Step into Tiraspol, where Lenin still stands guard over wide boulevards and the scent of freshly baked mamaliga drifts from corner cafรฉs. Taste award-winning Kvint cognac in cellars along the Dniester, then wander past Soviet monuments frozen in a 1990s time capsule. Transnistria is a pocket republic of paradoxโquiet, contested, and unexpectedly welcoming.