The city has no shortage of engaging art and culture. The National Art Museum is a great place to start your investigation into the local cultural heritage. It is full of Romanian and Moldovan art, folk art and medieval ephemera to keep you gawping for hours, but it also houses regular exhibitions of contemporary art if you want to shift gear.
Russia's national poet Alexander Pushkin spent three years exiled in Moldova, and his tiny cottage has been preserved as the Pushkin Museum, where you can see his personal world of sentimental and mundane items, including a portrait of his favourite poet, Lord Byron, on his writing desk. The large literary museum opposite the cottage houses a fascinating collection of documents relating to the author's dramatic life.
The largest of Chişinău's museums is the National Archaeology and History Museum which contains artefacts from the region, including a collection of coins known as the Golden Horde, and Soviet weaponry.