Ion Ciorici

The process of applying for Swedish citizenship is quite straightforward, as long you are married or sambo/mambo/särbo/tango with a member of the Royal Family, like me or at I least I saw the queen once, which makes me quite relative to her, I hope 🙂 .

The process according to my excellence is quite straightforward, especially after experiencing the application process for the Czech, Romanian, Transylvanian, Transnistrian, Tongan, Togolese, Tunisian, Tanzanian citizenship or in any other countries or wannabe countries starting with a “T”.

In Sweden you usually apply for the citizenship after 5 years of slavery for any of the soon to be bankrupt companies or after 2 years of 50:50 way of living with a Swedish partner. I do not know what is “50:50 way of living”, I just heard on the news 😀 .

Assessment of the application from the submission date till final decision usually takes 7-9 months.
In my case it took exactly 7 months, because I was nice to Migrationsverket.

In a straight line the process looks like this:
1. You submit the application and a copy of your passport (preferably not a fake one)
2. You wait 7 months
3. After 7 months they will contact you to send the original of your passport (preferably not the fake one)
4. You will get the passport back in max. 1 week
5. In approx. 1-2 weeks you will get the official decision, which could positive, negative or a positive decision with minor corrections like changing your hair colour to blonde, starting wearing red paints, lather jackets etc.

The citizenship confirmation looks like this

After receiving the citizenship, you can easily apply for the Swedish passport, which gives you the privilege to travel to IKEA without a visa.

Read more »

Stefanet Brothers Orchestra & Geta Burlacu performed in Stockholm, 15th of May 2014 at Musikaliska.

The concert was part of EXPERIENCE MOLDOVA a project offering a taste of Moldovan musical culture & wine!

Full photo gallery is available here.

Teaser for Lexx Bodylev‘s movie about the beauty of Moldova during the four seasons. The movie will be ready by the end of autumn 2014.

Enjoy!

Songkran is celebrated in Thailand as the traditional New Year’s Day.
Few photos from the Songkran festival celebrated at Wat Santiniwas temple in Haninge, Stockholm.

More photos here.

Art on Ice is the unique, colorful interplay between Olympic and world champions on the ice and international music stars performing live on stage.

Luckily, Stockholm was also included in the 2014 European Tour. The event was really packed with stars, such as the band Hurts, the pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, the singer Loreen, who won the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest performed. The stars on the ice are Stéphane Lambiel, Sarah Meier, Kurt Browning, Joannie Rochette, Aljona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy (bronze medal pairs Sotchi 2014), Gev Manoukian, Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov (gold medal pairs and team Sotchi 2014), Nathalie Péchalat & Fabian Bourzat (4th ice dancing Sotchi 2014), Adelina Sotnikova (Olympic champion Sotch 2014), Viktoria Helgesson and Alexander Majorov.

Enjoy the gallery!

Impressive images from the Northern part of Moldova. Lexx Bodylev shot several areas in the North, which would be worthy of being visited firstly by locals and tourists.
The hills, the rivers, the villages are just a few attractions.

Enjoy!

STAGE 3: Drive through Romania to Moldova
Stage 3 also can be entitled “Make sure you don’t hit a horse carriage”

In this post within shortly I will answer below questions 😉
– Which road I recommend to follow when crossing Romania and why ?
– How long time it took me to pass both customs between Romania and Republic of Moldova ? 11min. or 11h. ?
– Shall you a take a right or left when reaching this intersection 😉 ?

– If Romanians are using Wind Turbines for cooling down due to the warmest winter ever or if they use them as a bird scarer to dissuade birds from eating planted arable crops.

Lastly I will post some amateur photos taken quickly when driving through Romania, like this one:

This stage is about driving from Hungary via Northern Romania to Moldova:
1. cross the border at Petea village between Hungary and Romania
2. drive through Satu Mare, Baia Mare, Dej, Bistriţa, Vatra Dornei, Gura Humorului
3. cross the border at Sculeni or Leuşeni, between Romania and Moldova.

One of the main reasons for choosing a route via Northern part of Romania, is due to less traffic and better road conditions. This was a strong recommendation from my brothers who have previously tried several routes to cross Romania.

I was presuming that this stage would be the most difficult, due to no highways in the Northern part of Romania and due to quite intensive traffic (lorries, horse carriages etc.)
Frankly speaking this stage was as easy and enjoyable as the previous ones.

As you would imagine I waked up very early – which was 9:00 😀 and reached my parents home in Moldova at about 21:00 (for US readers that’s 9:00 PM) .

I can confirm that it is realistic to cover 800 KM with enough breaks for photography, meals and customs and no need to drive like a maniac – remember I was driving the laziest and slowest car in the World 🙂 .

Few key points on this stages:
– From the hotel in Tiszavasvári I took immediately the highway M3 towards Satu Mare – this highway is completely new, so you would really enjoy a nice ride for about 150km

M3 highway in Hungary

– From M3 highway there will be clear signs which will lead to Satu Mare – unfortunately from exiting the highway till the border with Romania there is a portion of really crappy road of about 80KM

– You will cross the border between Hungary and Romania at Petea village – there are no actual customs checks, however you can stop if you want to declare any drugs or Mexicans in your trunk.

– As soon you enter Romania, driving will not be that easy, since you will have to know exactly what is your next nearest destination – there will be no signs such as: 700 KM left till Iaşi or 800 KM till Chişinău, unfortunately you really need to remember the above intermediate listed cities.

– I was driving through Baia Mare, Dej and Bistriţa at rush hour and I could state that it went quite smoothly – however remember that this was in January, when most probably there is less traffic.

– Driving through this part of Romania is really rewarding, since most of the roads are new, not so much traffic as written above and the villages are really special.

Road conditions in most of the villages in the Northern part of Romania

– From Bistriţa to Vatra Dornei there is a really nice portion of about 30KM mountain road – I would strongly recommend to drive through these small mountain villages during the day light, since the scenery is truly spectacular

– From Vatra Dornei, you just need to follow the road to Gura Humorului, Fălticeni, Paşcani and lastly Iaşi
– make sure when exiting Gura Humorului not to go to Suceava, otherwise this means approx. 100 extra KM.

– I decided to pass the border between Romania and Moldova at Sculeni – mainly due to the fact that I presumed that this crossing point will be less demanded during the 11-13th of January, when many Moldovans are visiting Moldova in order to celebrate the Old New Year.

– The entire crossing of both customs took me about 11 min. – yes that’s correct-I timed it 😀 – it was approx. ELEVEN MINUTES 🙂 . This could have taken me even less time, if I wouldn’t showed off all my passports and Mexicans in the trunk 😉 . The customs officers at both customs were really polite and professional. I guess they were quite amazed to see one of the first Moldovans with a Swedish pass and not changing the surname into Cioricisson.

This is it for this time and I hope these travelling recommendations were useful for you. Looking forward to see an increase in the number of road trips from Sweden to Moldova and vice versa 😀 .

If you want to read again the first parts, please access the below links:
STAGE 1: Night Ferry from Nynäshamn (Sweden) to Gdańsk (Poland)

STAGE 2: Drive through Poland and Slovakia to Hungary