Ruginoasa Palace

Ruginoasa is a commune in Iaşi County, Moldavia, Romania. In the late 17th century, Sturdza boyar family bought the Ruginoasa estate from ruling prince Duca, owning it for almost 200 years. In the early 19th century, the Sturdza family possessed an estate in Ruginoasa of over 8,000 hectares.

The palace

In 1804, the grand treasurer of Moldavia Săndulache Sturdza hired the Viennese architect Johann Freiwald to build a luxury residence on the old home place of his ancestors. Also, the German gardener Mehler had to fit around the palace a park with alleys lined with statues, benches hidden in the labyrinths of greenery and even a pond surrounded by willows. The palace was built by in Neoclassical style, characteristic to the civil architecture in Moldavia at that time. It is a square building with a floor, with four nearly symmetrical facades with wide and straight platforms and balconies on all sides supported on stone slabs. In 1811, Săndulache Sturdza built behind the palace a church, on the place of a wooden church. This results from the inscription that was placed at the entrance and which was destroyed during the Second World War.

The church

The palace was inherited by Costache Sturza, Săndulache's son and cousin of ruling prince Mihai Sturdza (1834-1849). During 1847-1855, he brought here by the architect Johann Brandel which restored palace in Neo-Gothic style. In April 1857, Alexandru Sturdza, son of Costache, made a loan of 60,000 ducats to the Bank of Moldavia, mortgaging the palace. Because he wasn't able to paying the loan, the bank auctioned the palace. In 1862, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, ruler of the United Romanian Principalities, bought the palace and restored it.

Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Although the prince spent a few time at the palace, there lived his wife, Lady Elena Cuza (1825-1909), who took care of furnishing and decorating the garden and outbuildings. She hired craftsmen to repair the building and German gardeners to restore the park around the castle. The central staircase was built of marble, the walls were covered with silk from Paris, were built fireplaces and were brought expensive chandeliers. The furniture was commissioned in 1863 in Paris. The Ruginoasa palace was officially inaugurated by Prince Cuza, during the Easter holidays from April 1864.

Went into exile in 1866 after he was forced to abdicate, Prince Cuza continued to look after the estate in Ruginoasa. He leased the estate in 1866 with 5000 ducats a year to get the money to support its exile. Meanwhile, he refused to take a capital of 500,000 francs, deposited in the the Rothschild Bank by the new leadership of the Principalities. The former ruler died on 15 May 1873 in the city of Heidelberg (Germany), and his earthly remains were brought to Ruginoasa on 29 May 1873 and were buried in a tomb near the church. His remains have been displaced several times: in 1907 were moved in the crypt of the church in a silver box located in an oak coffin, in spring 1944 were removed from the church by a soldier from Ruginoasa and moved to Curtea de Argeş, then in 1946 were moved again in a crypt in Three Hierarchs Church in Iaşi.

Alexandru Cuza, the son of the Prince, left the estate in Ruginoasa to his wife, Maria Moruzzi. In 1921, the palace was donated to the "Charity" Hospital for Children in Iaşi. Part of the furniture was donated to the Military Museum. In subsequent years, began the building damage, which was exacerbated by the war. The palace was badly damaged during the battles fought nearby in World War II, remaining only some enclosure walls and the ruins of the castle. It was reconstructed during 1968-1978, when was restored the palace, a part of the enclosure wall and a stronghold in the north-west. In 1982 was officially inaugurated the Memorial Museum "Alexandru Ioan Cuza", with history and ethnography sections. The palace impresses its visitors today with the stories hidden within its walls, stories that point to Ruginoasa as a cursed palace in popular belief. The superstition arose following the death (including a suicide) in the palace of several young people.

The Sturdza Castle in Miclăuşeni

Around 1410, the ruling prince of Moldavia, Alexandru cel Bun, (1400-1432) gave to the boyar Miclăuş (1380-1440), member of the Prince's Council, a large estate, located near Siret River meadow. The estate became known as Miclăuşeni after the death of the nobleman. On April 25th 1591, Miclăuş's descendants sold the estate to treasurer Simon Stroici (1550-1623). He built a mansion whose ruins could still be seen at the beginning of the twentieth century. Through a last will of 5 June 1622, treasurer Simon Stroe bequeathed the Miclăuşeni village to Lupu Prăjăscu. In 1697, the descendants of Lupu Prăjăscu bequeathed the estate to brothers Ion and Sandu Sturdza, their distant relatives. On April 19 1699, Sturdza brothers have divided the possession, Miclăuşeni being awarded to Ion Sturdza.

In 1752, boyar Ion Sturdza (1710-1792) raised here a cross shaped landlord's mansion here with a basement and ground floor. The manor had 20 rooms, ten on each floor. The manor had stables with pure race trained horses. Concerned about extending the estate, the son of Ion Sturdza, Dimitrie, built during 1821-1823 a church in the yard, near the castle. He endowed it with a beautiful baroque iconostasis and many valuable religious objects. Dimitrie Sturdza wrote in 1802 the first draft of the Republican Constitution of the Romanian. Son of Dimitrie, Alecu Sturdza Miclăuşanu, arranged on a surface of 42 hectares around the mansion a beautiful English-style park with ornamental trees and many species flower alleys. He handled the purchase of several books and rare manuscripts collections that have enriched the manor's library. He died of cholera in 1848 and is buried in the church manor. After his death, his widow Catincathe administrated the estate and she left the it to his son, George A. Sturdza, in 1863.

In 1869, George Sturdza married Maria, daughter of writer Ion Ghica, and moved then to the estate. Between 1880 and 1904, George Sturdza built at the site of old mansion a beautiful palace in the late Gothic style, a copy of Western feudal castles and recalling the Palace of Culture, but also the Royal Palace of Ruginoasa. Construction plans have been made by the architects Julius Reinecke and I. Grigsberg. The castle was in those days a proof of high cultural level of its owners that brought among the Moldavia hills models of existence, of construction and of environment that Sturdza have found during his trips along the Southern and
Western Europe.

Outside, the building had numerous decorations (including emblems inspired by the Sturdza family crest: a lion with a sword and an olive branch), completed in 1898 in Art Nouveau style by architect Julius Reinecke. This was helped by Maria Sturdza, who illustrated many of the poems of Vasile Alecsandri, neighbor and a close family friend. Neo-Gothic influences are found in decoration such as Gothic towers, medieval armors, tower entrance with bridge over a water ditch, riding school hall, Latin dicta on walls. Inside, the castle has a central staircase in Dalmatia marble, elaborately carved rosewood furniture, fireplaces in terracotta, porcelain and earthenware, made abroad, intarsia parquet with essences of maple, mahogany, oak and ebony, made by Austrian craftsmen and painted ceilings and interior walls.

The Sturdza's family vast library of 60,000 books contained at the time exquisite books, published in the European space, the theological ones being directly ordered as soon as they were published. Out of all these, quite few ones were preserved; over 50.000 of them disappearing after the II World War.

The castle with the church (and now including the monastery and pilgrim and aging people centre) of Miclăuşeni comes in support of this idea belonging to the Metropolitan Orthodox Church of Moldavia and Bucovina and is waiting for Europe to discover it as an integrated part, not only since the third millennium but from the beginning of XXth century.

Thanks to Jurnal Românesc for the ideea!