a As the population of the Municipality of Chișinău (which comprises the city of Chișinău and 34 other suburban localities)[6]
Chișinău (/ˌkɪʃɪˈnaʊ/ⓘKISH-in-OW,US also/ˌkiːʃiːˈnaʊ/KEE-shee-NOW,Romanian:[kiʃiˈnəw]ⓘ; formerly known asKishinev)[a] is thecapital andlargest city ofMoldova.[7][8] The city is Moldova's main industrial and commercial centre. It is situated in the middle of the country, on the riverBîc, a tributary of theDniester. According to the results of the2014 Moldovan census, the population of the city proper stood at 532,513 inhabitants, while the population of the Municipality of Chișinău (which includes the city itself and other nearby communities) numbered 700,000 people. Chișinău is the most economically prosperous locality in Moldova and the country's largest transport hub. Nearly a third of Moldova's population resides in the metropolitan area.
Moldova has ahistory of winemaking dating back to at least 3,000 BC. As the capital city, Chișinău hosts the yearly national wine festival every October.[9][10] Though the city's buildings were significantly damaged during theSecond World War and earthquakes, a rich architectural heritage remains. In addition, it has numerous buildings designed in the postwarSocialist realism andBrutalist architecture styles.
There are bustling markets in the north of the city, including the house whereAlexander Pushkin once resided while in exile fromAlexander I of Russia. It has now been adapted as a museum. TheNativity Cathedral, located at the centre of the city and constructed in the 1830s, has been described as a "masterpiece" ofNeoclassical architecture.[11]
The origin of the city's name is unclear. A theory suggests that the name may be derived from thearchaic Romanian wordchișla (meaning "spring", "source of water") andnouă ("new"), because it was built around a small spring, at the corner of Pușkin and Albișoara streets.[12]
The other version, formulated by (or attributed to[13])Ștefan Ciobanu (occasionally toIorgu Iordan), a Romanian historian and academician, holds that the name was formed the same way as the name ofChișineu (alternatively spelled asChișinău) in WesternRomania, near the border with Hungary. Its Hungarian name isKisjenő, from which the Romanian name originates.[14] Kisjenő comes fromkis "small" and the Jenő, one of the sevenHungarian tribes that entered theCarpathian Basin in 896.
Chișinău is known in Russian asKishinyov (Кишинёв,pronounced[kʲɪʂɨˈnʲɵf]), while Moldova's Russian-language media call itKishineu (Кишинэу,pronounced[kʲɪʂɨˈnɛʊ]). It is writtenKişinöv in the LatinGagauz alphabet. It was also written asChișineu in pre–20th-century Romanian[15] and asКишинэу in theMoldovan Cyrillic alphabet. Historically, the English-language name for the city,Kishinev, was based on the modified Russian one because it entered the English language via Russian at the time Chișinău was part of theRussian Empire (e.g.,Kishinev pogrom). Therefore, it remains a common English name in some historical contexts. Otherwise, the Romanian-basedChișinău has been steadily gaining wider currency, especially inwritten language. The city is also historically referred to asLithuanian:Kišiniovas;Hungarian:Kisjenő;German:Kischinau[ˌkɪʃiˈnaʊ]ⓘ;Polish:Kiszyniów[kʲiˈʂɨɲuf]ⓘ;Ukrainian:Кишинів,romanized: Kyshyniv,pronounced[ˈkɪʃɪn⁽ʲ⁾iu̯]ⓘ;Bulgarian:Кишинев,romanized: Kishinev;Yiddish:קעשענעװ,romanized: Keshenev; orTurkish:Kişinev.
Founded in 1436 as amonastery village, the city was part of thePrincipality of Moldavia (which, starting with the 16th century, became avassal state of the Ottoman Empire, but still retaining its autonomy). At the beginning of the 19th century, Chișinău was a small town of 7,000 inhabitants.
Under the Russian government, Chișinău became the capital of the newly annexedoblast (laterguberniya) ofBessarabia. By 1834, animperial townscape with broad and long roads had emerged as a result of a generousdevelopment plan, which divided Chișinău roughly into two areas: the old part of the town, with its irregular building structures, and a newer city centre and station. Between 26 May 1830 and 13 October 1836, the architectAvraam Melnikov established theCatedrala Nașterea Domnului with a magnificent bell tower. In 1840, the building of theTriumphal Arch, planned by the architect Luca Zaushkevich, was completed. Following this, the construction of numerous buildings and landmarks began.
