Bălți is the second largest city in Moldova. It is located in the northern part of the country, within the historical region of Bessarabia, with which the city's own history is closely intertwined.
Middle Ages During the European Middle Ages, the fair belonged to Soroca, then after 1785 to the Iași ținut (county) of the Principality of Moldova. Bălți was a crossroad, with post-roads from Iași, Hotin, Soroca, and Orhei intersecting. It soon became a renowned horse fair, and also a cattle fair.
In 1469, a Crimean Tatar invasion led by the khan Meñli I Giray burned Bălți to the ground, before the invaders were defeated in the Battle of Lipnic (about 100 km to the north). The site was rebuilt, though very slowly.
Over the years, Bălți also became a center of handicraft, with smiths, wheelwrights, leather dressers, saddlers, and cartwrights.
Eighteenth century In 1711, the Moldavian prince Dimitrie Cantemir, who was also a well-known European historiographer and scientist of the time – impressed by the defeat of the Swedish-Polish king Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava (600 km to the east in Ukraine) by the young Russian tsar Peter the Great – invited the tsar to Moldavia in a bold move to try to end Ottoman suzerainty and reclaim the independence of Moldavia. The country formally became a vassal to the Ottoman Empire in 1538; it almost completely preserved its self-rule but needed to pay an ever-increasing annual tribute. During this failed military campaign, Bălți, due to its crossroads location, served as a major headquarters of the Russian army and parts of the Moldavian armies. The town was again burned to the ground: according to one version, this was done as a retaliatory measure by Nohai Tatars; according to another account, the burning was done by the retreating Russians.
The development of the town, as well as of the entire country in the 18th century, suffered because the population had to support the burdens of regular invasions of three foreign armies – Ottoman, Russian, and Habsburg – which clashed in four major wars, pillaged, and performed extensive requisitions to supply their troops. The warring sides sometimes established separate administrations, with each side imposing serfdom-like obligations to provide labor for the movements and encampments of their own armies and exacting punishment when the residents fulfilled these same obligations for the other armies. The last vestiges of serfdom were formally abolished in Moldavia in 1749.
In 1766, the Moldavian prince Alexandru Ghica divided the Bălți estate into two parts, awarding one to the Saint Spiridon monastery of Iaşi and the other to the merchant brothers Alexandru, Constantin, and Iordache Panaiti. Over the next decades, the three brothers improved and developed the locality, settled farmers, and encouraged handicrafts and traders.
Moldavian voevodes built a basilica in the town in 1785. The same year, the land around the city was transferred from Soroca county to Iaşi county, and Bălți was the second largest locality in the county.
Nineteenth century
In 1812 – after a six-year war – the Treaty of Bucharest saw the Ottoman Empire, then Moldavia's suzerain, cede the eastern half of the country (including the town of Bălți) to the Russian Empire, under the name of Bessarabia.Prior to 1812, the name Bessarabia extended only to its southern quarter. Bălți benefited from the division of the Principality of Moldavia along the River Prut in 1812, because although the city of Iaşi remained on the right (west) bank, the largest part of Iaşi County was on the left (east) bank, and Bălți, then with a population of 8,000, gradually became its natural center.
In 1818, the town had serendipitously received formal city rights. According to a popular legend, the Russian tsar Alexander I visited his newly acquired province, and during his passing through Bălți he received news that he had a nephew: the future tsar Alexander II of Russia, had been born. Overjoyed, he granted Bălți official city status, turning it into the administrative center of the county. In 1828, the number of counties of Bessarabia was reduced from twelve to eight, but Iaşi County was preserved, and in 1887 it was renamed Bălți County.
Under Russian rule, the ethnic composition of the city diversified, and its economic development saw people arriving from Austrian Galicia and Russian Podolia, and some also from Russia proper (in particular Old Believers). Some of the new settlers were offered land; others sought freedom of religion, as the western provinces of the Russian Empire – and especially Bessarabia – were more liberal religiously and lacked serfdom. A significant number of Jews (from Galicia – then in the Habsburg Empire) – settled in Bălți; by the end of the century they had become a plurality, and later a majority. At its peak (before World War I), the Jewish community accounted for over 10,000 people, or up to 70% of the population of Bălți. Over time, 72 synagogues were built in the city. Jewish News Agency (AEN): "Заглянуть в лицо времени…", 9 November 2006
By 1894, the city had become a railroad hub connecting with Czernowitz, Hotin, Chişinău, Bender, Akkerman, and Izmail. The city was a regional center for the collection of wheat and other crops, which were then transported by railroad to Odessa. It also gradually developed into a center of commerce in Bessarabia, primarily dealing with cattle. At the beginning of the 20th century, Bălți was an industrial city with a well-established commerce and many small factories.
Twentieth century up to 1989
World War I period
On , the city hosted a County Congress of Farmers – the largest of its kind in Bessarabia – which sent representatives to the National Diet (Sfatul Țării). Pantelimon Halippa, Anatolie Moraru, "Testament pentru urmaşi", München, 1967, reprint Hyperion, Chişinău, 1991, p. 70
At the outset of World War I, most men in the region between the ages of 18 and 45 were enrolled in the Russian army, and subsequently self-organized into Moldavian Soldiers' Committees. They became a political force which drove many of the subsequent changes. In October/November 1917, after the dissolution of the Russian Empire, Bessarabia elected its Sfatul Țării, which opened on 21 November / 3 December 1917. The Diet proclaimed the Moldavian Democratic Republic on 2/15 December 1917; formed a government on 8/21 December 1917; proclaimed independence from Russia on 24 January / 6 February 1918; and then united itself with the Kingdom of Romania on 27 March / 9 April 1918 ). One of the city's representatives, a Mr. Trofim, gave a speech at the opening of the Sfatul Ţarii.
Bălți was not affected by World War I, aside from the recruitment and movement of troops.
On 17/30 May 1917, General Shcherbachov, Supreme Commander of the Russian Armies on the Romanian Front, consented to the request of the Moldavian Central Soldiers' Committee of All Bessarabia to form 16 cohorts, made up exclusively of Moldavian soldiers and commanded by Moldavian officers, and distributed them to all the counties of Bessarabia.Halipa, Moraru, p. 144 Ion Nistor "Istoria Basarabiei", 3rd edition, Cernăuţi, 1923, reprint Cartea Moldovenească, Chişinău, 1991, p. 275 In September, their number was further increased due to the pillaging and violence caused by deserters from the Russian army passing through the province. Although most of the deserter gangs were small in size, there were also several large ones. Two Cossack regiments remained in Bălți county. Additionally, the leadership of a 3,000-strong infantry detachment in Orhei faltered; this resulted in extensive pillaging of Bălți, Soroca and Orhei counties, with many dead, including several Bessarabian public personalities – an incident which caused an outcry among the inhabitants of the area.Halipa, Moraru, p. 70, p. 144Nistor, p. 275 The committees of the two regiments stationed in Bălți county adopted resolutions calling for continuous sacking until the soldiers were given discharge papers. In December 1917, when the Directorate General for Armed Forces of the Moldavian Democratic Republic was formed, one of its first units was in Bălți, where the Russian Empire's 478th Druzhina (popular militia unit) – composed almost entirely of Moldavians and led by Captain Anatolie Popa – was nationalized.Halipa, Moraru, p. 75-76 In March 1918, the Bălți Council of Landowners, along with those of Soroca and Orhei, submitted resolutions to the Sfatul Țării, asking it to consider union with Romania – a request that soon became reality.Nistor, p. 282
Inter-war period
The economy of Bălți expanded in the first part of the 20th century, and the town/city started to diversify. Many buildings in Bălți date from the inter-war period.
During the 1920s, the seat of the Bishopric was moved from Hotin to Bălţi. With the effort of Visarion Puiu, construction began on the Bishopric Palace, which was completed in 1933. The Saint Constantine and Elena Cathedral was finished in 1932 and officially inaugurated in 1933, in the presence of the Romanian royal family.
According to the Romanian official census for 1930, Bălți had a population of 30,570, comprising 14,229 Jews, 8,868 Romanians, 5,426 Russians, 981 Poles and 1,066 of other ethnicities.Recensământul general al populației României din 29 decembrie 1930, Vol. II, pag. XLVIII 14,400 of the inhabitants were Christian Orthodox, 14,250 Jewish, and 1,250 Roman Catholic. In that year, the city represented only 7.9% of the population of the surrounding Bălți County (it would be 30% of the same territory today).
By 1940, the city had reached close to 40,000 inhabitants. Approximately 45–46% were Jews, 29–30% were Romanians, and the rest were Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Germans.
World War II period After the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940, thousands of former teachers, doctors, office workers, and even better-to-do peasants from northern Bessarabia, thought to be hostile and dangerous to the Soviet regime, were gathered and deported in cattle cars to Siberia. Bălţi, as the most important railroad link in the north, served as a gathering point for this operation. The largest deportation occurred on 12–13 June 1941 from the Slobozia Railway Station. Alexandru Usatiuc-Bulgăr "Cu gîndul la "O lume între două lumi": eroi, martiri, oameni-legendă" ("Thinking of 'A World between Two Worlds': Heroes, Martyrs, Legendary People"), Publisher: Lyceum, Orhei (1999), The local economy (numerous small factories and shops) was largely dismantled during the evacuation; several factories and buildings were blown up.
From 22 June to 26 July 1941, the Romanian Army participated in Operation München, an Axis offensive against the Red Army in Bessarabia. After developing bridgeheads across the Prut, the army proceeded with its main advance on 2 July. According to the will of its new ally (Nazi Germany), Romania – now led by a pro-Fascist dictatorship – allotted an 80–km–long segment between its two armies to the 11th German Army, which comprised both German and Romanian units under German command. This portion of the frontline included Bălţi.Operation München – (German-Romanian) annexation (of) Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (from USSR) – 1941
The intent was for the city to be conquered by the 14th Romanian Division from the 30th German Corps, supported by the 170th German Division from the 54th German Corps. Soviet units managed to temporarily stop them on 4 July on the eastern outskirts of the town. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 13th Romanian Dorobanți regiment Ştefan cel Mare of the 14th Division maneuvered to the south and took the village of Biliceni and surrounding areas, at which time the 14th Division was transferred to the 54th German Corps.