Moldova
The small, landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine, a green land of rolling hills and vineyards, one of the world's great wine nations, of Romanian language and Orthodox faith, of deep village traditions and warm hospitality. The complete guide.
Moldova is a small, landlocked country in eastern Europe, tucked between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south, just inland from the Black Sea. It is a green, gently rolling land of farmland, orchards, forests, and above all vineyards, for Moldova is one of the great wine countries of the world, where winemaking is a national passion and source of pride. About two and a half million people live there, with the capital, Chișinău, the largest city. Most Moldovans speak Romanian, share the language and much of the culture of neighbouring Romania, and belong to the Orthodox Christian church, and the country keeps a deep heritage of village life, folk tradition, and hospitality. One of the poorest countries in Europe, and long pulled between Russia and the West, Moldova is now seeking to join the European Union, and a strip of its land in the east, Transnistria, lies outside the government's control. This guide walks through the land, the wine, the faith, the food, the festivals, and the customs, taking no side in that dispute.
Overview
Moldova is a country in eastern Europe, landlocked between Romania to the west, across the Prut river, and Ukraine on its other sides, lying just inland from the Black Sea coast. It is a small, green country of low rolling hills, fertile farmland, patches of old forest, and vineyards almost everywhere, with the river Dniester, which Moldovans call the Nistru, winding through the east. About two and a half million people live there, with the capital and largest city, Chișinău, at the centre of national life.
Moldova is a parliamentary republic. The head of state is the president, currently Maia Sandu, while the head of government is the prime minister, currently Alexandru Munteanu, who leads the cabinet answerable to the elected parliament. The official language is Romanian, the same language spoken in neighbouring Romania, though in Moldova it has often been called Moldovan, and there are large Russian-speaking and other communities. The Orthodox Christian church is the faith of the great majority. Moldova is a candidate to join the European Union.
A few deep forces shape life in Moldova. There is the green farming land of hills and vineyards. There is the wine that is the country's passion and pride. There is the Romanian language and heritage shared with Romania. There is the Orthodox faith and the deep traditions of the village. And there is the mingling of peoples, with a Russian-speaking region beyond the government's control. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the customs.
A land of hills and vineyards
Moldova is a small, green, gently rolling country, one of the most thoroughly farmed lands in Europe, where soft hills of rich black earth are covered in fields of wheat, sunflowers, maize, and orchards, and above all in the vineyards that drape the slopes across much of the country. It is landlocked, with no coast of its own, lying between the Prut river in the west, which marks the border with Romania, and the Dniester in the east, both flowing south toward the Black Sea.
The land is mostly open and cultivated, but at its heart lie the Codri, the old forests of oak, beech, and hornbeam that once covered much of the country and are now treasured as a green refuge, while in the east the Dniester valley holds dramatic limestone gorges and cliffs, as at the ancient site of Orheiul Vechi. The climate is mild and sunny, with warm summers and cold winters, well suited to the vine, the orchard, and the field.
At the centre stands Chișinău, the capital and by far the largest city, a green, low-rise city of parks and tree-lined streets that holds much of the nation's life, while beyond it Moldova is a deeply rural country of villages, farms, and small towns where the old ways remain strong. Little known and little visited, it is a quiet, green, fertile land. This countryside of hills, fields, and vineyards is the setting of Moldovan life.
The country of wine
If one thing defines Moldova above all, it is wine, for this small country is one of the great winemaking nations of the world, with a share of its land under vine among the highest anywhere, an industry central to its economy, and a love of wine woven into the heart of its culture. Moldovans have made wine here for thousands of years, the climate and the soil are ideal for the vine, and the country is among the world's leading wine exporters for its size.
Wine in Moldova is not only an industry but a deep tradition of the home and the village, for very many families make their own wine each autumn from their own vines, keep it in the cellar, and serve it with pride to every guest, so that homemade wine is a part of ordinary hospitality across the land. To be welcomed in a Moldovan home is very often to be offered a glass of the family's own wine.