On 28 August 1871, Chișinău was linked byrail withTiraspol, and in 1873 withCornești. Chișinău-Ungheni-Iași railway was opened on 1 June 1875 in preparation for theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878). The town played an important part in the war between Russia and theOttoman Empire, as the mainstaging area of the Russian invasion. During theBelle Époque, the mayor of the city wasCarol Schmidt, whose contribution to the modernisation of the city is still commemorated by Moldovans.[16][17] Its population had grown to 92,000 by 1862, and to 125,787 by 1900.[18]
In the late 19th century, especially due to growing anti-Semitic sentiment in other parts of theRussian Empire and better economic conditions in Moldova, many Jews chose to settle in Chișinău. By the year 1897, 46% of the population of Chișinău was Jewish, over 50,000 people.[19]
As part of the pogrom wave organized in the Russian Empire, a largeanti-Semitic riot was organized in the town on 19–20 April 1903, which would later be known as theKishinev pogrom. The rioting continued for three days, resulting in 47 Jews dead, 92 severely wounded, and 500 suffering minor injuries. In addition, several hundred houses and many businesses were plundered and destroyed.[20] Some sources say 49 people were killed.[21] The pogroms are largely believed to have been incited by anti-Jewish propaganda in the only official newspaper of the time,Bessarabetz (Бессарабецъ). Mayor Schmidt disapproved of the incident and resigned later in 1903. The reactions to this incident included a petition toTsarNicholas II of Russia on behalf ofthe American people by US PresidentTheodore Roosevelt in July 1903.[22]
On 22 August 1905, another violent event occurred: the police opened fire on an estimated 3,000 demonstrating agricultural workers. Only a few months later, on 19–20 October 1905, a further protest occurred, helping to force the hand of Nicholas II in bringing about theOctober Manifesto. However, these demonstrations suddenly turned intoanother anti-Jewish pogrom, resulting in 19 deaths.[22]
Following the RussianOctober Revolution, Bessarabia declared independence from the crumbling empire, as theMoldavian Democratic Republic, before joining theKingdom of Romania. As of 1919, Chișinău, with an estimated population of 133,000,[23] became the second largest city in Romania.
Between 1918 and 1940, the city center undertook largerenovation work. Romania granted important subsidies to its provinces and initiated large-scale investment programs in the infrastructure of the main cities in Bessarabia, expanded the railroad infrastructure, and launched an extensive program to eradicate illiteracy.
Eternity – a memorial complex dedicated to the soldiers who fell in World War II and themilitary conflict in TransnistriaTrain of Pain – the monument to the victims of communist mass deportations in MoldovaState Art Museum, during theCold War periodProspectul Păcii in 1980
Following the Soviet occupation, mass deportations, linked with atrocities, were executed by theNKVD between June 1940 and June 1941. More than 400 people weresummarily executed in Chișinău in July 1940 and buried in the grounds of the Metropolitan Palace, the Chișinău Theological Institute, and the backyard of the Italian Consulate, where the NKVD had established its headquarters.[24] As part of the policy of political repression of the potential opposition to the Communist power, tens of thousands of members of native families weredeported from Bessarabia to other regions of the USSR.
A devastating earthquake occurred on 10 November 1940, measuring 7.4 (or 7.7, according to other sources) on theRichter scale. Theepicenter of the quake was in theVrancea Mountains, and it led to substantial destruction: 78 deaths and 2,795 damaged buildings (of which 172 were destroyed).[25][26]
In June 1941, in order to recover Bessarabia, Romania enteredWorld War II under the command of the GermanWehrmacht, declaringwar on the Soviet Union. Chișinău was severely affected in the chaos of the Second World War. In June and July 1941, the city came under bombardment by Naziair raids. However, the Romanian and newly Moldovan sources assign most of the responsibility for the damage to Soviet NKVDdestruction battalions, which operated in Chișinău until 17 July 1941, when it was captured by Axis forces.[27]
During the German and Romanian military administration, the city suffered from theNazi extermination policy of its Jewish inhabitants, who were transported on trucks to the outskirts of the city and then summarily shot in partially dug pits. The number of Jews murdered during the initial occupation of the city is estimated at 10,000 people.[28] The deportation of the city's Jews to Transnistria reduced its Jewish population from 11,388 in the fall of 1941 to 177 in 1943; a large majority of the deportees died.[29] During this time, Chișinău, part ofLăpușna County, was the capital of the newly establishedBessarabia Governorate of Romania.[30]
As the war drew to a conclusion, the city was once again the scene of heavy fighting as German and Romanian troops retreated. Chișinău was captured by the Red Army on 24 August 1944 as a result of theSecond Jassy–Kishinev offensive.
