Chișinău

A city of white stone

Stand in the central square of Chișinău on a sunny morning and look at the façades. They are pale, almost white. That is limestone from the quarries of Cricova, fifteen kilometres away. This is why Moldovans call their capital the white stone city. Today about five hundred and sixty-seven thousand people live in the city itself, and more than seven hundred and twenty thousand in the municipality as a whole. Almost one in three of the country's people lives here.

From monastery village to capital

The first mention of Chișinău dates from fourteen thirty-six. At the time, it was a small village around a monastery, in the Principality of Moldavia. Everything changed in eighteen twelve. The eastern part of Moldavia passed to the Russian Empire and was given the name Bessarabia. Chișinău became the main town of the new province. A city plan from eighteen thirty-four laid out the long, straight avenues that still shape the centre today. In that period, the architect Alexander Bernardazzi designed, among other buildings, the city hall.

A poet in exile

In eighteen twenty, a young Russian poet arrived here against his will. Alexander Pushkin had been banished to the south by the tsar. He lived in Chișinău for several years and wrote poems about the region. The small house where he stayed is now a museum. And so this provincial town found a place in Russian literature.

Destruction and rebuilding

The twentieth century hit hard. In November nineteen forty, a powerful earthquake struck the city. Then came the bombing of nineteen forty-one and the fighting of nineteen forty-four. Much of the centre lay in ruins. Between nineteen forty-seven and nineteen forty-nine, the architect Alexey Shchusev drew up a plan for its reconstruction. That is how Chișinău got its broad boulevards, its Soviet buildings and its concrete modernism, alongside the churches and houses that had survived the war.

Squares, parks and markets

The heart of the city is the great square with the triumphal arch and the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Lord. Next to it lies Ștefan cel Mare Park, with the statue of the medieval prince. Walk on and you reach Valea Morilor, a green hollow around a lake. And at Piața Centrală, the big market, the city buys its sheep's cheese, walnuts and fruit. In the museums of history, art and ethnography, you can read the story of the whole country.

The gateway to Moldova

Since twenty twenty-five, the airport has borne the name of the composer Eugen Doga. For most travellers, Moldova begins here. From Chișinău, buses run to the north, to the south and to the Dniester, and the cellars of Cricova are a fifteen-minute drive away. A city that twice almost disappeared has become the starting point for everything the country has to offer. And it is still built from the white stone of its own ground.