Chisinau Audio Tours

Chisinau was first documented in 1436 and spent most of its history shifting between Moldovan princes, Ottoman suzerains, and the Russian Empire before becoming a Soviet capital in 1940. The city was almost completely destroyed in World War II under Nazi occupation and Soviet bombing, which is why the centre is largely post-war Soviet construction, wide boulevards, pastel-painted apartment blocks, and parks that were laid out with a grandness the current population cannot quite fill. The Italian-Swiss-Russian architect Alexander Bernardazzi designed several of the city's finest surviving 19th-century buildings including the City Hall on the central square.

What makes Chisinau worth attention in 2025 is what is happening to it, not what already happened.

Young Moldovans who might once have left for Bucharest or Berlin are staying, opening wine bars, record shops, and galleries in the Soviet-era apartments around Stefan cel Mare Boulevard. Moldova is one of Europe's great wine regions, with a winemaking tradition going back at least 3,000 years and a wine festival every October in Chisinau that fills the city with the kind of exuberance that suggests a country finally betting on itself. The Cricova wine cellar outside the city, with 120 kilometres of underground tunnels, is a plausible candidate for the strangest wine experience in the world.