In a general way, this period can be defined as “the time of great reforms”. The defeat suffered by the Russian Emperor Nicholas II (1825 – 1855) in the Crimean War has led to a number of reforms: peasant reform (1861), juridical reform (1861), administrative reform (1864), etc., which, however, were introduced in Bessarabia later than in other provinces of the Empire. The administrative reform was the most radical one due to the creation of the bodies of “Zemstvo” (1869), an absolutely new element in local administration. Bessarabia loses its character of a “privileged” province (1873). Some signs of progress appear in the life of Bessarabia: the telegraph line Odessa – Chisinau (1861), the first sections of railway track (1868).