Comrat is the capital of one of the most unusual peoples in Europe: the Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking community of Orthodox Christian faith, an almost unique case in the world. Here, in southern Moldova, beats the heart of Gagauzia, an autonomous region that keeps its language, its cuisine, its traditions and its strong identity. Visiting Comrat means glimpsing a fascinating culture, a blend of Turkic roots, Ottoman and Byzantine heritage, centuries of life in the Balkans and the steppe, and a modern history shaped by resistance to assimilation.
The town offers an authentic and very untouristy experience: St John the Baptist Cathedral, the central market brimming with cheeses, cured meats and homemade wine, Comrat State University (successor to the Gagauz National University), the Avenue of Gagauz Glory and, a few kilometres away in Besalma, the large Gagauz History and Ethnography Museum, with thousands of pieces telling the story of this people. Add to that the food (lamb with herbs, lamb dishes and spiced couscous) and the wineries of the south, such as the historic Vinuri de Comrat, in operation since 1897.
This practical guide explains how to get to Comrat from Chișinău (by cheap bus or rutiera, with no border checks), what to see in the town and in nearby Besalma, when to go to catch the Hederlez festivities or the grape harvest, and how to combine Gagauz culture and wine tasting on a trip through the south of the country. An ideal destination for curious travellers who want to discover one of Europe's most interesting minorities and the warmest face of Moldovan hospitality.
Comrat was founded around 1789 and was settled mainly in the 19th century, when the Russian Empire placed Gagauz and Bulgarian colonists from present-day Bulgaria, fleeing Ottoman rule, in southern Bessarabia. The Gagauz, a Turkic-speaking but Orthodox Christian people, made Comrat their centre. In 1906 the town was the scene of a brief uprising, the short-lived 'Comrat Republic'. After the Soviet era, when Moldova became independent in 1991, the Gagauz feared a union with Romania and proclaimed their own republic; unlike Transnistria, the crisis was resolved peacefully: on 23 December 1994 the Moldovan Parliament passed the law on the special status of Gagauzia, in force since January 1995. The Gagauz National University, today Comrat State University, had been founded in 1991. Since then the town has been the capital of the Gagauz autonomy. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Two regions apart: Transnistria, a breakaway strip where the symbols of the USSR live on, and Gagauzia, the autonomous homeland of a Turkic, Christian people in the south.
Read the history of Transnistria and Gagauzia →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. There are not many in Chisinau, but the ones there are worth it. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Tap the cards below and have a look.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
To understand Comrat you have to understand the Gagauz, one of the most distinctive peoples in Europe. They are a Turkic-speaking community (Gagauz belongs to the Turkic language family and is related to the Turkish spoken in Turkey), but they are Orthodox Christians. That combination of a Turkic language and a Christian faith is very rare anywhere in the world, and it defines who they are. The Gagauz often say, with pride, that they are the only Orthodox Christian Turkic people.
Historians still debate exactly where the Gagauz come from. The most widely held theory links them to Turkic peoples who settled in the Balkans in the Middle Ages. These may have been the Proto-Bulgarians, the Pechenegs, the Cumans or the Seljuk Turks who moved into the Balkans. Living under the influence of the Byzantine Empire, in Christian lands, they took up Orthodoxy but kept their Turkic language. For centuries they lived in what is now Bulgaria and the north-eastern Balkans.
That double heritage is the key to everything that came later: Turkic in language and customs, Christian and Balkan in faith. When history pushed them to emigrate, the Gagauz took this unusual identity with them and replanted it in southern Bessarabia. There, around Comrat, it is still alive today. Knowing these roots helps you read every corner of the city. The Orthodox cathedral where people pray, the market where you hear Gagauz and Russian, the cooking with its pastoral roots: all of it goes back to a people with a foot in each of two worlds.
Comrat's story as a Gagauz town begins at the turn of the 19th century. The settlement was founded around 1789 in part of southern Bessarabia known as the Budjak. The Nogais, a nomadic Turkic people, had lived there, but the wars between the Russian and Ottoman empires left the area half empty. When Russia annexed Bessarabia in 1812, the imperial government looked for people to resettle this fertile but empty land.
The Gagauz and Bulgarians of the Balkans took that chance. They were fleeing war and harsh conditions under Ottoman rule, and they were drawn by the land and incentives the Russian Empire offered. In the early decades of the 19th century, thousands of Gagauz and Bulgarian families crossed the Danube and settled in southern Bessarabia. A Russian decree of 1819 specifically encouraged this resettlement. The settlers founded or repopulated villages such as Comrat, Congaz, Tomai, Cișmichioi and Avdarma, which still form the heart of Gagauzia today.
