![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Moldova-in-Europe-300x263.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Most of Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia<\/a> from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded<\/a> to the Russian Empire<\/a> by the Ottoman Empir<\/a>e (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia<\/a>. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia<\/a> to form Romania<\/a>, but Russian rule was restored over the whole of the region in 1878. During the 1917 Russian Revolution<\/a>, Bessarabia briefly became an autonomous state within the Russian Republic<\/a>, known as the Moldavian Democratic Republic<\/a>. In February 1918, the Moldavian Democratic Republic declared independence and then integrated into Romania later that year following a vote of its assembly. The decision was disputed by Soviet Russia<\/a>, which in 1924 established, within the Ukrainian SSR<\/a>, a Moldavian autonomous republic (MASSR)<\/a> on partially Moldovan-inhabited territories to the east of Bessarabia.<\/p>\n In 1940, as a consequence of the Molotov\u2013Ribbentrop Pact<\/a>, Romania was compelled to cede<\/a> Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, leading to the creation of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR)<\/a>, which included the greater part of Bessarabia and the westernmost strip of the former MASSR (east of the Dniester River<\/a>). On 27 August 1991, as the dissolution of the Soviet Union<\/a> was underway, the Moldavian SSR declared independence and took the name Moldova. The constitution of Moldova was adopted in 1994. The strip of the Moldovan territory on the east bank of the Dniester has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria<\/a> since 1990.<\/p>\n Due to a decrease in industrial and agricultural output following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the service sector has grown to dominate Moldova’s economy and is over 60% of the nation’s GDP. It is the second poorest country in Europe by GDP per capita. Although Moldova has a relatively high Human Development Index<\/a>, it is the lowest in the continent, ranking 90th in the world.<\/p>\n Moldova is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. It is a member state of the United Nations<\/a>, the Council of Europe<\/a>, the World Trade Organization (WTO)<\/a>, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)<\/a>, the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development<\/a>, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)<\/a>, and the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2010 N.K. Anisjutkin discovered Oldowan<\/a> flint tools at Bayraki that are 800,000\u20131.2 million years old.<\/p>\n During the Neolithic Stone-Age<\/a> era, Moldova’s territory stood at the center of the large Cucuteni\u2013Trypillia<\/a> culture that stretched east beyond the Dniester River in Ukraine and west up to and beyond the Carpathian Mountains in Romania. The people of this civilization, which lasted roughly from 5500 to 2750 BC, practiced agriculture, raised livestock, hunted, and made intricately-designed pottery.<\/p>\n Dacian<\/a> tribes inhabited Moldova’s territory in the period of classical antiquity. Between the 1st and 7th centuries AD, the south came intermittently under the control of the Roman<\/a> and then the Byzantine Empires<\/a>.<\/p>\n Due to its strategic location on a route between Asia and Europe, the territory of modern Moldova experienced many invasions in late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages<\/a>, including by Goths<\/a>, Huns<\/a>, Avars<\/a>, Bulgarians<\/a>, Magyars<\/a>, Pechenegs<\/a>, Cumans<\/a>, Mongols<\/a> and Tatars.<\/p>\n The founding of the Principality of Moldavia began with the arrival of a Vlach<\/a> voivode (military leader), Drago\u0219<\/a>, soon followed by his people from Maramure\u0219<\/a> to the region of the Moldova River<\/a>. Drago\u0219 established a polity there as a vassal to the Kingdom of Hungary<\/a> in the 1350s. The independence of the Principality of Moldavia was gained when Bogdan I<\/a>, another Vlach voivode from Maramure\u0219 who had fallen out with the Hungarian king, crossed the Carpathian mountains in 1359 and took control of Moldavia, wresting the region from Hungary.<\/p>\n The Principality of Moldavia was bounded by the Carpathian Mountains in the west, the Dniester River in the east, and the Danube River and Black Sea to the south. Its territory comprised the present-day territory of the Republic of Moldova, the eastern eight counties<\/a> of Romania, and parts of the Chernivtsi Oblast<\/a> and Budjak<\/a> region of Ukraine. Like the present-day republic and Romania’s north-eastern region, it was known to the locals as Moldova.<\/p>\n Moldavian leaders profited from the end of the Polish-Hungarian union and became a vassal of king Jogaila of Poland<\/a> on September 26, 1387. This relationship brought financial and military aid to Moldova in exchange for some territorial control.