#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.

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Exhibitions

“The national mourning of the Poles after the Smolensk air disaster”

April 9 - 29, 2021

On Friday, April 9, 2021, H. E. Mr. Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to the Republic of Moldova Bartłomiej Zdaniuk, together with the Director General of the National Museum of History of Moldova Dr. habil. Eugen Sava, scientists and members of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova commemorated the victims of the accident in Smolensk.

A special Tu-154M aircraft carrying the President of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczyński and his wife Maria Kaczyńska, as well as 94 other people, was arriving from Warsaw to Smolensk, Russia on April 10, 2010. The Polish delegation was to take part in a ceremony at the Polish Military Cemetery in Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the massacre committed during World War II. However, members of the delegation died in a plane crash that occurred during the landing.

The participants in the flight to Smolensk went to the ceremony in Katyn to pay tribute to the victims of the mass executions in the Katyn Forest, Mednoye, Kharkiv, Bykivnya and Kurapaty, carried out by the NKVD in the spring of 1940 by order of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union.

The Katyn massacre and the Smoleńsk tragedy are two events that have become a symbol of Poland's tragic history.

These events shocked millions of Poles, as well as international public opinion. The participants in that flight will always remain alive in the memory of the world.