#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

Events Archive

The European Night of Museums 2012

19 May 2012

National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova for the seventh time has participated in the Night of Museums, a successful event initiated by the Ministry of Culture and Communication of France and carried out in Europe already for the eighth time. The museum was opened to the public from 18:00 to 02:00, access was free. The event was attended by 8516 people.

The night event included:

1. Visiting of exhibitions. The cultural rendezvous was accompanied by alternative activities:

Screening of mini-films presenting the museum collections
Recital of the string quartet of the Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts (artistic director A. Molodojan)
Piano music performed by the students of the Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts
Parade of historical characters
Torchlight procession. Fighting of warriors in armor (Club of Historical Fencing an Reconstruction „Ensifer", director Mikhail Tereshchenko)

2. Interactive presentations of enigmatic objects in the permanent exhibition. Under the title "Unsolved Mysteries" there were presented a number of strange, unexplained objects from the museum collection (a "scepter" of the Late Bronze Age (end of the 2^nd millennium B.C.) found in the hoard at Lozova; binocular vessels of the middle period of Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture (end of the 5^th - beginning of the 3^rd millennia B.C.); miniature clay figurines of the 8^th - 10^th centuries found at Durlești), which practical use, generic functions or exact origin have not been clarified until now; there are only certain assumptions and hypotheses. Visitors were invited to explain the origin or functionality of these artifacts. In this interactive activity 144 people were involved. The most interesting of the assumptions will be awarded by the museum and will be a subject to an article.

3. Mini-exhibitions under the title „An Exhibit Story". There were presented to the public the album „History of the Bender-Galati Railway Section", an icon of the Virgin and Child, and the saber of Russian Tsarevich Alexei. They continue the theme of exhibits with stories that was initiated in 2011.

4. The stand of a medieval knight. At the stand visitors could try on armor (chain mail and helmet) and walk in them through the museum.

5. The Ikebana Workshop of Angela Lobastova, president of the "Ikenobo" Japanese Culture and Art Center in Chișinău. Everyone could try to arrange flowers under the guidance of master Lobastova.

6. CHRONOGRAPH at the Museum. Screenings of historical and cultural films of the 10^th International Documentary Film Festival CHRONOGRAPH 2012 that had place in Chisinau from 10 to 15 May 2012. There were presented the following films:

18:30: SĂRMAna de pe Prut / The Wired Prut (Republic of Moldova) - 47 min.
19:30: The Train Station Latvians 1937 (Latvia) - 64 min.
20:45: A. Leonov. The Spacewalker (France, Russia) - 60 min.
22:00: Love Stories from Moscow 1993-2009 (Germany) - 115 min.

7. Photographer's parlor "Retro-Museum". In one of the rooms of the museum there was made a reconstruction of a photographer's parlor from Chisinau of the past, where visitors were able to rediscover a solemnity of the lost ritual: visiting a photographer to make a picture by all canons of beauty of the past time.

8. Exhibition of ceramics and master class with Ivan Prividiuc in the museum courtyard.

9. Tour „Panorama of Chișinău at Night", which was one of the main points of the program of the Night of Museums in 2012. In cooperation with the City Hall of Chisinau and the Chisinau City Bus Fleet there was organized a pilot route "National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova - Museum of History of Chișinău (Mateevici Street)". Every half hour a bus traveled between the two museums, allowing the visitors to admire the panorama of Chișinău at night from the terrace on the tower, which houses the museum of city history.

10. Raffle Night of Museums 2012 with the special prize for visitors - a bicycle „Giant SNAP 21" provided by „DAAC-VELO-SPORT" S.R.L. The bicycle was won by Mikhail Lavrovsky.

Parteners: