candidate: In 1917 , after the February Revolution in Petrograd , " Moldavian Revolutionary Committees of Soldiers " were organized in the major Russian cities where recruits from Bessarabia were concentrated : Odessa , Kiev , Sevastopol , Kherson , Novo - Georgevsk , Moroski ( Minsk gubernia ) in Russia , as well as in Iași , Roman , and Bârlad on the Romanian Front , plus smaller ones .