Comrat became the centre of the community. The Gagauz lived from farming, winegrowing and herding, and kept their Turkic language and Orthodox faith from one generation to the next, even with Moldovans, Bulgarians, Russians and Ukrainians all around them. In 1906, during the upheaval of the Russian Revolution, Comrat was the scene of a brief but famous episode: the short-lived 'Comrat Republic'. This peasant uprising lasted only a few days, but it is remembered as an early sign of local self-assertion. By then, the Gagauz sense of identity had taken firm root.
In the 20th century, Comrat and the Gagauz were drawn into the great changes sweeping the region. After the First World War, Bessarabia joined Romania (1918), and the Gagauz became a minority within the Romanian state. In 1940, and for good after the Second World War, the USSR took over Bessarabia and created the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Comrat and the rest of Gagauzia ended up inside it, in the south.
In the Soviet period, the Gagauz went through the collectivisation of farming, industrialisation and the regime's policy on nationalities. Russian became firmly established as the common language and the language of prestige. Many Gagauz were educated and worked in Russian, but they kept their own language at home and in the community. As elsewhere in the USSR, the Orthodox faith was officially repressed, but it lived on in everyday practice.
The Soviet regime never granted the Gagauz political autonomy, but it did indirectly strengthen their sense of being a people. In 1957 a written standard was set for the Gagauz language. An intellectual class grew up as well: writers, poets and researchers such as Dmitri Kara Çoban, founder of the ethnographic museum in Besalma, who worked to preserve and study Gagauz culture. When the USSR began to fall apart in the late 1980s, this Gagauz national consciousness was ready to express itself politically. It did so at a particularly delicate moment for Moldova.
The end of the USSR put Moldova and its minorities to the test. In the late 1980s, the Moldovan national movement pushed for Romanian to become the official language again, and union with Romania became a real possibility. The Gagauz, like the Russian speakers of Transnistria, saw this as a threat. As a Turkic people, they feared being sidelined or assimilated in a Romanian state with no room for them.
In August 1990, Comrat proclaimed an autonomous Gagauz republic separate from Moldova. The government in Chișinău declared it unconstitutional. There were moments of great tension, including mobilisations that came close to turning violent. But this is where Gagauzia's story parted sharply from Transnistria's. While the left bank of the Dniester slid into war in 1992, the Gagauz conflict moved towards dialogue.
After years of hard and sometimes heated negotiations, on 23 December 1994 the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova passed the 'Law on the Special Legal Status of Gagauzia', which came into force on 14 January 1995. The law recognised Gagauzia as an autonomous territorial unit within Moldova. It has its own People's Assembly, an executive led by the Başkan, or governor, and three official languages: Gagauz, Russian and Moldovan. It even has the right to self-determination if Moldova ever loses its independence. It was a peaceful, pioneering settlement, often cited as a good example of how to resolve an ethnic and territorial conflict, and a sharp contrast with the armed outcome in Transnistria.
Since 1995, Comrat has been the official capital of Gagauzia, the autonomous territorial unit in southern Moldova. The People's Assembly and the Gagauz executive are based here, and it is the hub of the region's cultural and educational life. A milestone of this institutional revival was the founding in 1991 of the Gagauz National University, which later became Comrat State University. It trains the community's young people and has been key to strengthening Gagauz identity and leadership.
The city proudly keeps its character. You hear Gagauz in the streets alongside Russian. The Cathedral of St John the Baptist reflects the people's Orthodox faith, and the Besalma Museum looks after thousands of objects from their history. The market, the food (lamb with herbs, ribs with spiced couscous) and the wineries keep traditions alive, among them the historic Vinuri de Comrat, founded in 1897. The Hederlez festivities in May, with horse races and Horo dances, are the high point of the year for Gagauz identity.
Present-day Gagauzia has its share of political tension. The region leans strongly towards Russia and has clashed with the central government, especially as Moldova moves closer to the European Union. Even so, these tensions play out in politics and institutions, within the framework of the autonomy agreed in 1994. For travellers, Comrat offers something rare: a chance to get to know a Turkic, Christian people who have held on to their identity through centuries of migration, empires and shifting borders. Today they celebrate it with hospitality, good food and even better wine.
