The Chișinău State Circus is a striking 1981 modernist building shaped like a UFO crash-landed on a hill — a low cylinder with a deep cantilevered ring of concrete shading the lobby windows. It once seated 1,900 spectators around a single ring, hosted touring Soviet circus companies, and was the proud emblem of late-Brezhnev-era Chisinau.
After Moldova's independence the circus fell into disrepair and stood abandoned for over twenty years, its glass long since smashed and its sculpted reliefs vandalised. A restoration began in 2018 and is staggering forward; small-scale performances resumed in 2022. Worth a 15-minute look from the outside for fans of Soviet modernism. About 3 km north of the centre.