What country?

Ever since I've heard about them, I have become fascinated with the notion of 'Unrecognized countries'. These are 14 areas of the world that believe themselves to be independent nations but for various, specific reasons, can't convince most of the rest of the world to go along with it.

I first heard of Somaliland. In the upper, right corner of Somalia, they have 2.5 million people, their own currency and own distinct culture. Sick of the battling in Somalia, they said screw it, quite literally drew a line in the sand and said that's enough.

Nagorno-Karabakh is officially part of Azerbaijan. The 138,000 people living there believe that they are distinct in their ways... and they're probably right! The Soviet Union was a mish mash over everything east of Germany, and not particularly known for its cultural sensitivity! They are closely tied to Armenia, and one could be forgiven for thinking that this was a little bit of Armenia stirring it up.

Transnistria sits inside another little-known (yet recognized) country called Moldova, famous mostly for a book about its dentistry, and personally, because a friend's brother got married there! There is, for some reason, a weird connection between Moldova and Ireland. Transnistria holds over half a million people and is squeezed in between Moldova and Romania on the right bank of the Dniester river. They had a war with Moldova in 92 and declared their independence, though not many other people were listening.

I'm interested in do a tour of these nations. There are about a dozen of them. Some, like Israel, are of course recognized by most, just not the people they are pissing off!

Anyway, I'll set up a tour of the nations and you can all sign up!