Moldova Culture & Language

The only official language is Romanian -- the constitution's references to a Moldovan language were amended to say so -- and the 2024 census counted almost 77 per cent of the population as Moldovan, 8 per cent Romanian, 5 per cent Ukrainian, 4 per cent Gagauz and 3 per cent Russian, though Russian remains the second language of the towns and the first of Transnistria. The 2014 census found 90 per cent Orthodox, most of them in the Moldovan church under the Moscow patriarchate, and the country's more than fifty monasteries and 700 churches are living institutions, not monuments; Căpriana, royal since 1429, and the cave monastery of Old Orhei with its handful of monks are the two to see.

Wine is culture before it is industry: 148,500 hectares of vineyard, a third of it village plots for home-made wine, 142 wineries, the world's largest cellar at Cricova and its largest collection at Mileștii Mici, and a brandy, divin, made by the cognac method. The table is mămăligă with brânză and sour cream, sarma cabbage rolls, placinte pastries and the soups and pickles of a peasant country with 300 days of sun.

Gagauzia, a Turkic and Orthodox people settled here after 1812, has its autonomy and its capital at Comrat; Transnistria has its own flag, ruble and Soviet iconography. The mainstream, since 2020, has been looking west.

Romanian is the only official language and the one on the signs, in Latin script since 1989; Russian is the second language of the towns and the first in Transnistria and much of Gagauzia, where Gagauz, a Turkic language, is also spoken. Ambulance staff, the British advisory warns, may speak only Russian or Romanian. Bună ziua is good day, mulțumesc thank you, and anyone with Italian, Spanish or French will read a menu; a few words of Russian help in the north and east. English is found in Chișinău's hotels and wineries and not much beyond.