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#Exhibit of the Month

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Christmas bells entered the Romanian cultural space through a long process in which archaic traditions blended with Christian belief and European influences. Long before the holiday of Christmas developed as we know it, metallic sounds played an important ritual role in old communities: they were used to drive away evil spirits, to purify spaces, and to protect people during transitional moments at the turn of the year. These beliefs have been preserved in winter customs such as caroling, the Plugușor, and masked dances, where bells and jingles were indispensable.
With the spread of Christianity, the sound of the bell also acquired a profound religious meaning, becoming an announcer of major feasts and a symbol of the Nativity. Small bells, however, were not originally used as decorations but primarily as functional or ritual objects.
The first decorated Christmas tree in the Romanian lands was the one at the palace of Prince Carol I of Hohenzollern, following his arrival in the Romanian Principalities in 1866. From that moment the tradition took root, and on Christmas Eve princes and princesses invited to the palace would take part in decorating the tree. Among the ornaments used were small metal bells, symbolizing joy, the good news, and divine protection for the home.
In the twentieth century, Christmas bells spread across all Romanian provinces and became a visual emblem of the holiday, appearing in both decorations and carols. Even during periods when religious expression was curtailed, bells remained in people's homes as signs of joy and the continuity of tradition. Today they retain this dual meaning: the echo of ancient beliefs and, at the same time, the announcement of the Birth of Christ - a symbol of hope, light, and the link between past and present.
These tinkling pieces are part of a generous heritage collection at the National Museum of History of Moldova (NMHM), which includes more than 200 cultural items. A substantial contribution to the museum's collection of decorative bells was made by Dorina Raischi, a teacher at School No. 94 in Chișinău, who donated 174 bells, of which around 30 are winter-themed. Made of ceramic, porcelain, glass, and metal, they were brought from different parts of the world and together offer a succinct picture of the global culture of bells. They add a festive note to the home and even to a gift, and it is hard to imagine Christmas without their cheerful tinkling.

Virtual Tour


Exhibitions

“Bucharest: a Novecento portrait”

2-31 May 2019

The Bucharest Municipality Museum in partnership with the National Museum of History of Moldova presents the "Bucharest: a Novecento portrait", a photo exhibition to be on display in Chișinău at the National Museum of History of Moldova. The exhibition, which can be seen from May 2-31, 2019, presents a trip through Bucharest in the 20th century and shows the urban and architectural development of the city.

The way we want to live today, and our desire to have an ideal home, owes much to the 20th century, achievements or failed experiments that have taken place over the past 100 years. The present project aims to map the human geographies of the 20th century and the overlapping "maps" do not belong exclusively to the past, but rather to an ongoing present that attempts to define a possible forecast for a medium term.

The city is like a living organism. And it was born because we built it to resemble our lives, but also to change it in the end. The city was from the very beginning the social, cultural, economic and political instrument through which we have experienced throughout millennia ways of living, socializing, confrontation projections and transactions, all set to serve the desire for comfort in the day-to-day life. And this daily life has imposed during the historical stages the typology of requests that periodically modeled the offer. It is, in fact, a true food chain. We cannot say that we, from the present, have lost something, unlike our parents or grandparents 80 or 100 years ago. But we see images that differ, starting from clothing details on the street landscape. The difference is only given by the changes that have occurred in the sphere of spiritual characteristics. The inside is, in the end, the starting point for changing everything. Both in our lives and in everyday life.

People on the street are a barometer of urban civilization. What they represent by attitude, clothing, rigor, and especially what they consume every day or at certain age. But the city inhabitant has a home life differentiated from a professional and cultural calendar and always enriched and diversified by accumulation and multiplication. His story and Her story, from 1900 to 2000, from grandfather to grandnephew, does not have a consistent precedent in Romanian historiography. The history of living, the space of the house, the accessories of the domestic areas have their story. But there is also the axis of a horizontal time, that of repetitive ages with each generation: childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age. How the faces of these ages looked from 1900 to 2000 is an anthropological challenge and Bucharest can be an interesting case study for Romania's cultural history.

Cities are constantly moving. Bucharest is a city that lives in ambivalence. It also suffered a lot, but it always knew how to regain its peace and joy to live. Bucharest is the city of simultaneous different speeds; it is a city of different cultural spaces. All because Bucharest has always been an open, accessible, welcoming city with all those who were looking for a new homeland. Bucharest has been and continues to be the homeland of many people coming from various cultural areas. And the presence of these people, their desire to live differently from home, made Bucharest a cosmopolitan city.

This twentieth-century journey aims not only to show in detail the evolution of urban society, but rather to show some changes in behavior, way of life, concerns, and even type of habitation and inner surroundings.

We, of the present, with the way we want to live and the aspiration of everyone for the ideal home, are with all these landmarks, twentieth-century tributaries of successes or failed experiments that have taken place over the last one hundred years.

In the organizational team of the exhibition are included Dr. Adrian MAJURU - Manager, Dr. Dan PÎRVULESCU - Deputy director, Dr. Vasile OPRIŞ - Head of History section, Ana IACOB - museographer and Ştefan CSAMPAI - exhibition graphics (Bucharest Municipality Museum) and Dr. hab. Eugen SAVA - General director and PhD student Mariana VASILACHE-CUROȘU - Deputy director (National Museum of History of Moldova).


 




Independent Moldova
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
Bessarabia and MASSR between the Two World Wars
Bessarabia and Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the Period between the Two World Wars
Revival of National Movement
Time of Reforms and their Consequences
Abolition of Autonomy. Bessarabia – a New Tsarist Colony
Period of Relative Autonomy of Bessarabia within the Russian Empire
Phanariot Regime
Golden Age of the Romanian Culture
Struggle for Maintaining of Independence of Moldova
Formation of Independent Medieval State of Moldova
Era of the
Great Nomad Migrations
Early Middle Ages
Iron Age and Antiquity
Bronze Age
Aeneolithic Age
Neolithic Age
Palaeolithic Age
  
September 25, 2025 – September 1, 2026
 
August 11, 2025 – January 31, 2026
 
Over 2500 pieces made of precious metals with historic, artistic and symbolic value
  

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Summer schedule: daily
10am – 6pm.

Winter schedule: daily
10am – 5pm.
Closed on Mondays.
Entrance fees:  adults - 50 MDL, Pensioners, students - 20 lei, pupils - 10 MDL. Free access: enlisted men (...)

WiFi Free Wi-Fi Zone in the museum: In the courtyard of the National History Museum of Moldova there is Wi-Fi Internet access for visitors.


#Exhibit of the Month

Christmas bells entered the Romanian cultural space through a long process in which archaic traditions blended with Christian belief and European influences. Long before the holiday of Christmas developed as we know it, metallic sounds played an important ritual role in old communities: they were used to drive away evil spirits, to purify spaces, and to protect people during transitional moments at the turn of the year...

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

 



The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

menu
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC