With a population of around 533, 000 (metro area 700,000) the fairly compact home to nearly a third of Moldova's population was founded as a monastery village in 1436. Much of it was flattened by the one-two punch of World War II and a 1940 earthquake, then reconstructed during its half century as the capital of the USSR's Moldavian Soviet Republic - meaning plenty of ugly, brutalist Soviet eyesores. Nonethless, some older, more graicous architecture is sprinkled throughout.
Some top attractions include the Moldavian Orthodox Nativity of Christ Metropolitan Cathedral, built in the 1830s (in the forefront in this picture); the National Art Museum; and the National Archaeology, Ethnography, and History Museum.
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