<\/p>\n For all of his success, it was under the reign of Alexander I<\/a> that the first confrontation with the Ottoman Turks took place at Cetatea Alb\u0103 in 1420. A deep crisis was to follow Alexander’s long reign, with his successors battling each other in a succession of wars that divided the country. Nevertheless, Moldavia was subject to further Hungarian interventions after that moment, as Matthias Corvinus deposed Aron and backed Alex\u0103ndrel to the throne in Suceava. Petru Aron’s<\/a> rule also signified the beginning of Moldavia’s Ottoman Empire allegiance, as the ruler agreed to pay tribute to Sultan Mehmed II<\/a>.<\/p>\n During this time, Moldavia was invaded repeatedly by Crimean Tatars<\/a> and, beginning in the 15th century, by the Turks. In 1538, the principality became a tributary to the Ottoman Empire, but it retained internal and partial external autonomy. Moldova remained an Ottoman vassal state despite a brief period of Polish control that ended in 1621.<\/p>\n While most of today’s Moldova came into the Ottoman orbit in the 16th century, a substantial part of Transnistria remained a part of the Polish\u2013Lithuanian Commonwealth until the Second Partition of Poland in 1793.<\/p>\n In accordance with the Treaty of Bucharest of 1812<\/a>, and despite numerous protests by Moldavian nobles on behalf of the sovereignty of their principality, the Ottoman Empire (of which Moldavia was a vassal) ceded to the Russian Empire the eastern half of the territory of the Principality of Moldavia along with Khotyn<\/a> and old Bessarabia (modern Budjak), which Russia had already conquered and annexed. The new Russian province was called Oblast of Moldavia and Bessarabia<\/a>, and initially enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. After 1828 this autonomy was progressively restricted and in 1871 the Oblast was transformed into the Bessarabia Governorate, in a process of state-imposed assimilation, Russification. As part of this process, the Tsarist administration in Bessarabia gradually removed the Romanian language from official and religious use.<\/p>\n The Treaty of Paris (1856)<\/a> returned the southern part of Bessarabia (later organised as the Cahul<\/a>, Bolgrad and Ismail counties) to Moldavia, which remained an autonomous principality and, in 1859, united with Wallachia to form Romania. In 1878, as a result of the Treaty of Berlin<\/a>, Romania was forced to cede the three counties back to the Russian Empire.<\/p>\n Over the 19th century, the Russian authorities encouraged the colonization of Bessarabia by Romanians<\/a>, Russians<\/a>, Ukrainians<\/a>, Germans<\/a>, Bulgarians<\/a>, Poles<\/a>, and Gagauzes<\/a>, primarily in the northern and southern areas vacated by Turks and Nogai Tatar<\/a>, the latter having been expelled in the 1770s and 1780s, during Russo-Turkish Wars<\/a>; the inclusion of the province in the Pale of Settlement<\/a> also allowed the immigration of more Jews. The Romanian proportion of the population decreased from an estimated 86% in 1816, to around 52% in 1905. During this time there were anti-Semitic riots, leading to an exodus of thousands of Jews to the United States.<\/p>\n World War I resulted in the union of Moldova with the Kingdom of Romania with the support of the Allied nations. This union was not recognized by the Soviet Union which regarded the union as an occupation of Russian territory by the Romanians.<\/p>\n In August 1939, the Molotov\u2013Ribbentrop Pact<\/a> and its secret additional protocol were signed, by which Nazi Germany recognized Bessarabia as being within the Soviet sphere of influence<\/a>, which led the latter to actively revive its claim to the region. On 28 June 1940, the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Romania requesting the cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, with which Romania complied the following day. Soon after, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (Moldavian SSR, MSSR) was established, comprising about 65% of Bessarabia, and 50% of the now-disbanded Moldavian ASSR (the present-day Transnistria). Ethnic Germans left in 1940.<\/p>\n As part of the 1941 Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, Romania regained the territories of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and seized a territory which became known as Transnistria Governorate. Romanian forces, working with the Germans, deported or massacred about 300,000 Jews, including 147,000 from Bessarabia and Bukovina. Of the latter, approximately 90,000 died. Between 1941 and 1944 partisan detachments acted against the Romanian administration. The Soviet Army re-captured the region in February\u2013August 1944, and re-established the Moldavian SSR.