Bălți

Bălți is a municipality in the north of Moldova and the country's third largest city by population, area and economic importance after Chisinau and Tiraspol. It is a major industrial, cultural and commercial centre and a transport hub, standing on hills above the river Raut, a tributary of the Dniester, about 127 kilometres north of Chisinau. The name is the plural of the Romanian word balta, meaning puddle, and is believed to refer to the wetland where the creek Rautel meets the Raut, below the hill on which the city was founded. Between the wars it had a large Jewish community, and its oldest surviving building, a boyar house, dates to 1609.