Holy Trinity Church (1852-1862, or 1869)
The “Holy Trinity” Church was founded and consecrated by Archbishop Antonie Shocotov, on the territory of the former cemetery of the village of Muncesti (nowadays Botanica sector). It is a church built according to one of the model projects, which were widespread in Bessarabia at that time and used in ordinary cases. The architecture of the church is eclectic, based on the classicist style with elements of Russian architecture. The plan consists of two compartments: the altar apse, polygonal in plan, and the nave, square in plan, dominated by a pyramidal roof, crowned with a false spire like an onion bulb. The church was joined with the two-storey belfry, with a prismatic bell chamber and wide arched openings.
Part of the land in the cemetery of the church during Soviet times was levelled with bulldozers. Several residential blocks were built on that site. On the small remaining area of the cemetery, tombstones dating from the 18th-20th centuries can still be found. During the Soviet period it was one of the few places of worship in Chisinau that were not closed permanently.
Next to the church is the former Romanian Military Cemetery, which was established in 1918.
During the interwar period, the cemetery was set up by the “Regina Maria” National Association for the Cult of Heroes, and a chapel in memory of the Czech Legion was built in the same period. The entrance to the cemetery had a massive architecture, with large staircases and columns of 10 metres high.
After the end of World War II, the chapel was demolished and the land leveled. Over the remaining tombs was built in 1961 the “Chiril Draganiuc” Institute of Pulmonology and Physiatry, a hospital that was also destroyed in 2007.
It is documented that from the total number of 1645 soldiers that were buried there 431 of them were Romanians who died during the World War I, 96 Romanians who died during the World War II, the rest being Russian, Austrian, Czech, French and Polish soldiers.