Europe's least-visited capital — where sarmale cabbage rolls, mămăligă polenta, and natural wine from the world's largest underground cellar define a city the travel industry forgot
Chișinău is the capital of Moldova, consistently ranked as Europe's least visited country and most affordable destination — a Soviet-grid city of wide boulevards, communist-era apartment blocks, and a Romanian Orthodox culture quietly developing one of the most exciting natural wine scenes in Eastern Europe. The food is resolutely Romanian-Moldovan: sarmale (cabbage rolls stuffed with pork, rice, and dill, slow-cooked in tomato and sour cream), mămăligă (corn porridge served with brânza sheep's cheese or sour cream), plăcinte (pastry parcels filled with cheese, cherry, or potato), and ghiveci…
Moldova has existed as a distinct entity since the Principality of Moldavia in 1346, but its modern history is defined by the clash of Romanian and Russian empires. After centuries of Ottoman suzerainty, Bessarabia (the historical name for what is now Moldova) was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812, briefly became part of Romania between the wars, and was re-annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. Soviet collectivisation destroyed private wine estates and replaced them with industrial production; since independence in 1991, Moldova has been rebuilding its wine identity with small-producer nat…