The City I Forgot I Remembered
A two-day visit to the place I once called home
I was born in a city called Bălți, in Moldova. We immigrated when I was eight years old and I did not go back for twenty five years. I needed my birth certificate, but back when I was born it was still the Soviet Union, so my original one didn’t mean much anymore. I needed an updated one, that’s how this visit started. I didn’t come back for nostalgia. I came back for paperwork.
I always imagined my first visit back differently. I imagined traveling with my partner, telling her stories in the streets where they happened. We’d spend a month or two driving across the country. Eating mamaliga, drinking local beer, laughing over inside jokes I’d finally explain. What I got instead was a last-minute solo flight, and a two-day sprint to dig up documents.
I landed in Chișinău, Moldova’s capital, and an old family friend picked me up. It was my dad’s friend, and the father of my best friend when I was eight. I wasn’t sure we would recognize each other. I am not an eight year old anymore, and he is in his seventies now. But the moment we locked eyes at the airport, he smiled and said, “You look just like your dad.” I laughed and said, “Then you must be waiting for me.”
We spent the two and a half hours to Bălți catching up on two and a half decades. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, but the connection was instant. The road was dark, storm clouds in the sky, but somehow the drive felt familiar. Even without seeing anything, I felt right at home.
The next morning, after sorting out the paperwork, I wandered the city for the first time as an adult. I realized that as a child I hadn’t seen much of it at all. But even without knowing the city, and having long forgotten the language, I felt like I belonged. The streets felt more like a large village than a city. Old, but oddly modern. Big, but small at the same time. I found the only brewery in town, and sat with a beer that tasted exactly like I imagined.
Later, I returned to the house I was staying in. Homemade food waiting for me, smells I didn’t realize I missed. I couldn’t remember much, but somehow everything still felt right. That night, it didn’t feel like I was visiting. It felt like I was back.
The next day I went searching for the few memories I had left. I started at the cemetery, to find my grandparents’ graves. I had no idea where they were, so I called my aunt who walked me through the directions from memory. I wandered for a while, unsure, until I finally found them. And that’s when the flashbacks began. I remembered the visits as a kid, placing a small stone on the grave, my parents drinking a shot of vodka in their memory. I didn’t bring any vodka, but I paid my respects.
From there, I visited the neighborhood we lived in. That’s when the real memories came rushing back. The buildings had changed a little, but not enough to trick my body. I could close my eyes and still know exactly where to go. I passed the apartment of my childhood friend, his dad’s place, still exactly as I remembered it. I walked in, instinctively turning toward the kitchen. Then the room where we spent entire afternoons building Lego castles and playing video games. Muscle memory doesn't need a map.
Out of curiosity, I walked to the building where I once lived. As I climbed the stairs, I met an older man who was moving slowly up. I asked if he knew who lived in my family’s old apartment. He told me it was empty. Locked. And then he said something that froze me: “I live across the hall. Always have.” He was our old neighbor. Twenty-five years later, still right there. I took a photo with him to send to my dad. A little proof that some pieces of the past are still intact, still standing.
The last stop on my memory lane was the school. The one where I went for first grade. The one where my mom was a teacher. I walked through the halls and classrooms, now worn and a little cracked, and saw her face in an old class photo on the wall. Time had passed, but it felt like nothing changed. Outside, the steep road we used to slide down with our sleds in winter was still there, exactly where I remembered.
I spent only a few childhood years in Bălți, and most of what I remember are flashes. But somehow, it still felt like mine. Every kid I passed reminded me of me. Every adult my age felt like someone I could’ve grown up with. Every elderly person looked like a copy of my parents. The way they walk, the way they talk, the way they smile. It was all too familiar to be foreign.
The visit was short. Rushed. Unplanned. I’m still not sure if I missed this place. But I know that it felt like home.
I didn’t come back for nostalgia, but it found me anyway.
If you’ve ever returned to a childhood you barely remember, or felt something in your bones that your mind forgot, I’d love to hear your story.
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I want to keep my writing free for everyone. But if you feel like I deserve a beer for this story I will not say no to that :)