Chisinau
"My white city – you’re a stone flower …"
There are several
legends concerning the Chisinau origin. According to one of them, settlement
was founded near the spring called “Chisinau” in a picturesque place in Codri,
on the bank of the river Byc. The earliest mention of Chisinau refers to 1466.
In this very year a Moldovan ruler, Stefan cel Mare, had granted a special letter
to his uncle, Vlaicul, by which the former had transferred the right of possession
of the present Chisinau’s territory.
During the Osman Yoke Chisinau had been repeatedly ruined and destroyed. It
must have influenced its economic development, which up to the 18th , the beginning
of the 19th centuries had gone by the slowed down rates.
In its modern view Chisinau was founded in the beginning of the 19th century.
In 1834 the first general plan of the city was authorized. The old city, situated
on the Bik river, remained untouched though. There were churches around and
a huge market in the center, where the townspeople and peasants of nearby villages
led an intensive trade. Some of the constructions of those days survived: Riscani
church (1777) and Blagoveshchensk church (1807), and the oldest building – Мazarichii
church referring to 1752.
Construction works began in 1818. In 1834 Government approved the general plan
of Chininau development. In 1829-1834 were developed the wells, assuring with
drinking water the majority of Chisinau citizens. At the expense of city Duma
near the Мazarichii church there was arranged a spring, that supplied the drinking
water to the whole city. This water had been delivered in water carts.
High quality
of construction works and real development became possible only due to the outstanding
architect A. Bernardazzi. He had designed and had built the most significant
edifices that form the Chisnau unique look. Benardazzi was one of those who
appreciated the decorative characteristics of the natural white coquina quarried
in the Chisinau outskirts. Before that all the constructions were plastered,
and only in the end of the 19th century came into use the neat stone-work with
the redbrick insertions. This kind of fronts design became the local peculiarity.
At the same time, municipal improvement was carried out very slowly. Paving
was started only in 1862.
In 1870 the railway station was built, and in 1871 the railway communication
on the Chisinau-Tiraspol section was opened. Organization of the water-supply
system began in 1892 with the construction of 2 water towers.
The newly confirmed plan of the city gave wide streets, spacious squares and
magnificent parks to the townspeople. The streets’ width allowed to plant trees
along them (Chisinau is noticed to have been one of the greenest capitals in
Europe till now). A park was laid out near the central square. It was planted
those days with acacias and mulberry-trees and became famous because of a great
Russian poet Alexander Puskin who had frequently strolled there. In 1885 a monument
to him was set up in the park, around the monument there were planted acacias
(two of them have survived up to the present time). Today this monument is one
of the oldest established in Chisinau.
Besides the
organized laying out of the parks and squares, individual efforts of the townspeople
were also making Chisinau greener. To plant a tree near the house was considered
to be a good tone. It is interesting that in the 19th century the fur-trees
and pine-trees from Russia and Crimea were brought to Bessarabia (so referred
to as a part of Moldovan territory in the Prut and Nistru interstream area).
But only nobility was allowed to plant them in the court yards.
Time was going by and Chisinau was developing, absorbing the nearby settlements.
It is surprising, but in 1918 Chisinau occupied the area of the present center
district of the city and ended in the Sadovaia street. The city was one-storeyed,
only churches and metropolitan see building towered above another buildings.
The first large buildings were constructed on present Puskin and Gogol streets,
then schools along the Sadovaia street were built.
Chisinau suffered a lot from the 1940 earthquake.
On the 22nd of June 1941, from the firs hours of the WWII, Chisinau was in the
front line. In the morning the city was bombed from the air, and shortly after
it was occupied by the Romanian army. On 18 August 1944 Romanian King Mihai
and marshal Antonescu looked the city over. WWII finished for Chisinau on August,
24 1944, when the Soviet army entered the city after the Chisinau-Iasi operation.
There were no battles within the city, but it was totally destroyed as a result
of the earthquake and bombardments.
After the
World War II Chisinau grows and recovers very fast. It’s characteristic that
in Moldova of that period there were only 3 architects – Valentin Voitehovschi,
Robert Curt and Valentin Mednic - all graduates of the Bucharest Architectural
Institute. By the end of 40th architects from other cities- Moscow, Odessa and
Kiev- were sent to Chisinau. A multinational group of architects and designers
was generated and began to restore the city according to the general plan of
the city’s reconstruction authorized in 1945 – 1947 with the participation of
the academician А. Sciusev. The first new building of the city has become a
building of the railway station (1948)
After the Architectural Institute had been opened in the republic in 1975 there
appeared a group of the local architects, which had to design and construct
a number of office and administrative buildings. From this very period constructions
of capital-wide fame have begun to appear in Chisinau : buildings of Parliament,
of House of Government, of Presidential Residence, Trade Unions Palace etc.
Thus Chisinau has got its modern metropolitan image combining originality of
architectural design and magnificence of parks. Our capital is especially beautiful
in autumn, when the yellow foliage paints the parks and streets in bright gilding,
and the townspeople get ready for the City Day celebrated annually.
