This small land-locked East European nation has always been influenced by the presence of its larger neighbours whose wars and imperial ambitions often had dramatic impacts on the fate of the country.

Moldavia became a principality in 1359 when Bogdan I crossed the Carpathians and took control from the Hungarians. In the middle of the sixteenth century, it came under the influence of the Ottoman Empire becoming a vassal state, though Moldova retained control of its own affairs.

Following the end of the Russo-Turkish War, the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest ceded the eastern half of Moldavia to the Russian Empire, which was named the region Bessarabia. 

In 1918, after the end of the First World War and the collapse of the Russian Empire, Bessarabia united with Romania.

The Mileștii Mici wine cellar in Moldova is the world’s largest with nearly two million bottles of wine stored in its vaults.

This unity lasted until 1940 when Romania was compelled to cede the country to the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact when Romania was carved up between Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s USSR.