Bucovina and Moldavia - two lands full of history

Bucovina is renowned for the beautiful fresco on its monastery walls, with Byzantine influences.

Moldavia has large surfaces covered by hills and forests, where you can discover many extraordinary things. With a little bit of luck you can see ure oxen, species on the verge of extinction, who has been reintroduced in a natural reservation.

Iasi and Suceava, both former capitals, will captivate you and determine you to visit as many itineraries as possible. But don’t forget to try the Moldavian cuisine in the restaurants. Along with the local wine, there are very appreciated. The wine in Moldavia has been famous for over five centuries.

And if you want to enter the hospitable Romanian spirit, you can participate at the local holidays, with traditional food, plum brandy, wine, music and dancing, that you will always remember.

Iasi is an important Romanian cultural center, where the oldest University from Romania can be found. Many houses of famous Romanian writers have been kept and transformed in memorial houses. The most famous monument of the city is the “Trei Ierarhi” church, that dates back from 1639.

The Palace of Culture was opened in 1926 by King Ferdinand de Hohenzollern. The building of the Palace took two decades. The monument was built on the ruins of the old princely court, built in 1400, and rebuilt in 1800 in a neoclassic style.

Nowadays the Palace of Culture from Iasi includes: The Museum of History of Moldavia, The Ethnographical Museum of Moldavia, The Museum of Art, The Stefan Procopiu Science and Technique Museum.

The “Vasile Alecsandri” National Theatre was built over the old city hall, between 1894 and 1896. The building of the National theatre is considered to be the oldest and most beautiful house of this kind in the entire country. The building’s blueprints belong to the famous Viennese architects Fellner and Helmer, who designed similar constructions in Vienna, Prague, Odessa, Zurich.

The National Theatre building is a real architectural jewelry and it houses true art monuments: the curtain painted in 1896, the iron curtain with decorative motifs symmetrically arranged, the illustrated ceiling with fairies and angels, the chandelier of Venetian crystals, with 109 light bulbs. Today, this building also houses the Romanian Opera.

Opened at the same time as the theater, its power station marked the beginning of electrical illumination in Iasi.

The Roznovanul Palace, current headquarters of the Iasi city hall, is located in the heart of the city. In 1892, the Raznovanul Palace was used as a temporary residence by the royal family. Between 1916 and 1918, the palace housed headquarters for the ministries and the refugee political leaders from Bucharest. In the building where the Mayor’s Cabinet is now found, King Ferdinand had his office, and in the actual Meeting Hall of the Local Council, in 1918 Romania’s War Council was gathered.

Suceava is a town full of history, where you visit the ruins of the princely fortress of Stefan the Great, located on the heights near the city.

Cetatea de Scaun of Suceava is located on a hill, on the eastern side of the Suceava city. The Fortress was documentarily recorded on 10 February 1388.

Its initial building has a rectangular design and it is equipped, at its ends and at the middle of each side, with square shaped defensive towers. The stronghold is heavily fortified through a wall that surrounds the old fort. Moldavia’s mint functioned inside the fortress.

The Princely Court Suceava is located in the perimeter of the old medieval city. The first construction, a princely wooden house, equipped with a cellar, was built at the end of 1400. In the second half of 1400, a stone castle, equipped with a cellar, was built over the old princely house. The princely Court had the shape of an “L”.

The Princely Inn Suceava is one of the oldest civil constructions in town and it was built in the XV-XVI-th centuries, in an area of the medieval city where there were handicraft workshops, over an older construction.

The elements of the Moldavian architecture are kept on the ground floor, with thick stone walls. The first floor was built later on, when a hunting castle was arranged here. The Princely Inn houses the popular art section of the Museum’s Complex Suceava.

Bucovina’s Museum of History, built in 1900, exhibits in over 20 halls interesting pieces, that show the history of the people who lived there, from ancient times until today. The medieval period occupies an important place, because this territory represents the place where the independent feudal state, Moldavia, was formed. Here, in the medieval period, a remarkable Romanian art and culture thrived.

Of a great importance is the “Throne’s Hall”, in which the furniture, costumes and other objects reconstitute a image from the court of Stefan the Great.

The Village Museum was conceived as a traditional village of the Bucovina. An exhibition out in the open includes 80 monuments of popular architecture: the church, the school, peasant households, handicraft workshops, technical installations, the inn. The most valuable sights are:

The Church Vama, architectural monument dated in 1783.

The Dorna Candreni House, built at the end of the XVIII-th century; today it is the sole exemplar in the area.

Casa Rosu, built at the end of the XIX-th century, is representative for the area of Dornelor; the outstanding objective belonged to some rich peasants. A proof of this are the two ovens with urban elements and the large watch tower at the entrance.

The Inn of Mos Iordache, dated in the period of 1928-1930; it worked as an inn in the village Saru Dornei until after the second World War.

The stone mill from the Humorului Monastery, dated at the end of the XIX-th century, it was the biggest mill of this kind in the area.

Gospodaria Straja, dated in the middle of the XIX-th century, specific for the transition area from the mountain to the plateau.

Casa Ostra, dated in the middle of the XVIII-th century, monumental through its size.

The Museum of popular art from Vatra Dornei presents, in a modern museographical vision, the most valuable ethnographic objects from Tara Dornelor. It is organized in the building of the city hall, an architectural monument- built in 1897. The museum holds objects of a rare beauty from the popular costumes in Bucovania. The city museum, built in 1954, has three departments: contemporary plastic art, the science of nature and the cynegetics.

From Targu Neamt you can visit many monasteries and strongholds that are worth seeing. The Agapia Monastery, dates from the XVIII-th century. Its bright white facades bear the mark of the neoclassic style. Neamt Monastery is the oldest monastery in Moldavia. In the complex of the Neamt Monastery other monuments have been kept, such as the Bogoslov Church, located in the cemetery. The Fortress of Neamtului was an important location for defending the area. With a very old history, The Fortress of Neamtului is a valuable medieval monument for Romania.

In Bucovina, the monasteries illustrate biblical scenes and other religious scenes, that are painted in a similar style to that of the comic books, namely on segments. They had the role to arouse the local people’s imagination and to educate them in an orthodox manner. The churches are situated in the centre of the monastic complex and they all have pointy, tall, roofs. The Sun’s light can barely get inside the churches.

The Voronet Monastery was built by Stefan the Great in the year 1488. Its colorful paintings were added later. The paintings are a proof of the Byzantine classic art adaptation to the Moldavian realities, which is why the archangel’s trumpets have the shape of the alphorn used by the peasants from that region, and the souls damned to burn in the fires of hell have turbans like the ones of their Turkish enemies.

The Sucevita Monastery is located on a beautiful green valley. The Sucevita Monastery complex is fortified like a citadel, with watchtowers in all four corners. Thousands of paintings adorn thewalls of the church. From all the monasteries, Sucevita has the largest number of paintings, although its western side is white. Legend says that the painter fell off the scaffolding and died. Therefore, the wall remained undecorated.

The Moldovita Monastery, here, the scene of Constantinople’s siege on the walls of the church is painted in bright red, blue, yellow and brown shades. Inside the church there are pieces of furniture from the XVI-th century; the most interesting one is the armchair of voivode Petru Rares, whose size comes close to that of a throne. Here it can also be found a statue of this voivod who built the Moldovita Monastery.

The Arbore Monastery is rather small, without a tall cupola that is usually specific to most monasteries’ churches. The monastery is mostly decorated in shades of green. The scene from “The Genesis” on the western wall is full of movement and grace.