#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Walking around Chișinău of the 20th century”

January 4 - February 15, 2021

Chișinău is without a doubt a city of contrasts. This is a locality that exists between "was" and "is". We are keenly experiencing this contrast, we see and feel it every day, and the architecture of the city clearly indicates a transition from the old to the new, being a witness and the main indicator of change.

In the pictures of the beginning of the last century, it appears as a small but very pretty town, and today we are increasingly confronted with the nostalgic expression "here was...": "here was the Diocesan House", "here was the Swiss Hotel", "here was a girls' gymnasium, and in this place the deputies of Sfatul Țării voted for the Union in 1918". Of the pearls of architecture that once delighted citizens, today we have only pictures left. These pictures are the subject of the collection catalogs and today, the unknown treasures of architecture and urban life, reflected in 48 images, are brought to the public's attention in an exhibition dedicated to Chişinău of the 20th century.

Chişinău is an open-air museum where thousands of people lived, loved, created with wisdom and humility the image of a city "carved in white stone". Each street retains the footsteps of those who admired it, whether they were commoners or nobles. Each villa retains a vivid memory of its owners, and some are still waiting for them, and the holy churches of Chişinău are illuminated by the thoughts of those who admired them or crossed their threshold.

This exhibition is a challenge for all of us to rediscover Chișinău at the time when we have and devote so little time for beauty. This is an invitation to take a virtual walk through the streets from the old days and recall known or forgotten views, places loaded with history or feelings. And, like any place that tends to affirm its authenticity through culture, Chișinău, today, perhaps more than ever, needs the exercise of memory in order to survive and develop.