摘要：In the summer of 2010 archaeological excavations in the historic part of Chișinău were carried out. The earliest written records about the Chișinău show that the historic core was located in the lower part of the modern city, near the river of Bâc. Apparently, the locality already existed in the 14th century, before the Golden Horde was ousted from the south-eastern part of the Carpathian-Dniester land in 70s-80s of this century. On the opposite, left side of the river there was located the settlement of the Tatar times mentioned in the sources. On the right bank of the Bâc River, on top of a hill at the foot of which there was a spring, there is the Intercession (Mazarache) Church that was built in 1739-1740 (Eșanu 1998, 56), 1742 (Ciocanu 2002, 39-43) or, according to some data, in 1752 (Kishinev 1984, 324). According to researchers, the stone church was built on site of an ancient wooden one, burned by Turkish troops in 1739 during the Russian-Turkish war of 1735-1739 (Eșanu 2001, 147). Archaeological excavations conducted in the immediate vicinity of the Mazarache Church revealed some ceramic materials of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages, as well as ample evidence of the existence of a settlement and burial site of the medieval and modern times. Among the most interesting finds we can mention an earthen fortress moat, which refers, apparently, to the 16th-17th centuries. Having a depth of 4,5 m and width at the top to 5,1 m, it would close access to the cape, where the cemetery was located. To the west of the cape the remains of a dwelling with a stone vault, referring to the 17th-18th centuries, were investigated. There were found well-preserved remains of a monumental architectural structure of red brick, determined by us as a part of the urban water supply catchment galleries constructed by A.I. Bernardazzi in the late 19th century (Bubis 1997, 59-62).