<\/p>\n In 1946, as a result of a severe drought and excessive delivery quota obligations and requisitions imposed by the Soviet government, the southwestern part of the USSR suffered from a major famine. In 1946\u20131947, at least 216,000 deaths and about 350,000 cases of dystrophy were accounted by historians in the Moldavian SSR alone. In 1944\u201353, there were several anti-Soviet resistance groups in Moldova; however the NKVD and later MGB managed to eventually arrest, execute or deport their members.<\/p>\n In the postwar period, the Soviet government organized the immigration of working age Russian speakers (mostly Russians, Belarusians<\/a>, and Ukrainians), into the new Soviet republic, especially into urbanized areas, partly to compensate for the demographic loss caused by the war and the emigration of 1940 and 1944. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Moldavian SSR received substantial allocations from the budget of the USSR to develop industrial and scientific facilities and housing. In 1971, the Council of Ministers of the USSR<\/a> adopted a decision “About the measures for further development of the city of Kishinev” (modern Chi\u0219in\u0103u), that allotted more than one billion Soviet rubles (approximately 6.8 billion in 2018 US dollars) from the USSR budget for building projects.<\/p>\n The Soviet government conducted a campaign to promote a Moldovan ethnic identity distinct from that of the Romanians, based on a theory developed during the existence of the Moldavian ASSR. Official Soviet policy asserted that the language spoken by Moldovans was distinct from the Romanian language (see Moldovenism). To distinguish the two, during the Soviet period, Moldovan was written in the Cyrillic alphabet<\/a>, in contrast with Romanian, which since 1860 had been written in the Latin alphabet.<\/p>\n In the 1980s, amid political conditions created by the glasnost and perestroika, a Democratic Movement of Moldova was formed, which in 1989 became known as the nationalist Popular Front of Moldova (FPM)<\/a>. Along with several other Soviet republics, from 1988 onwards, Moldova started to move towards independence. On 27 August 1989, the FPM organized a mass demonstration in Chi\u0219in\u0103u that became known as the Grand National Assembly. The assembly pressured the authorities of the Moldavian SSR to adopt a language law on 31 August 1989 that proclaimed the Moldovan language written in the Latin script to be the state language of the MSSR. Its identity with the Romanian language was also established. In 1989, as opposition to the Communist Party grew, there were major riots in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first democratic elections for the local parliament were held in February and March 1990. After the failure of the 1991 Soviet coup d’\u00e9tat attempt, Moldova declared its independence on 27 August 1991.<\/p>\n On 21 December of the same year, Moldova, along with most of the other Soviet republics, signed the constitutive act that formed the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Moldova received official recognition on 25 December. On 26 December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Declaring itself a neutral state, Moldova did not join the military branch of the CIS. Three months later, on 2 March 1992, the country gained formal recognition as an independent state at the United Nations. In 1994, Moldova became a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace<\/a> program, and a member of the Council of Europe on 29 June 1995.<\/p>\n In the region east of the Dniester river, Transnistria, which includes a large proportion of predominantly russophone East Slavs of Ukrainian (28%) and Russian (26%) descent (altogether 54% as of 1989), an independent Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic<\/a> was proclaimed on 16 August 1990, with its capital in Tiraspol<\/a>. The motives behind this move were fear of the rise of nationalism in Moldova. In the winter of 1991\u20131992 clashes occurred between Transnistrian forces, supported by elements of the 14th Army<\/a>, and the Moldovan police. Between 2 March and 26 July 1992, the conflict escalated into a military engagement<\/a>.<\/p>\n On 2 January 1992, Moldova introduced a market economy, liberalizing prices, which resulted in rapid inflation. From 1992 to 2001, the country suffered a serious economic crisis, leaving most of the population below the poverty line. In 1993, the government introduced a new national currency, the Moldovan leu<\/a>, to replace the temporary cupon<\/a>. The economy of Moldova began to change in 2001; and until 2008 the country saw a steady annual growth between 5% and 10%. The early 2000s also saw a considerable growth of emigration of Moldovans looking for work (mostly illegally) in Russia (especially the Moscow region), Italy, Portugal, Spain, and other countries; remittances from Moldovans abroad account for almost 38% of Moldova’s GDP, the second-highest percentage in the world, after Tajikistan (45%).