After the war,Bessarabia was fully reintegrated into the Soviet Union, with around 65 percent of its territory as the Moldavian SSR, while the remaining 35 percent was transferred to theUkrainian SSR.
Two other waves of deportations of Moldova's native population were carried out by the Soviets, the first one immediately after the Soviet reoccupation of Bessarabia until the end of the 1940s, and the second one in the mid-1950s.[31][32]
Trams in Chișinău (pictured Gothawagen ET54) were discontinued in 1961.
Between 1947 and 1949, the architectAlexey Shchusev developed a plan with the aid of a team of architects for the gradual reconstruction of the city.[citation needed]
There was rapid population growth in the 1950s, to which the Soviet administration responded by constructing large-scale housing and palaces in the style ofStalinist architecture. This process continued underNikita Khrushchev, who called for construction under the slogan "good, cheaper, and built faster." The newarchitectural style brought about dramatic change and generated the style that dominates today, with largeblocks of flats arranged in considerable settlements.[citation needed] These Khrushchev-era buildings are often informally calledKhrushchyovka.
The period of the most significantredevelopment of the city began in 1971, when theCouncil of Ministers of the Soviet Union adopted a decision "On the measures for further development of the city of Kishinev," which secured more than one billionrubles in investment from thestate budget,[33] and continued until theindependence of Moldova in 1991. The share of dwellings built during the Soviet period (1951–1990) represents 74.3 percent of total households.[34]
On 22 April 1993, the city inaugurated the Monument to the Victims of Jewish Ghettos, a public monument centred on a bronze statue of theBiblical prophetMoses, which serves as a symbol of remembrance to the thousands of Jews who perished during the holocaust. The monument was designed by architect Simeon Shoihet and sculptor Naum Epelbaum. It stands on Ierusalim Street, marking the site of the main entrance to the Chișinău ghetto, which was established in the lower part of the city in July 1941, shortly after the German and Romanian troops occupied the area.[36][unreliable source?]
On 23 November 2022, the Chișinău Court of Appeal ruled thatChișinău International Airport will return to state ownership, according tojustice ministerSergiu Litvinenco, more than three months after an international court allowed Moldova to terminate a 49-year concession deal with airport operator Avia Invest.[42] In April 2023, theDutch government opened a new embassy in Chișinău.[43]
The city lies in central Moldova and is surrounded by a relatively level landscape with very fertile ground.
Chișinău is roughly equidistant between the borders with Romania (58 km) and Ukraine (54 km), and between the northernmost (188 km) and southernmost (179 km) points of Moldova, thus meaning that it is very close to Moldova's geographic centre.
Chișinău has ahumid continental climate (Köppen climate classificationDfa) characterised by warm summers and cold, windy winters. Winter minimum temperatures are often below 0 °C (32 °F), although they rarely drop below −10 °C (14 °F). In summer, the average maximum temperature is approximately 25 °C (77 °F), however, temperatures occasionally reach 35 to 40 °C (95 to 104 °F) in mid-summer in downtown. Although averagehumidity during summer is relatively low, most of the annualprecipitation occurs during summer, causing infrequent yet heavy storms.
Spring and autumn temperatures vary between 16 and 24 °C (61 and 75 °F), and precipitation during this time tends to be lower than in summer but with more frequent yet milder periods of rain.
Chișinău is governed by the City Council and theMayor (Romanian:Primar), both elected once every four years. Ion Ceban was elected mayor first in 2019 and again in 2023. During his first term, he formed a new political party, theNational Alternative Movement, of which he was elected president in 2022.[52]
The 2023 election also brought in a new city council. The percentages of votes and the resulting number of seats for parties represented in the council are listed below.
