Chișinăul de la capitală sovietică la capitală europeană
Chisinau from Soviet to European capital

Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on the current history of Chisinau as a city in the making, cementation and promoting its credibility and image in the national and international arena. It analyses the soviet time city when Chisinau was intensively urbanized, industrialized, denationalized and russificated at all levels, particularly administration, education, church and public space. The article looks at Chisinau from the prospect of its transformation from a Soviet capital to a European city, a process that has been lasting for more than twenty years since Moldova gained its independence and appearing not yet completed. It examines the impact of the Soviet past on the urban landscape and dwellers’ mentality and analyses the city’ transition toward Europeanization through the prism of facts and events that occurred in Chisinau over the last years. This study aims at answering several basic questions. Among them: What principles tsarist and Soviet authorities have been guided in projecting the city of Chisinau? What was the propaganda role in building the image of the Soviet Chisinau? How the city-capital of Chisinau has been shaped through planning, building controls, russification and heritage? What has Chisinau inherited from its Soviet past and how the transition/transformation process to Europeanization takes place in Chisinau? And how the capital city inhabitants express their sense of belonging to Chisinau?

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