#Exhibit of the Month

The Chișinău Diocesan Girls' School opened its doors on May 3, 1864, addressing a pressing need: in Bessarabia there were no institutions dedicated to the education of clergy's daughters. According to the 1864 circular, teaching was conducted in the Romanian language, a provision applied throughout the diocese. The school's first headmistress was Anastasia Rizo, of noble origin, invited by Archbishop Antonie.

The curriculum, approved by the Ministry of Public Education and the Chișinău Diocese, combined theoretical subjects with practical training. Students studied religion, reading and writing in Romanian, Slavonic, and Russian, arithmetic and exercises in calculation, world history and geography. The program was complemented by church singing and practical skills such as sewing, embroidery, knitting, as well as household management - baking bread and prosphora, preparing meals and preserves, caring for livestock, and cultivating gardens.

The composite, taken in 1911 at the studio of Z. N. Sumovski in Chișinău, depicts 29 graduates and 13 teachers. At the center are portraits of Bishop Serafim (Ciciagov), headmistress N. R. Mihelson, teacher V. E. Bejerian, and priests F. Ghiliarov and P. Jurikas. Among the teaching staff was Paraskovia Vasilievna Cuciurenko, a calligraphy teacher for 37 years, who in 1911 became senior educator and assistant headmistress. For her dedication, she was awarded the gold medal "For Long Service."

On the reverse of the vignette is a label from the store and workshop of frames, paintings, mirrors, and window glass owned by A. D. Kon'gova, Chișinău, Gogol Street no. 37, near the State Bank.

This graduation composite was donated at the end of 2025 to the National Museum of History of Moldova by the Dadiștian family from Drochia.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

"A mapping of old estates"

May 18th - July 15, 2011

The exhibition is organized on the occasion of the 195th anniversary from the time of creation of the Bessarabian Topographic Commission headed by Colonel S.I. Kornilovich (1816) and covers the chronological period from the late 18^th century to the first half of the 19^th century.

The main exhibits are maps of estates kept in the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova. The content of the exhibition is divided into four sections:

Forms of ownership: large and small land property;
Land surveyors: land relations intermediaries;
Land relations: agrarian reforms, sale, purchase, lease, and inheritance of land;
The fate of old estates: collectivization and dispossession.

Stages of development of the forms of land property in the time under review are presented chronologically, highlighting the main stages, and thematically, in accordance with the sections listed above. In addition to the maps, there were used auxiliary exhibits meant to create a historical background of the exhibition. Among these objects there are documents (titles, the manifesto of church lands and the Emancipation Manifesto of February 19, 1861, deeds of sale, lease, and tax), postcards, models of estates, books and magazines of the time with information on land relations, photographs and personal belongings of land surveyors.

The exhibition is concluded by the section "The fate of old estates: collectivization and dispossession", which includes items that refer to sovietization of land relationship (photographs and documents).

#Exhibit of the Month

Vignette of Graduates and Teachers of the Chișinău Diocesan Girls’ School, 1911

"A mapping of old estates"

May 18th - July 15, 2011

#Exhibit of the Month