<\/p>\n In 1994 plans for a union with Romania were abandoned, and the new Constitution gave autonomy to the breakaway Transnistria and Gagauzia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following a period of political instability and massive public protests, a new Government led by Pavel Filip<\/a> was invested in January 2016. Concerns over statewide corruption, the independence of the judiciary system, and the intransparency of the banking system, were expressed.<\/p>\n In the December 2016 presidential election, Socialist, pro-Russian Igor Dodon<\/a> was elected as the new president of the republic.<\/p>\n In the November 2020 presidential election, the pro-European candidate Maia Sandu<\/a> was elected as the new president of the republic, defeating incumbent president Igor Dodon, and thus becoming the first female elected president of Moldova.<\/p>\n The total land area of Moldova is 33,851 km2.<\/p>\n The largest part of the nation lies between two rivers, the Dniester and the Prut. The western border of Moldova is formed by the Prut river, which joins the Danube before flowing into the Black Sea<\/a>. Moldova has access to the Danube for only about 480 m (1,575 ft), and Giurgiule\u0219ti is the only Moldovan port on the Danube. In the east, the Dniester is the main river, flowing through the country from north to south, receiving the waters of R\u0103ut<\/a>, B\u00eec<\/a>, Ichel, Botna<\/a>. Ialpug<\/a> flows into one of the Danube limans<\/a>, while Cog\u00e2lnic<\/a> into the Black Sea chain of limans.<\/p>\n The country is landlocked, though it is close to the Black Sea; at its closest point it is separated from the Dniester Liman<\/a>, an estuary of the Black Sea, by only 3 km of Ukrainian territory. While most of the country is hilly, elevations never exceed 430 m (1,411 ft) \u2013 the highest point being the B\u0103l\u0103ne\u0219ti Hill<\/a>. Moldova’s hills are part of the Moldavian Plateau, which geologically originate from the Carpathian Mountains<\/a>. Its subdivisions in Moldova include the Dniester Hills (Northern Moldavian Hills and Dniester Ridge), the Moldavian Plain (Middle Prut Valley and B\u0103l\u021bi Steppe<\/a>), and the Central Moldavian Plateau (Ciuluc-Solone\u021b Hills, Corne\u0219ti Hills\u2014Codri Massive, “Codri<\/a>” meaning “forests”\u2014Lower Dniester Hills, Lower Prut Valley, and Tigheci Hills). In the south, the country has a small flatland, the Bugeac Plain. The territory of Moldova east of the river Dniester is split between parts of the Podolian Plateau<\/a>, and parts of the Eurasian Steppe<\/a>.<\/p>\n The country’s main cities are the capital Chi\u0219in\u0103u, in the center of the country, Tiraspol (in the eastern region of Transnistria), B\u0103l\u021bi (in the north) and Bender (in the south-east). Comrat<\/a> is the administrative center of Gagauzia.<\/p>\n After the breakup from the USSR in 1991, energy shortages, political uncertainty, trade obstacles and weak administrative capacity contributed to the decline of economy. As a part of an ambitious economic liberalization effort, Moldova introduced a convertible currency, liberalized all prices, stopped issuing preferential credits to state enterprises, backed steady land privatization, removed export controls, and liberalized interest rates. The government entered into agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to promote growth. The economy subsequently declined from 1991 to 1999. Since 2000 the GDP (PPP) has had a steady growth.<\/p>\n Despite a sharp decline in poverty in recent years, Moldova remains one of the poorest countries in Europe and structural reforms are needed to promote sustainable growth. Based on the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) regional poverty line of US$5\/day (PPP), 55 percent of the population was poor in 2011. While this was significantly lower than 94 percent in 2002, Moldova’s poverty rate is still more than double the ECA average of 25 percent.<\/p>\n The country has a well-established wine industry. It has a vineyard area of 147,000 hectares (360,000 acres), of which 102,500 ha (253,000 acres) are used for commercial production. Most of the country’s wine production is made for export. Many families have their own recipes and grape varieties that have been passed down through the generations. There are 3 historical wine regions: Valul lui Traian (south west), Stefan Voda (south east) and Codru (center), destined for the production of wines with protected geographic indication. Mile\u0219tii Mici<\/a> is the home of the largest wine cellar in the world. It stretches for 200 km and holds almost 2 million bottles of wine.<\/p>\n Moldova’s rich soil and temperate continental climate (with warm summers and mild winters) have made the country one of the most productive agricultural regions since ancient times, and a major supplier of agricultural products in southeastern Europe. Moldova’s agricultural products include vegetables, fruits, grapes, wine, and grains.