Moldova is administratively subdivided into 3 municipalities, 32 districts, and 2 autonomous units. With a population of 662,836 inhabitants (as of 2014), the Municipality of Chișinău (which includes the nearby communities) is the largest of these municipalities.[54]
Besides the city itself, the municipality comprises 34 other suburban localities: 6 towns (containing further 2 villages within), and 12 communes (containing further 14 villages within). The population, as of the2014 Moldovan census,[6] is shown in brackets:
Administrative sectors of Chișinău: 1-Centru, 2-Buiucani, 3-Râșcani, 4-Botanica, 5-Ciocana
The municipality in its totality elects a mayor and a local council, which then name fivepretors, one for each sector. They deal more locally with administrative matters. Each sector claims a part of the city and several suburbs:[55]
Historically, the city was home to fourteen factories in 1919.[23] Chișinău is the financial and business capital of Moldova. Its GDP comprises about 60% of the national economy[56] reached in 2012 the amount of 52 billion lei (US$4 billion). Thus, the GDP per capita of Chișinău stood at 227% of the Moldova's average. Chișinău has the largest and most developed mass media sector in Moldova, and is home to several related companies ranging from leading television networks and radio stations to major newspapers. All national and international banks (15) have their headquarters located in Chișinău.
Notable sites around Chișinău include Cineplex Loteanu, the new mallsMallDova, Port Mall, and best-known retailers, such as N1, Linella,Kaufland, Fourchette, andMetro. While many locals continue to shop at thebazaars, many upper class residents and tourists shop at the retail stores and at MallDova. Jumbo, an older mall in the Botanica district, and Sun City, in the centre, are more popular with locals.
Several amusement parks exist around the city. ASoviet-era one is located in the Botanica district, along the three lakes of a major park, which reaches the outskirts of the city centre. Another, the modern Aventura Park, is located farther from the centre. The Chișinău State Circus, which used to be in a grand building in the Râșcani sector, has been inactive for several years due to a poorly funded renovation project.[57]
* Since the independence of Moldova, there is anongoing controversy over whetherMoldovans andRomanians are the same ethnic group. ** In 2014, part of the population weren't reviewed.
Chișinău's growth plan was developed in the 19th century. In 1836, the construction of theKishinev Cathedral and itsbelfry was finished. The belfry was demolished in Soviet times and was rebuilt in 1997. Chișinău also displays a tremendous number of Orthodox churches and 19th-century buildings around the city such asCiuflea Monastery or theTransfiguration Church. Much of the city is made from limestone quarried fromCricova, leaving a famouswine cellar there.
Many modern-style buildings have been built in the city since 1991. There are many office and shopping complexes that are modern, renovated or newly built, including Kentford, SkyTower, andUnión Fenosa headquarters. However, the old Soviet-style clusters of living blocks are still an extensive feature of the cityscape.
In Chișinău there are several museums. The three national museums are the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History, theNational Museum of Fine Arts, and theNational Museum of History of Moldova. The National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History was founded in October 1889 by baron Alexandru Stuart, moved to its current location in 1905, and is the oldest museum in Moldova.[62] It houses more than 135,000 exhibit pieces, among them a life-sized reconstruction of the skeleton of a dinothere, discovered in the Rezine region in 1966.[63] It also includes exhibits onnatural history,natural sciences,archaeology,paleontology,geology, andethnography.[64] The building was designed by the architectVladimir Tsyganko in a distinctiveMoorish architectural style with a signature frontal façade consisting of a triangular pediment supported by twoDoric columns.[65][66]
Chișinău, as well as Moldova as a whole, still show signs of ethnic culture. Signs that say "Patria Mea" (English: My homeland) can be found all over the capital. While few people still wear traditional Moldavian attire, large public events often draw in such original costumes.
