Every April, Irina Sihova returns to the Jewish cemetery in the Moldovan capital Chisinau(formerly called Kishinev) where she visits the graves of her great-grandparents and remembers a tragedy that left an indelible mark on her entire family: the Kishinev pogrom of 1903.
This was one of the most violent anti-Jewish riots in what was then the Russian Empire, which at the time included the territory of what is now the Republic of Moldova.
The pogrom happened over the Easter period of 1903. Because Easter that year fell on April 6–8 according to the Julian calendar and April 19–21 according to the Gregorian calendar, the city commemorates the pogrom throughout the month of April.
The riots claimed at least 49 lives, left more than 500 injured and triggered a wave of Jewish emigration.