Cahul

Cahul lies in southern Bessarabia near the lower Prut. The settlement was recorded as Șcheia in 1502 and as Frumoasa in 1716, before receiving the name Cahul in memory of a major eighteenth-century battle fought in the surrounding district. Its position near the river and the Danube placed it in the lands contested by Moldavia, the Ottoman Empire and Russia over many generations.

In 1770, during the Russo-Turkish War, a Russian army under Pyotr Rumyantsev defeated a much larger Ottoman force at the Battle of Kagul. The settlement remained part of Moldavia until the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812 brought Bessarabia under Russian rule. Its successive names preserve both the older Moldavian village and the memory of the battle that made the district famous.