The country is famous, too, for its astonishing underground wine cellars, vast labyrinths of tunnels carved into the limestone, among them Cricova and Mileștii Mici, the latter holding what is counted the largest wine collection in the world, with tens of millions of bottles stored along miles of underground galleries. A national wine day each autumn fills the capital with celebration. This deep culture of wine, from the family cellar to the great underground galleries, is the pride of Moldova.
A Romanian people
The great majority of Moldovans are a Romanian people, sharing the language, culture, history, and heritage of neighbouring Romania, with which Moldova was for a long time one. The language of the country is Romanian, a Latin tongue, which makes Moldova and Romania an island of Latin-rooted speech in a region of Slavic and other languages, a legacy of the ancient Roman presence in these lands. In Moldova this language has often been called Moldovan, but it is the same language as Romanian.
The history behind this is long. The land was the eastern part of the old Principality of Moldavia, and this eastern portion, known as Bessarabia, passed under Russian rule in the nineteenth century, joined Romania between the two world wars, and was then taken by the Soviet Union, which made it a Soviet republic and worked to set its people apart from Romania. Out of this tangled past comes a lasting question of identity, with some Moldovans feeling themselves simply Romanian and others holding to a distinct Moldovan identity, a matter still debated today.
Whatever the name, the shared Romanian heritage runs through the culture, in the language and its rich folk poetry, in the music and dance, in the food, and in the Orthodox faith, and ties with Romania are close, with an open border and deep family, cultural, and political bonds. This Romanian language and heritage, with all its questions of identity, is a defining feature of Moldova.
The faith of the village
The Orthodox Christian church is the faith of the great majority of Moldovans, woven deeply into the culture, the calendar, and the life of the village, and though the country went through decades of state atheism under Soviet rule, religion has returned strongly to public life. Churches and monasteries are found throughout the country, among them ancient and beautiful sites such as the cave monastery carved into the cliffs at Orheiul Vechi and the old monastery of Căpriana, and the great feasts of the Orthodox year, above all Easter and Christmas, are kept with deep devotion.
The faith is bound up with the strong village traditions that remain central to Moldovan life, for this is a deeply rural country where much of the population still lives in villages, keeps gardens and vines, and holds to old customs of the countryside. Among these is the lovely old habit of digging wells beside the road, with a cup left for any passing traveller, a gift of water to strangers that speaks of the country's spirit of hospitality.
That hospitality is the heart of the Moldovan character. Moldovans are known as warm, generous, modest, and welcoming people, who receive a guest with open arms, a laden table, and the family's own wine, and who set great store by family, by respect for elders, and by the bonds of the village and the home. For a visitor, the keys to Moldova are to accept this hospitality graciously, to show respect for the faith and the elderly, and to share food, wine, and conversation. The Orthodox faith and the warm traditions of the village are the moral heart of Moldova.
A mingling of peoples
Though most of its people are Romanian-speaking Moldovans, Moldova is a land where several peoples have long lived together, a legacy of its position on the borderlands of empires and of the movements of population in the Russian and Soviet years. Alongside the Moldovan majority live communities of Ukrainians and Russians, many of them in the towns and in the east, along with smaller groups of Bulgarians and others, and Russian remains widely spoken as a second language, especially among older people and in the cities.
The most distinctive of the country's minorities are the Gagauz, a small Turkic people who, unusually, are Orthodox Christians rather than Muslims, the descendants of settlers who came to the south long ago, and who keep their own Turkic language and traditions. They live mainly in the south, where they have their own self-governing region, Gagauzia, with its own assembly and a measure of autonomy within Moldova.
This mix of peoples gives parts of Moldova, especially the south and the towns, a varied and multilingual character, and the relations between the communities, and the place of the Russian language and of pro-Russian and pro-Western feeling, run through the country's politics. For the most part the peoples live peaceably side by side, sharing the Orthodox faith and the land. This mingling of Moldovan, Ukrainian, Russian, and Gagauz is part of the fabric of the country.
