The nightlife in Moldova is not only about clubs and loud music until sunrise.
It is also about the atmosphere.
As the evening begins, restaurants start filling, friends meet after work, couples find a table, groups order wine or beer, and during summer the terraces become part
of the street life.
People talk across tables, waiters move between them, music comes from somewhere nearby and nobody seems particularly interested in making the evening short.
Some are going somewhere else later and others are already exactly where they
want to be.
Chișinău has the biggest naturally choice.
Cocktail bars, wine bars, beer houses, pubs, karaoke, live music, lounges and nightclubs can all be found around the city.
On Friday and Saturday evenings, especially when it is warm, you notice people everywhere, small groups meeting outside restaurants, people looking for friends, taxis stopping and leaving again, music coming through open doors and terraces with almost every table occupied.
Later, some are going to clubs and places, where it is louder and more crowded.
Others stay where they started, with another bottle on the table and another plate of food arriving.
Both are part of the same night.
Outside Chișinău, evenings are smaller and more local.
Bălți has its pubs, bars and restaurants, while in Cahul, Orhei, Comrat, Soroca, Ungheni, Ceadîr-Lunga and Edineț, restaurants, cafés, terraces and local events are often where people meet.
You see friends recognising each other across a terrace.
Somebody stops at a table to say hello and is still standing there talking twenty minutes later.
During summer, people stay outside till much later.
And when there is a concert, festival or celebration, suddenly there are families, young people, children, music and food all around the centre.
It doesn't need hundreds of bars to feel alive.
In the villages, the people become even more important because there may be very little that looks like nightlife in the usual sense.
Somebody might have a wedding.
Music, dancing, tables full of food, relatives, friends and children moving
between everybody.
There are birthdays, village celebrations and local events too.
But it can also be much simpler warm evening. with a few people around a
table outside.
Somebody brings food..
Somebody opens the wine or beer, while a neighbour appears and pulls up another chair.
Perhaps nobody planned a night out, but noone is going home either.
The tables are important because people don't only go out to drink, they sit together and food is ordered, glasses are filled and conversations move from one subject to another.
Somebody laughs loudly from the next table, while another group is watching football.
Friends maybe arrives later and chairs are moved around to make room and while the plates may be empty, nobody gets up.
Then somebody orders something else.
apparently dinner wasn't quite finished after all. ;-)
As it gets later, places become louder and conversations become louder with them and there is life around you.
Wine naturally finds its way onto many of the tables, especially in the many wine regions. and at wineries and restaurants, people can spend hours eating, tasting wine and be talking.
Elsewhere it might be beer, cocktails or coffee.
The drink isn't really the important part, you just have to look around the
table and you will exsperience people talking, interrupting each other, laughing, sharing food and occasionally trying to convince everybody else that their opinion is obviously the correct one. ;-)
Meanwhile, Chișinău has people heading in the opposite direction - towards clubs and bars that are open into the early morning.
There is plenty of room for both.
That is nightlife in Moldova.
Not only the nightclubs, but It is the group laughing at the next table, the couple sharing a bottle of wine or friends watching football with beer and food.
People dancing at a wedding, a terrace still full late in the evening and music coming through an open door.
Someone is arriving when everybody else has already been there for two hours.
And the familiar moment when somebody looks at the time and realises that the evening became considerably and much longer than they planned.
That is when Moldova after dark feels alive.
Un lucru care îi surprinde pe mulți vizitatori atunci când descoperă viața de noapte din Moldova este cât de liniștită și sigură poate fi, chiar și târziu în noapte.
Pentru mulți dintre cei veniți din alte țări, Moldova se dovedește a fi mult mai liniștită și mai confortabilă seara decât se așteptau înainte de a o vizita.
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One thing that surprises many visitors who enter the nightlife in Moldova is how calm and safe it is, even late at night.
For many outsiders, Moldova turns out to be far more peaceful and comfortable during the evenings than they expected before visiting.
