The largest park in Chisinau covers around 130 hectares on the western slopes of the city, built around an artificial lake fed by the small Schinoasa stream. It was laid out in 1950 as a Soviet "park of culture and rest" — that is, a green space designed for mass leisure — and it still has the cascading flight of monumental steps from Stefan cel Mare Boulevard down to the water that the original architects designed for ceremonial parades.
Today it is the city's main running, cycling, and picnic park. The lake has paddle-boats in summer and a popular waterside path. The Pioneer Palace observatory listed in the Atlas Obscura sits abandoned on the upper terraces. About 4 km from the centre; reachable by trolleybus 4 or 22.