The oldest surviving building in Chisinau, perched on a small hill above the lower town. The Măzărache Church is a single-domed, white-painted Moldavian-style church of squat proportions — short, square nave, narrow apse, and a separate octagonal bell tower added in the 19th century. It looks more like a fortified village church than a city landmark, which is exactly what it was when the city centre lay further north along the river.
Inside, the iconostasis is 20th-century, but a few earlier wall paintings survive in the apse. The location, on Mitropolit Petru Movilă Street near the railway station, also gives the best surviving glimpse of the old, irregular street plan that survived the Soviet rebuilding of central Chisinau. Free; open mornings.