Deinotherium! (or: Our trip to The National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History in Chișinău)

Last weekend I finally made it to the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History in Chișinău! It's a wonderful museum, with beautiful collections of national costumes, local animal specimens, fossils, and more. I loved seeing all of it! But if you remember one of my "Fact of the Week" posts, my main priority for this visit was to see the Deinotherium skeleton I had read about on Beth's blog several months ago. It was big! And it was displayed in a lower part of the floor so you could see it at eye-level instead of it towering over you. I haven't seen that type of display in a museum before. It was great to finally see it in real life!

I also enjoyed seeing what types of animals live in Moldova currently. I had read about the pelicans and European wildcat that live in the nature reserve near where I will be living in southern Moldova (more info about the reserve in a future post!), and I'm hoping to at least see some pelicans in the wild. 

As I mentioned, the museum also had many other displays of cultural and local artifacts. We didn't have enough time to see everything, so I am definitely planning to go to the museum again when I have another chance to go to Chișinău. 

sculpture on the first floor of the museum

sculpture on the first floor of the museum

replicas of coins

big map model of Moldova 

(photo is of the area on the map around Chișinău)

The museum building itself is gorgeous, too. The National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History was founded in October 1889, and the current building was constructed in 1903-1905 by architect V. Tsigankov. You can learn more about the museum here. 

windmill outside the museum

front of the museum

front door of the museum

floor tiles inside the front door of the museum

chandelier inside the museum

window inside the museum

the ceiling inside the first floor of the museum

the staircase leading up from the bottom floor of the museum