Moldova National Wine Day andWine Festival take place every year in the first weekend of October, in Chișinău. The events celebrate the autumn harvest and recognises the country's long history of winemaking, which dates back to at least 3,000 BCE.[68][69] Moldova has been called the wine capital of Europe and its yearly festival is a major cultural and tourist event, and every year the streets are filled with people enjoying food, wine, dance, and music taking over the streets.[9][70] Moldova's most-awarded sommelier Mihai Druta has described Moldovan wine as being about "small producers and family wineries making premium wine. And nothing costs more than 100 Euro a bottle."[70]The Daily Express in 2019 described the city as "Europe's latest hotspot" in which journalist Maisha Frost praised "its wines, monumental wineries and their epic tasting sessions."[71]
The majority of Moldova'smedia industry is based in Chișinău. There are almost 30 FM-radio stations and 10 TV-channels broadcasting in Chișinău. The first radio station in Chișinău,Radio Basarabia, was launched by theRomanian Radio Broadcasting Company on 8 October 1939, when the religious service was broadcast on air from theNativity Cathedral. The first TV station in the city,Moldova 1, was launched on 30 April 1958, whileNicolae Lupan was serving as the redactor-in-chief ofTeleRadio-Moldova.[72]
Other TV channels based in Chișinău arePro TV Chișinău,PRIME,Jurnal TV,Publika TV, CTC,DTV, Euro TV,TV8, etc. In addition to television, most Moldovan radio and newspaper companies have their headquarters in the city. Broadcasters include the national radioVocea Basarabiei, Prime FM, BBC Moldova, Radio Europa Libera, Kiss FM Chișinău, Pro FM Chișinău, Radio 21, Fresh FM, Radio Nova,Russkoye Radio, Hit FM Moldova, and many others.
The biggest broadcasters are SunTV,StarNet (IPTV),Moldtelecom (IPTV), Satellit, and Zebra TV. In 2007, SunTV and Zebra launcheddigital TV cable networks.
Further information on the defunct newspaper founded in 1933:Mișcarea femenistă
The second most popular form of domestic transportation within Moldova is via railways. The total length of the network managed byMoldovan Railway (as of 2009[update]) is 1,232 kilometres (766 miles). The entire network is single track and is not electrified. The central hub of all railways isChișinău Central Railway Station. There is another smaller railway station –Revaca located on the city's ends.
There is a widetrolleybus network operating as common public transportation within the city. From 1994, Chișinău saw the establishment of new trolleybus lines, as well as an increase in capacity of existing lines, to improve connections between the urban districts. The network comprises 22 trolleybus lines being 246 km (153 mi) in length. Trolleybuses run between 05:00 and 03:00. There are 320 units operating daily in Chișinău. However, the requirements are as minimum as 600 units.[clarification needed] A trolleybus ticket costs 6 lei (ca. $0.31). It is the cheapest method of transport within Chișinău municipality.
There are 29 lines of buses within Chișinău municipality. At each public transportation stops there is attached a schedule for buses and trolleybuses. There are approximately 330 public transportation stops within Chișinău municipality. There is a big lack of buses inside city limits, with only 115 buses operating within Chișinău.[75]
In Chișinău and its suburbs, privately operated minibuses known as "rutieras" generally follow the major bus andtrolleybus routes and appear more frequently.[76]
As of October 2017, there are 1,100 units of minibuses operating within Chișinău. Minibuses services are priced the same as buses – 3lei for a ticket (ca. $0.18).[77]
The city traffic becomes more congested as each year passes. Nowadays there are about 300,000 cars in the city plus 100,000 transit transports coming to the city each day.[citation needed] The number of personal transports is expected to reach 550,000 (without transit) by 2025.[citation needed]
Zimbru Stadium, which opened in May 2006 with a seating capacity of 10,500, meets all the requirements for hosting official international matches and serves as the home venue for theMoldova national football team.
^"Moldova Pitorească" [The picturesque Moldova](PDF).natura2000oltenita-chiciu.ro.Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved10 October 2022.
^See Jean Ancel,The History of the Holocaust in Romania (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011) p. 266-269, with the statistics on p. 269.
^"Chisinau Climate Normals 1991–2020".World Meteorological Organization Climatological Standard Normals (1991–2020). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived fromthe original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved20 August 2023.
^"Recensământul Populației și Locuințelor" [Population and Housing Census].Recensământul Populației și Locuințelor (in Romanian). 20 March 2025. Retrieved20 March 2025.
Weiner, Miriam; Ukrainian State Archives (in cooperation with); Moldovan State Archives (in cooperation with) (1999). "Town Clips: Kishinev."Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories . Secaucus, NJ: Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation. p. 364-371. ISBY 978-0-96-565081-6. OCLC 607423469.
1 InTransnistria.2 Controlled by the Transnistrian authorities.3 Also a municipality.4 The seat ofDubăsari District is the commune ofCocieri (not a city).
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