Chișinău has had a more eventful history than most cities twice its size, and considerably more than any city deserves. Founded in 1436 as a monastery village on the banks of the Bîc River, it spent the following four centuries passing between the Moldavian Principality, the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, which took possession in 1812 and promptly set about building broad imperial boulevards and grand public buildings that still define the city centre today. Alexander Pushkin was exiled here between 1820 and 1823, wrote prolifically, and complained about the place in letters that have been preserved for posterity. The city had a Jewish population of around 43% by 1900, which makes the pogroms of 1903 and 1905, among the worst in the Russian Empire's ugly record, particularly devastating chapters in its history.

The 20th century did not let up. The Second World War left Chișinău largely in ruins, a 1940 earthquake having already done considerable preparatory damage, and the Soviet reconstruction that followed gave the city the wide avenues, monumental government buildings and concrete apartment blocks that now coexist with its older fabric in a way that is either an architectural contradiction or a perfectly honest record of everything the city has been through, depending on your disposition towards Stalinist urbanism.

What Chișinău has going for it today is considerable. Moldova is the wine country that the wine world is finally beginning to pay attention to, with a winemaking tradition dating back at least 3,000 years and a National Wine Festival each October that fills the city's streets with more enthusiasm than most capitals manage for their headline events. The city itself is greener than you expect, built across seven hills with parks, lakes and tree-lined boulevards softening the Soviet geometry. The prices, by western European standards, are almost comically low. The EU candidate status granted in 2022 has given the city a new forward momentum. Chișinău is not yet on most people's radar, which, for the time being, is entirely to its advantage.