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Georgia’s headline-grabbing South Ossetia isn’t the only Russia-supported breakaway republic giving Europe and the rest of the world a hard time these days. Located in Moldova on the Ukraine border, the separatist region of Transdniestria boasts its own government, its own currency and about 540,000 residents - but it really doesn’t want independence as much as it wants membership in the long-dead Soviet Union.

Guarded by hammer and sickle flags, a modern-day KGB, prominent statues of beloved Vladimir Lenin and, oh yeah, Russian troops with automatic weapons at the “border” between it and Moldova, Transdniestria is like a return to the days before VCRs and the common knowledge that corruptly-run communist dictatorships tend to end badly.

When I was in the impoverished capital of Tiraspol this summer, my nervous guide told me not to take pictures of the police, the military, the big cuddly statue of Lenin in front of the parliament building (from across the street was OK) or the pedestrian bridge that links banks of the Dniester River. To make up for it she directed me to a museum to buy postcards but they were out, so we tried inside an “art exhibit” (featuring bizarre works by local high school students) and, after the cashier banged around in the dusty back room, entered my purchases by hand into an ancient logbook and delivered a speech in Russian about other pamphlets that had obviously been on display since the 1950s, she handed over my very own pack of 24 postcards.

Panning through the collection outside, I was horrified to examine shot after blurry, drab shot - it would be an especially cruel-hearted joke anywhere else in the world. How charming that this communist breakaway region is unaware of the irony of offering uninspiring, bland postcards of a communist breakaway region. At least they managed to convey the place’s bleakness.

Here is a selection of the better ones I purchased, mixed in with some new ones I went ahead and designed for those lovely Transdniestrians.