Flashback to Chisinau

It’s Friday, and time for a flashback to an old Travel with Intent post.
It was hard to choose, but I have plumped for some beautiful blues from Chisinau, a city I’ve been itching to get back to throughout lockdown. For now, I’ll make do with this flashback, and next year I hope to return in person.

Preservation versus decay

Originally posted November 5, 2019; all images taken July 2019

Ciuflea Monastery, Chisinau, Moldova, July 2019

This blue beauty, in central Chisinau, is a Moldovan Orthodox monastery dedicated to Saint Theodore of Amasea and consecrated in 1858.

During the country’s time as the Moldavian SSR, this building stepped in as cathedral when the city’s Nativity Cathedral was closed to be converted to an exhibition hall. Ciuflea became the monastery that it is now in 2002.

The image above shows the traditional church, in colourful contrast with the former Intourist hotel, the Național, which hovers over its shoulder. The Soviet era hotel is sadly deserted and in poor condition – clearly lacking the care that the monastery now receives. There is at least one organisation trying to ensure the renovation of the Soviet building but at the moment its main fans seem to be the homeless.