49 Fun Facts About Moldova

Moldova is bordered by Ukraine and which other country?

Romania is Moldova's only neighbour besides Ukraine, and it governed most of today's Moldova between the world wars until a Soviet ultimatum in June 1940 forced it to hand the land over.

What is the capital and largest city of Moldova?

Chisinau was so badly damaged in the Second World War that much of today's city centre dates from the Soviet rebuilding that followed.

The unrecognised breakaway state along Moldova's eastern edge is called what?

Transnistria calls itself the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, yet no United Nations member recognises it, even though about 1,500 Russian troops were still stationed there in 2023.

Which city is the capital of Moldova's breakaway east-bank region?

Tiraspol grew up beside a fortress the Russian army built in 1792 to guard its new frontier, and until 1940 it was the capital of a Soviet Moldavian republic set up inside Ukraine.

Moldova's autonomous region of Gagauzia is home to a people whose mother tongue belongs to which family?

Unusually for Turkic speakers, the Gagauz are mostly Orthodox Christians, and they live mainly in southern Moldova.

According to legend, the Moldova River, and thus the country, is named after Molda, which kind of animal?

A hunting dog called Molda died at the river during Prince Dragos's long chase, in the legend Moldavia's old chroniclers recorded, so the prince gave the water her name.

The eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia, annexed by Russia in 1812, became known by what name?

Bessarabia at first meant only a southern strip; after Russia took the land in the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest, the name was stretched over the whole province.

Which 15th-century ruler of Moldavia, famous for churches and monasteries, reigned from 1457 until 1504?

Stephen the Great took the throne with help from Vlad the Impaler, then beat an Ottoman army at Vaslui in 1475, a victory that led Pope Sixtus IV to hail him as a champion of Christ.

Which pact's secret protocol let the Soviet Union annex today's Moldova in 1940?

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 placed the region in the Soviet sphere, so a June 1940 ultimatum undid the union with its western neighbour that a local assembly had voted for in 1918.

Moldova declared independence days after a failed 1991 coup against which Soviet leader?

Mikhail Gorbachev survived the coup, but his union did not: Moldova declared independence on 27 August, within a week of the plot's collapse, and the Soviet Union was dissolved that December.

Who became the first woman elected president of Moldova, in November 2020?

Maia Sandu won a second term in 2024 with 55 percent of the run-off, a result tipped by Moldovans voting abroad after her rival led the count inside the country.

Moldova was granted candidate status for membership of which organisation in June 2022?

The European Union said yes less than four months after Moldova applied, an application signed in March 2022, days after Russia's full invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.

A March 2023 law formally renamed Moldova's only official language as what?

Romanian was the name used in the 1991 Declaration of Independence, and after a 2013 Constitutional Court judgment on that text the 2023 law replaced 'Moldovan' throughout the statute book.

A land swap gave landlocked Moldova a short strip of which river's bank, opening a route to the sea?

The Danube strip at Giurgiulesti came from Ukraine partly in exchange for a stretch of contested road, and the port later built on it can take seagoing ships.

Moldova lies just east of which mountain range?

The Carpathians curve past to the west, so Moldova itself is a hilly plain cut by river valleys and ravines, and its summit, Balanesti Hill, stands in the central Codri uplands.

Which Moldovan winery holds the Guinness record for the world's largest wine cellar by number of bottles?

Milestii Mici keeps more than 1.5 million bottles in galleries first dug as a limestone mine, and Guinness World Records recognised the hoard in 2005.

In 2006 Russia, then buying about 80 percent of Moldova's exported wine, banned it along with wine from which other country?

Georgia was caught by the same ban, which Russian inspectors blamed on pesticide traces while both countries defended their wine and observers called the row political.

Moldova's currency, the leu, takes its name from a word meaning what?

Lion is what leu literally means: Dutch coins stamped with a lion circulated in the region in the 17th century, and the animal's name stuck as a word for money.

Which animal's head appears on the shield borne by the eagle on Moldova's flag and coat of arms?

An aurochs, a wild ox now extinct, lives on in the arms because its head was the emblem of the medieval Principality of Moldavia.

Which Moldovan band's 2003 hit 'Dragostea Din Tei' topped charts across Europe?

O-Zone's song found a second life in December 2004, when an American vlogger lip-synced to it at his computer and the 'Numa Numa' video became one of the first viral internet memes.

Moldova's 2010 Eurovision entry spawned which internet meme, thanks to Sergey Stepanov's dance moves?

Epic Sax Guy outlived the song: 'Run Away' finished only 22nd in 2010, but when the same band returned to the contest in 2017 it took third place.

Which club became the first from Moldova to reach the Champions League group stage, then won at Real Madrid?

Sheriff Tiraspol won 2-1 at the Bernabeu in September 2021 when Luxembourg midfielder Sebastien Thill struck a late half-volley, yet Real Madrid still went on to lift the trophy that season.

Moldovans mark the start of spring by exchanging which red-and-white good-luck talisman?

Martisor threads are often worn until the first blossoming tree, swallow or stork of the year is seen, and only then untied.

Mamaliga, a Moldovan staple, is a porridge made from what?

Yellow maize flour makes a mamaliga thick enough to stand in for bread, which is why it is traditionally turned out of the pot and sliced with a piece of string.

Which Russian writer, banished from St Petersburg under the tsar, spent three years in what is now Moldova?

Alexander Pushkin was sent south in 1820 for his political poems, and during his exile there he wrote The Prisoner of the Caucasus.

