Send Gift Baskets to Vaslui, Romania

According to archaeological surveys, Vaslui’s territory has been inhabited since the Neolithic era. During the following centuries, it developed into the provincial town of Vaslui, with a population that fluctuated considerably. Vaslui appears for the first time in a Polish document in 1375, referring to Koriat’s son Yuri Koriatovich. Additionally, Vaslui was mentioned in 1435 in connection with the accession of Prince Iliaş to the Moldavian throne. As a result of the Tatar invasion of Moldavia in 1439 and 1440, the town was burned to the ground.

In the 15th century, Vaslui reached its peak of importance as a second-rank capital of Moldavia under Stephen the Great (r. 1457–1504) when its population approached that of Iași. During the Battle of Vaslui in 1475, Prince Stephen won his most significant victory over the Ottoman Empire. In the next three centuries, Vaslui declined into a local borough (târg) after the Moldavian capital moved to Iași from Suceava, and Bârlad became the administrative center for southern Moldavia.

Jewish communities once numbered in the thousands in Vaslui. Its arrival from Galicia during the second half of the 19th century boosted local economic development. Vaslui was home to the Vasloi Hasidic dynasty in 1899 when Jews constituted 37% of the population. Waves of pogroms decimated this population linked to the Holocaust (see Romania during World War II and Holocaust in Romania) and emigration to Israel during Romania’s communist period.

Vaslui was the site of the relocation of the Stephen the Great Monument during World War II. Soviet troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front captured Vaslui on 22 August 1944 during the Jassy–Kishinev Offensive.

With immigration from the neighboring countryside, attracted by the Communist regime’s industries, Vaslui’s population steadily increased after 1968, when the town became the county’s administrative center.