Kishinev is a compact city, its centre – the place of our future walk – is well connected with all the administrative sectors. If you arrive in Kishinev by air, through the airport, the city will broadly open you its gates, that located in Dachia Boulevard, the Museum of Village is situated next to it, and then through the viaduct you will get to the centre.

If you find yourself in the railway station, from the railway land side, where there is a sight to the Palace of Railway Workers, you will reach the centre along Gagarin Boulevard passing by the monument to Kotovsky and along Negrutsy Boulevard to Piata Liberetii (Square of Independence) that is limited by the buildings of  the «National» and «Chisinau» hotels, as well as the main building of Academy of Sciences. There is a sculptural composition in the centre of the square devoted to the warriors of the Soviet Army, who liberated Moldova from fascists in 1944.

On 3 October 1999, in the City Day, when Kishinev celebrated its 563 th anniversary, the grand opening ceremony of the reconstructed part of Ciuflea Street that now is a wide highway, took place.

The central avenue of our capital begins from this place. This is Stephen the Great Boulevard, which length is 3.8 kilometres. Over the centuries, it frequently changed its name and face. In 1944 the central part of the boulevard was almost completely destroyed, only 2-3 buildings remained unharmed. Looking at the buildings, located in both sides of the boulevard, one can easily tell the stages of its reconstruction.

The boulevard is opened by two contemporaneous buildings, the first floors of those are occupied with shops, banks, large firms. Vis-a-vis an exhibition hall the Union of Artists is located, decorated with metallic sculptures of muses.

Farther, at the corner of Izmailskaya Street, in the even side, the building of the central department store is situated – the largest trade enterprise of Moldova that began to function in the middle of 80s. Opposite the department store there is the magnificent building of Petrolbank built in 1997. The many-storeyed building of «Moldtelecom» is located behind the department store in the even side of the street. It was created by means of slip forms. Owing to these high-rise buildings, Kishinev, in spite of being situated in the seismically active zone, have gained the appearance of quite a modern city.

The former Armenian yards’ territory is the next to come, limited by the up-to-date Stephan the Great Boulevard, Armyanskaya and Benderskaya streets. The Armenian appeared in Kishinev in the first quarter of the XV century. In the beginning of the XIX century there were 113 Armenian families in Kishinev and in 1814 the City Council determined the plot in the city centre (more than 21 thousand metres) for the building religious and other constructions. Benderskaya arch formerly was here, and at the corner with Armyanskaya Street - a beautiful chemist’s shop.

There is a territory of the central market on the opposite side of the boulevard being parallel to it behind the houses.

The sight of the centre is the Organ Hall located on the odd side of the street. On the right of the Organ Hall, there is the building of the National Drama Theatre. There is an open exhibition between them. On the left, there is not a bit less beautiful building of City Hall, and in front of it there is the central post office. Now we can look round to see the part of the avenue where we have already walked.

The main square of Kishinev is located behind Pushkin Street - it is Piata Marii Adunari Nationale (Square of the Great National Meeting). It has utterly another appearance before the reconstruction. It is restricted by a park with one side where there is Cathedral ensemble. The most ancient of its edifices is Portile Sfinta Arch (Saint Gates). There is a flower market along the park.

The House of Government is situated in front of the Arch. It was built in the place where Bessarabian Eparchy was formerly located. Near the House of Government there are buildings of the National Palace and the National Library.

Till recently, there was a monument to V.I. Lenin, where, according to different evidences, different monuments changed each other: to Alexander I, Ferdinand I, and Stephen the Great. Now there is no monument here.

The park named after Stephen the Great abuts upon the central square. By the main entrance to the park there is the monument to Stephen the Great standing in the place of the destroyed monument to the Russian emperor Alexander II.

The «Patria» cinema built in the place of the very beautiful building of Noble Assembly that has not been preserved. There was an arch at the entrance in that building. Next to it one can find the House of Parliament of Moldova. Here the unique monument to K. Marks and F. Engels was formerly situated. There is the newly built the National Opera-House opposite it, followed by the Palace of President and the building of the Agroindustrial Association. The Palace of President is built in the place of the German Protestant Church. Farther from the same side of the street there is Preobrajenskii Cathedral – the former military church. Some time there was a planetarium here. The Kishinev churches, we could count 20 of them, the pieces of the antiquity, the parts of our ancestors’ soul are the architectural pearls of our country.

The building of the former Museum of Art, erected by the Vienna masters in the rare architectural style of the elegant Vienna baroque, is also fairly considered to be a Kishinev decoration. In all four directions from the crossroads with Calea Orheiului along the main street there are buildings of health authorities. Among them the republican Isolation Hospital named after Ion Ciorba, that is situated behind the open-work fence in the one-storey building made of the pure brickwork; the most old block of the Medical University, that is the descendant of the second Leningrad Medical Institute. It was completely taken here together with its library from Pyatigorsk, where it was in the evacuation (during World War II), when it was particularly necessary to settle the vital problems of public health in Moldova.

The last remarkable construction is the Palace of Youth recently built in the contemporaneous style.