Chisinau City Day: October 14, 2013

Chisinau City Day is celebrated on October 14 each year.  It is a city holiday and everyone in the city was off except Dan's office.  He did manage a few hours away from work to see this big event.

In our limited experience with prior Chisinau festivals, only one-block of the main street is roped off for pedestrians.  For Chisinau City Day, almost the entire main street (Stefan cel Mare) is closed to traffic.

In Cathedral Park, the enormous chess pieces were set up for the serious players.  The stage in the Great National Assembly Square was set up for musical entertainment and booths of traditional food, products made in Moldova, and local handicrafts lined the street.  It was another open-air street fair, but larger that the wine holiday weekend.

We strolled the now pedestrian street in the cool, gray morning while the crowds were thin.  For lunch we had a plaçinte (pie) which, in this case, is a round of thin pastry dough, filled with mashed potatoes and herbs, folded in half and sealed, and fried.  It was excellent.  In Moldova, there are many types of plaçinte with assorted shapes and fillings.  Sometimes they look like quiche, sometimes they look like Georgian khachapuri.

Every few meters there was a small stage with entertainment.  There were lots of talented children singing and performing folk dances.

On our stroll back toward Dan's office, the crowd had increased exponentially making it hard to walk let alone take photos.  Only this juggler didn't have a crowd around him--he wasn't very good.

After the evening concert, there were fireworks.  We were home by then, but we can see just a bit of the fireworks from our window.