Romania's cultural capital — Moldavian monasteries, poet's city, and Cotnari wine
Iași (Jassy) is Romania's cultural and intellectual capital — a city of Romanian national memory that hosted the first Romanian university, first botanical garden, first philharmonic, and was capital of Moldavia (the historical region, not today's Moldova) through the periods of greatest Romanian cultural flowering. The Palace of Culture (1926) dominates the city centre with its 365 rooms in Gothic Revival style; the Copou Park has the lime tree under which national poet Mihai Eminescu wrote his verses. The food is Moldavian: mămăligă (cornmeal porridge), sarmale cu varza acra (sauerkraut rol…
Iași was a major trading post from the 14th century and became the capital of the Principality of Moldavia in the 16th century under Prince Alexandru cel Bun. It reached its cultural peak in the 19th century as the centre of Romanian national awakening — the 1848 Revolution in Moldavia was led from here, and Iași was the first city to see unified Romania's national theatre and university. The city suffered one of WWII's worst pogroms in June 1941, when Romanian and German forces massacred between 8,000 and 13,000 Jews in the city and on the 'death trains' that left from its central station —…