The Town of Bârlad

Bârlad is a town in the south of Vaslui County, on the valley of the Bârlad River, with a population of about 55,000. The area shows traces of habitation from the 6th–5th millennia BC, while the first documentary mention dates from an act of 1174. Set at the crossroads of old trade routes, Bârlad was an important centre of Lower Moldavia, for a time holding the status of "Seat of the Lower Land" — Dimitrie Cantemir called it "the foremost market town of Lower Moldavia". Bârlad is best known, however, for its exceptional cultural density. It is home to the "Vasile Pârvan" Museum, founded in 1914, with rich collections of archaeology, numismatics, history and art, complemented by an astronomical observatory, a planetarium and a 3D cinema. The theatrical tradition, present since 1860, culminated in the State Theatre, inaugurated in 1955 and named in 1956 after the Bârlad-born playwright Victor Ion Popa. The "Gheorghe Roșca Codreanu" High School, founded in 1846, is one of the oldest educational institutions in Moldavia, while the "Academia Bârlădeană" cultural society shaped the town's literary life. Bârlad has given Romanian culture and science figures of the first rank: the archaeologist Vasile Pârvan, the physicist Ștefan Procopiu, the princess and pianist Elena Bibescu, the playwright Victor Ion Popa and, not least, the scientist George Emil Palade, the only Romanian Nobel laureate (for Medicine, 1974). The town centre preserves buildings with 19th- and early 20th-century architecture. Bârlad is worth visiting for its substantial cultural heritage, its long-established museum and theatre, and the legacy of the personalities who made it famous.