There are hundreds of references to Molvania on the Web, and one airline shows passengers a video about the place, but it is not on the maps. Michelin does not mention Molvania. However, this book locates it ‘north of Bulgaria and downwind of Chernobyl’. A new Mittel-Europa republic emergent, Slovakia-like, from the fall of the Curtain and the Wall?
The first clue to the mystery is the publisher’s logo, Jetlag Travel. The second is the London launch date, which was 1 April.
Like Ruritania and Shangri-la, Molvania is on the atlas of imagined countries, not, however, for matinee romance or high adventure, but as the subject of a hilarious spoof of a backpacker Baedecker. The tone is Lonely Planet meets Monty Python.
The authors, like the creators of the Planet series, work in Melbourne. They claim no knowledge of their subject area but, with wild irreverence and endless ingenuity learned from scripting television and film gags, they have devised an original black comedy in the form of a guide to an almost credible composite of a decrepit post-Soviet backwater, wartcsz and all.
Intending visitors are advised that Molvanians are a rough lot, much given to strong drink and insults. They also love a laugh, ‘preferably at someone else’s expense’. This could also be said of the authors, whose political incorrectness spares no sensitivity.
After centuries under despots of various colours, Molvania is now free to enjoy such glasnost rights as television pornography, heroin and the mafiosi of the ruling Peace Party while maintaining such traditions as donkey polo, swigging garlic brandy, mule-beating, rat-baiting and spitting at strangers.
‘Molvanians love eating out,’ we are told, ‘especially in France.’ At home their favourites include horseflab, a pickled meat, entrail soup and parsnip pudding.
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