Bendery Military Museum

Soviet military hardware exhibited inside a row of disused railway carriages

The Bendery Military Museum is one of the genuine oddities of Eastern Europe: a collection of Soviet weapons, uniforms, photographs and propaganda displayed inside a line of old railway carriages on a siding outside the centre of town. It was established in the 1970s by a local enthusiast and survives partly because of inertia and partly because the unrecognised republic of Transnistria is happy to keep alive any institution that celebrates the Soviet past.

The displays cover the Russian Civil War (including artefacts from the armoured trains that operated on this line), the Second World War, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and the 1992 Transnistria War — the latter from a strongly pro-Transnistrian angle. Labels are in Russian only, but the objects speak for themselves. It is best visited as part of a half-day trip from Tiraspol; a local guide will help with the unmarked location and the often closed gate.

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The museum is housed in a string of Soviet railway carriages parked on a disused siding — a fitting setting for a collection whose centrepiece is an armoured train that fought along this very stretch of line during the Russian Civil War. It is the sort of museum that only exists in a place like Transnistria, where the twentieth century has been preserved in formaldehyde rather than packed away.

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