#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

"Memory of an Undeclared War" (2012)

On March 2, 1992, when the President of the Republic of Moldova Mircea Snegur was speaking at the plenary session of UN General Assembly the speech of thanks on the occasion of receipt of Moldova to the United Nations, groups of guardsmen and Cossacks armed with submachine guns and armored cars stormed the district police department headquarters at Dubăsari. The first victims were killed. To the south, in Vulcănești, another armed group attacked the police district headquarters. The same happens simultaneously to Bender, Grigoriopol, and Cocieri... Mentions and more detailed reviews of those dramatic events can be found in various sources: albums, books, collections of documents, memoirs, newspaper accounts. The commemorative exhibition "Memory of an Undeclared War" offers us a photo-documentary chronicle of this war.

It was conceived as a tribute to all participants in the struggle to protect the integrity and independence of the Republic of Moldova and, above all, those who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of the motherland. The exhibition brings together over 250 museum objects: photographic images, fragments of arms and ammunition collected from the battlefield, documents and personal objects of the combatants fallen in the fighting on the Dniester, books and newspapers that depict cruel realities of the war.

Stunning images made by photographers N. Pojoga, M. Venger, T. Iovu, A. Mardare, S. Voronin, T. Anghel and some others reflect the ordeal the defenders of Moldova have gone through in the battles of Dubăsari and Tighina, on the plateaus of Cocieri and Coșnița, they immortalized heroism and courage of the Moldavian policemen and volunteers and showed hardships and humiliations of the war, destroyed families, homes and villages in ruins, faces of women and children distorted with pain of loss of those they loved.

A separate section of the exhibition is dedicated to police officers killed in the fighting for the independence and integrity of the Republic of Moldova.

The content of the exhibition is complemented by a collection of papers and memoirs about the armed conflict on the Dniester signed by researchers, participants and eyewitnesses of the events: Valentina Ursu, Ilie Ilașcu, Mircea Radu Iacoban, General Ion Costaș, Colonel Anatol Munteanu, Anatolie Moraru, Nicolae Ciubotaru, Gh. Budeanu, Vlad Grecu, and others.

The exhibition "Memory of an Undeclared War" is organized in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the armed conflict on the Dniester and is dedicated to all defenders of the integrity and independence of the Republic of Moldova.

#Exhibit of the Month

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

"Memory of an Undeclared War" (2012)

#Exhibit of the Month