's a store here. We've got to go. Because there's ice cream there. Let's go, quick. He's unstoppable. He's like, what did I say? And Thomas. Grandpa's taking us to the airport. He wants to send us off. Heading to the airport with Bonello. And I said, how are you going to get back to the city? And he said, what do you think? I'm going to end up in Paris or something? I'll figure it out. We also gave him the number to the grandma we met in Transnistria. So he's excited to maybe meet her as well when he goes to Transnistria. He said, I'm grandpa and she's grandma. Grandpa's dropping us off. He's putting his shoes on. This is passport control. Grandpa. Bye. That's the saddest thing I've ever experienced. I really feel that. This is exactly why I don't like the question of what I think the best and worst place is. Because at the end of the day, it is impossible to predict an experience like this one. For a place that seemed pointless to visit according to the internet, Moldova really had so many great things to offer and is seemingly on track to a brighter future. But we ended up discovering this place through the eyes of Mikhail and had a much more meaningful trip than we could possibly have ever orchestrated ourselves. If you do decide to go visit Moldova, there's plenty to do and see. But my personal recommendation would be to try and go find Mikhail roaming around the Drunk Cherry bar, take him out for a lunch, and make his day, and your own, a little bit brighter. As an unusual addition to the strangers we've gone on adventures with, we couldn't have imagined a better way to celebrate 7 years on this channel. Final reminder that Seeker's Day is live right now for this week only on SeekDiscomfort.com using the code SEEKER for our only sale of the year with 30% off our all-time bestsellers. It would mean the world to us if you went to SeekDiscomfort.com and found some clothing you loved and repped wherever you go. We are about to take our yearly break in August, so we will probably see you in September.