A copy of the first general urban planning scheme of Balti town was displayed at the local Museum of History and Ethnography on the occasion of 170 years of the drawing up of this document, IPN reports.

According to museographer Lidia Noroc-Pinzaru, the first general urban planning strategy of the settlement was approved by Russian emperor Nicolai I at the start of 1845, 27 years after Balti obtained the status of town.

Ex-chief architect of Balti Boris Gritunic, who heads the Balti branch of the Institute “Urbanproiect”, said the first general urban planning scheme includes the urban development plan for several years on. It referred only to the current center of the town as there were no other quarters then. Of the buildings present in the urban planning scheme of 1845, only the Cathedral “Saint Nicolae” still exists.

According to Boris Gritunic, the next general urban planning scheme of Balti was designed and approved in 1953, when the town had to be restored following the destruction caused by World War II. Afterward, new such strategies were worked out every ten years. The last scheme was approved in 2005. Over the last few years, the local authorities repeatedly broke the general urban planning scheme. As a result, whole quarters with an incontestable historical value were demolished.