Which party won 71 of the 101 seats in Moldova's parliament in 2001?

The Communists were back in power a decade after Moldova left the Soviet Union, yet by its 2005 re-election the party had signalled a shift away from Russia.

Which fertile soil, the kind that made neighbouring Ukraine a breadbasket, covers Moldova's Balti steppe?

Chernozem is Russian for 'black earth', and the Balti steppe's deep layers of it are on UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list as a long-running record of how farming changes the soil.

Before a 1989 law changed the script, Moldovans wrote their own language in which alphabet?

Cyrillic was the rule under both the tsars and the Soviets, whose scholars insisted for political reasons that Moldovan was a separate language of its own.

Which antelope, said by Strabo to drink through its nose, once roamed Moldova's steppe but is now extinct there?

The saiga's swollen snout is thought to warm and moisten the air it breathes; hunting and habitat loss drove it from the western end of its range.

The 1903 Easter riot that killed dozens of Jews in Russian-ruled Moldova is known as what?

The Kishinev pogrom drew world attention to the persecution of Russia's Jews, and the Hebrew poet Bialik, sent to interview survivors, wrote 'In the City of Slaughter' about it.

Which Swedish king spent years camped at Bender, in today's Moldova, after fleeing a lost battle?

Charles XII fled to Ottoman-held Bender after his defeat at Poltava in 1709 and stayed so long that in 1713 his hosts stormed the camp and took him prisoner.

The flag of Moldova's breakaway east bank bears which emblem?

The hammer and sickle sits in the corner under a red star, and since 2017 the territory's law has let Russia's tricolour fly beside it with equal status.

Which future Soviet leader was sent to run Moldova from 1950 to 1952, finishing the drive to collective farms?

Leonid Brezhnev arrived as the republic's party boss with orders to sovietise it; Konstantin Chernenko, then a propaganda official on his staff there, later followed him to the Kremlin's top job.

Moldova's constitution proclaims the country permanently what?

Neutral on paper since the 1994 constitution, Moldova bans foreign troops in the same article, yet Russian soldiers left over from the Soviet army have stayed on its east bank.

Which Moldavian-born late-Romantic poet is honoured as a national writer in both Moldova and its western neighbour?

Mihai Eminescu's birthday, 15 January, is kept as National Culture Day in both countries; Moldova's parliament adopted the holiday in 2012.

Moldova's national anthem, adopted in the 1990s, is a poem in praise of what?

Its language is the hero of 'Limba noastra', a 1917 poem by Alexei Mateevici, which replaced the anthem Moldova had briefly shared with its western neighbour.

As of 2023, most Orthodox Christians in Moldova belonged to a church answering to the patriarch of which city?

Moscow's patriarch heads the church most Orthodox Moldovans belong to, while a smaller rival metropolis looks to Bucharest instead.

In 2014 about $1 billion, roughly an eighth of Moldova's GDP, vanished within days from where?

Three of its banks lent the money to shell companies registered in Britain and Hong Kong, and the state bailout that followed left a hole in the public finances.

Which Moldovan monastery-fortress complex on the Raut river preserves Trypillian, Dacian and Golden Horde remains?

Old Orhei's caves, carved into the limestone cliffs above the river, sheltered Orthodox monks, and some are still used for worship.

Which Nazi leader's seized wine collection is partly kept in Cricova's cellars?

Hermann Goering's bottles share the tunnels with a legend: cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is said to have gone in for a tasting in 1966 and needed help getting out two days later.

In 2023 Moldova moved to leave which post-Soviet grouping, then in 2026 denounced its founding accords?

The Commonwealth of Independent States was the club of former Soviet republics that Moldova joined at its founding in December 1991, the very accords its president signed laws to denounce in April 2026.

In 2014 the central bank of Moldova's breakaway east bank began issuing coins made of which unusual material?

Plastic made the four coins look like game counters, each a different shape and colour, yet each carries a Russian hero such as Catherine the Great rather than a Moldovan one.

Which Moldovan composer's name was given to the capital's international airport in 2025?

Eugen Doga, best known for a waltz written for a 1978 Soviet film, died in June 2025, and the government put his name on the airport six weeks later.

Which animal, extinct in Moldova since the 18th century, was reintroduced from Poland in August 2005?

European bison were hunted out of the wild everywhere by the 1920s and survive thanks to animals bred in captivity; the bull and two cows from Bialowieza went to a reserve in northern Moldova.

Moldova's World Heritage entry is a marker in a 19th-century survey chain that helped establish what?

The Earth's size and shape came out of Friedrich Struve's arc, a chain of survey triangles he chose to run along the meridian through his own university observatory, in today's Estonia.

Moldova's internet domain, .md, has been marketed abroad to which group?

Medical doctors were the target because MD is the physician's degree, so Moldova's country code doubles as a ready-made label for clinics and practices abroad.

Negru de Purcari, a Moldovan red, won gold at an 1878 world's fair held in which city?

Paris gave the wine its first gold medal abroad at the 1878 World Exhibition, and by the winery's own account it was later poured at the tables of Tsar Nicholas II and Britain's King George V.

Changing the sovereignty clauses of Moldova's constitution requires what?

A referendum won by a majority of registered voters is the only way to touch those clauses, whereas two-thirds of parliament's members can pass other amendments.

Soviet map-makers in 1940 gave the old province's southern districts to Ukraine, cutting Moldova off from which sea?

The Black Sea coast went to Soviet Ukraine in 1940 because only the mainly Moldavian central districts were put in the new republic, while the north and the south were split off.