Mămăligă and the Moldovan table
Moldovan food is the hearty, country cooking of a farming land, close kin to the food of Romania, rich in maize, vegetables, cheese, and meat, generous and made for sharing, and always accompanied by the family's wine. The dish at the heart of the table is mămăligă, a thick porridge of boiled cornmeal, a little like the polenta of Italy, which serves as the country's daily bread and is eaten with cheese, sour cream, fried fish, or stews.
The much-loved brânză, a salty sheep's cheese, goes with the mămăligă and into many dishes; sarmale, parcels of minced meat and rice wrapped in cabbage or vine leaves and slowly stewed, are a festive favourite; and zeamă, a sour chicken-and-noodle soup, is a comforting everyday dish. Grilled meats, including the little spiced sausages called mititei, fill the table at celebrations, along with rich stews and fresh vegetables from the garden.
Pastry is a Moldovan delight, above all the plăcintă, a flaky pie filled with cheese, potato, cabbage, pumpkin, or apple, sold in markets and made in homes across the country. Sweets, fruit preserves, walnuts, and fresh fruit from the orchards round out the food, and over it all flows the wine, present at every meal and every gathering. Hearty, homemade, and shared with wine, Moldovan food reflects the country's rich land and warm table.
Mărțișor and the festival year
The Moldovan year is shaped by the great feasts of the Orthodox church and by old folk festivals tied to the seasons and the land. Easter is the most important religious holiday, kept with church services, painted eggs, special breads, and family feasting, while Christmas brings its own deep traditions, above all the singing of carols, the colinde, when groups go from house to house wishing good fortune in return for food and small gifts, along with old midwinter customs of costumed processions.
A beloved festival shared with Romania is Mărțișor, on the first of March, which welcomes the spring, when people give one another small tokens of twined red and white thread, worn pinned to the clothes through the month as a wish for health and good fortune, a charming custom that brightens the end of winter. Village patron-saint days, the hram, are great local celebrations, when a whole village feasts and welcomes guests from near and far.
Running through it all is a rich heritage of folk music and dance, shared with the wider Romanian world: the plaintive, drawn-out song called the doina, the lively circle dance, the hora, in which dancers join hands and turn together, and the playing of fiddles, pan-pipes, and the music of the village bands at every wedding and feast. Weddings especially are great events of food, wine, music, and dance. These festivals, from Easter to Mărțișor to the village hram, are warm threads of Moldovan life.
The nation today
Moldova today is a small nation at a crossroads, working to build its future while wrestling with deep challenges. It is one of the poorest countries in Europe, with a struggling economy and a long history of emigration that has sent many of its people abroad for work, so that a large Moldovan diaspora now lives across Europe and beyond and plays a real part in the country's life and politics. The government has set its course firmly toward the West, seeking to join the European Union and to reform and modernise the country, a path confirmed by recent elections and a referendum.
This direction sits at the centre of Moldovan political life, which has long been pulled between those who look westward to Europe and those who look toward Russia, a division sharpened since Russia's invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, which has brought the war to Moldova's doorstep, strained its economy and energy supply, and drawn warnings of outside interference in its elections. A particular and unresolved difficulty is Transnistria, the narrow strip of land east of the Dniester that broke away in the early 1990s, after a brief war, and has since governed itself outside the control of the Moldovan state, with a mostly Russian-speaking population and a Russian military presence; the question of its future remains open. This guide takes no side in that dispute.
Through it all, Moldova holds to the identity built over its history. The green land of hills and vineyards still shapes its life; the wine remains its pride; the Romanian language and heritage, and the warm traditions of faith, village, and hospitality, still order daily life; and the mingling of its peoples remains part of its character. Small, green, and resilient, Moldova carries its traditions toward a European future.