<\/p>\n The main means of transportation in Moldova are railways 1,138 km (707 mi) and a highway system (12,730 km or 7,910 mi overall, including 10,937 km or 6,796 mi of paved surfaces). The sole international air gateway of Moldova is the Chi\u0219in\u0103u International Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Giurgiule\u0219ti<\/a> terminal on the Danube is compatible with small seagoing vessels. Shipping on the lower Prut<\/a> and Nistru<\/a> rivers plays only a modest role in the country’s transportation system.<\/p>\n The state flag of the Republic of Moldova is a vertical tricolour of blue, yellow, and red, charged with the coat of arms of Moldova<\/a> (an eagle holding a shield charged with an aurochs<\/a>) on the center bar. The obverse is mirrored. The flag ratio is 1:2. Until further provisions, the State Flag of Moldova is used as the national flag and ensign as well, that is, civil, state and war flag and ensign.<\/p>\n The blue, red, and yellow tricolor of Moldova is identical to the flag of Romania<\/a>, reflecting the two countries’ national and cultural affinity. On Moldova’s flag, the yellow stripe is charged with the national arms. Like the Romanian coat of arms<\/a>, the Moldovan arms, adopted in 1990, features a dark golden eagle holding an Orthodox Christian<\/a> cross in its beak. Instead of a sword, the eagle is holding an olive branch, symbolizing peace. The blue and red shield on the eagle’s chest is charged with the traditional symbols of Moldova: an aurochs’ head, flanked by a rose in dexter and a crescent in sinister and having a star between its horns, all of gold. These two national flags are also very similar to the flags of Chad<\/a> and Andorra<\/a>, which are all based on vertical stripes of blue, yellow, and red.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The blue, red, and yellow tricolor of Moldova is identical to the flag of Romania, reflecting the two countries’ national and cultural affinity. On Moldova’s flag, the yellow stripe is charged with the national arms. Like the Romanian coat of arms, the Moldovan arms, adopted in 1990, features a dark golden eagle holding an Orthodox Christian cross in its beak. Instead of a sword, the eagle is holding an olive branch, symbolizing peace. The blue and red shield on the eagle’s chest is charged with the traditional symbols of Moldova: an aurochs’ head, flanked by a rose in dexter and a crescent in sinister and having a star between its horns, all of gold. These two national flags are also very similar to the flags of Chad and Andorra, which are all based on vertical stripes of blue, yellow, and red.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[67,59,26,5,6,7,18,153,60],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/City-Map-of-Moldova-294x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>History:<\/h2>\n
Prehistory:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Oldowan-Type-Tool-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Byzantine-Empire-555-Showing-Moldova-as-Part-of-Empire-300x163.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Founding of the Principality of Moldavia:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Bogdan-I-300x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/The-Principality-of-Moldavia-at-its-Peak-in-1483-300x274.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>The Ottomans:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Alexander-I-173x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>The Russian Empire:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Territorial-Changes-of-Moldavia-Following-the-Treaty-of-Bucharest-1812-300x229.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/The-Pale-of-Settlement-227x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>World War II and Soviet Era:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Bessarabia-Germans-Resettling-after-the-Soviet-Occupation-of-Bessarabia-in-1940-300x201.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Soviet-Buildings-in-Chisinau-300x200.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Independence and Aftermath:<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Deputy-Gheorghe-Ghimpu-replaces-the-Soviet-flag-on-the-Parliament-with-the-Romanian-flag-on-27-April-1990-230x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Transnistria-in-Yellow.png\" "\\"\\""){kind=spacer}
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Pavel-Filip-244x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Maia-Sandu-214x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Geography:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Topographic-Map-of-Moldova-242x300.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Economy:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/MallDova-Shopping-Center-in-Chisinau-300x178.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Milestii-Mici-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Transportation:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Chisinau-International-Airport-300x225.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Flag of Moldova:<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/Flag-of-Moldova-300x150.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>