"Petru Rareș" National College

The Bistriţa River springs from the Rodnei mountains, located in Maramureș, and crosses Neamţ county for a length of 118 km, with a hydrographic basin area of 3678 km2. The average altitude of the hydrographic basin is about 920 m, and the relief is characterized by massiveness and higher altitudes in the west and in the upper part of the hydrographic basin, then decreasing towards the east and southeast. After 1960, the middle and lower reaches of the Bistrita River were developed for hydropower by building a number of 9 reservoirs and 13 hydropower plants. The largest reservoir is Izvorul Muntelui, with a volume of 1.12 billion cubic meters. Bistrița is still a river known to the general public, especially due to the history and tradition of rafters. "Any tourist who comes to see the delightful positions of Neamț should not leave this region until he has taken a raft excursion. It's an excursion from Dorna to Piatra." described Victor Nămolaru in the book "Small tourist guide to Piatra-Neamț (year 1969)". The author described this means of transportation, but also of leisure, as follows: "The raft is a meeting of beams, masts, cabinets placed next to each other and tied by straps. For excursions, you will only go on locker rafts, the others being more dangerous. It is driven by two very rudimentary shovels, called pens. The raftman in front is called the helmsman, and almost all the management depends on him, the other is called the helmsman support and sits at the other end of the raft." Photo credit: Ciprian Ionuț

On Ştefan cel Mare street, in front of the "Nicu Albu" Public Garden, the Neculai Albu House, built around the middle of the 19th century, is preserved. It is a one-story building, which originally belonged to C.Semaca, which is why some prefer to indicate the monument with the name of its first owner. The house stands out among the surrounding buildings through its orientation and architecture. While all the buildings are oriented east-west with the facade facing the street, the monument runs from north to south, perpendicular to the axis of the highway. In fact, this layout is an additional clue that proves the existence of a secondary street that passed in front of the house, allowing the approach "on a scale" of different vehicles. The plan of the building is rectangular and includes the existence of two functionally and constructively well-differentiated bodies: one towards the south, with arched windows on the ground floor and a pediment on the first floor, the second occupying the entire middle part of the building and, through the linear arrangement of the rooms, proves that here the entire commercial and financial activity directed by the owner was carried out. The ground floor of the main body has the appearance of a portico on whose columns rests the porch (in Romanian style) of the floor. Under this aspect, Necula Albu's house can be considered as a typical example of architectural reconciliation of the new urbanizing-modern trends with the tradition of old wooden constructions. Source of information: www.monumenteneamt.ro

The beautiful mansion on 18 Ștefan cel Mare Street was built in 1929. It borrowed the details of the facades from the Cucuteni Museum and the Precista Church. Currently, the building is used as the headquarters of Moldavia S.A., but it can be admired from the outside.

Within the parish is also the former hermitage of St. Apostles Peter and Paul'', which belonged to the Bistrita Monastery, but which until 1989 was a myrrh church. The church "Saints Apostles Peter and Paul" (Doamna hermitage), is also called "the hermitage across the valley". Among the old churches that adorn the Piatra-Neamţ municipality today, there is no doubt the Doamna Church, whose immaculate walls guard a small plateau to the right of Bistriţa, under the forested foothills of Cernegura. The building impresses at first sight with its small dimensions and its simplicity, a sign that it was built to serve the needs of faith and piety of a monastic community with a small number of inhabitants. The strong walls, which sometimes exceed the thickness of 1.5 m, rise according to the usual flat plan, with well-contoured apses and which on the outside present three flat faces joined at an angle. The gabled roof, slightly flared above the apse of the altar, unfolds uniformly up to the short belfry that rises at the western extremity, above the original entrance" (M. Dragotescu - 2003). At the time of the first consecration, the church had only one room, and much later the porch on the longitudinal axis of the nave and the vestry on the southern side, next to the apse of the altar, were added.   The narrow porch is covered with a star vault supported by four pairs of ribs, which contrasts with the stylistic purity of the semi-cylindrical vault of the nave, which extends even above the altar. The lateral apses are hollowed out in the thickness of the walls, and above the exit from the nave there is a small cage that provides access to the belfry. Restored in 1991-1993, a porch was added on the southern side. The Doamna Church had no painting either inside or outside. The interior was made between 1995-1998. Above the entrance to the porch, two mosaic medallions with the portraits of the Saints Apostles Peter and Paul were recently executed. On the other hand, the tapestry, made of three cabinets of impressive proportions, showcases the entire range of sculptural motifs characteristic of a neo-Byzantine style somewhat autochthonized through the massive presence of decorative elements taken from the folk art of the Bistriţa Valley. The upper registers contain icons painted directly on the boards and the ones at the base removable icons, separated by miniature columns, artistically carved. Stylized plant motifs dominate with authority the fields between the icons and a large part of the surface of the royal doors, and the faces of the saints, painted by Mihai Zugravul, stand out through expressiveness and a happy combination of colors.   The following inscription found right on the iconostasis provides the chronological precision necessary to date this creation with undeniable artistic qualities: "This holy iconostasis was made through the diligence of His Holiness Kir Kalestru, hieromonk and priest of this hermitage, at 1802". Regarding the dating of the monument, it is difficult to specify the year of construction, given the lack of any epigraphic or documentary mention to remember it. Of great help in the approximate dating of the Doamna Hermitage is the inscription on the stone cross that has been preserved as a heritage document in the endowment of the church: "Here rests the servant of God Hieromonk Mitrofan, by whom this Holy Church is made" which indicates the date of the founder's death on December 6, 1790. It follows that the church was built before this year, probably 1789 (?), the iconostasis being installed later by the hieromonk Kalistru, the successor of the founder Mitrofan. Historian Marcel Dragotescu (2003), shows that "taking into account the specifics of Romanian hermit life and the evolution of other monastic places in Moldova and in the area, we believe that the Doamna Hermitage was built since the middle of the 18th century as a small wooden church, and later, between the years 1788-1790, the current brick church was built". In favour of this point of view are the liturgical books that have been preserved, the oldest dating from the 1760-1785 period: a Gospel printed in the 1762 period with a note written in Cyrillic letters on several pages, an Octoih edited at Bucharest in 1774 and a Triod appeared in Râmnic in 1784.  Foto & text  credit: www.monumenteneamt.ro

"This holy church was built through the effort and expense of Ioil, hegumen of Bisericani, 1776 - / s - Hs - Nika. " The "Assuption of the Mother of God" church in Vânătorii Pietrei is built of fir beams on a stone foundation, in a specific Moldavian style, with a cruciform plan, the side apses and that of the altar being slightly pronounced. The south porch and the pronaos that extends the nave of the church to the west are later additions, as is the blind spire with a bulbous cover, which still gives more suppleness and amplitude to the whole building. The gable roof in two pitches, with flared edges, is rounded at the apse of the altar and above the western extremity. All the apses have a pentagonal covering of boards on the outside, the spaces between the lateral sides and the apse of the altar closing at right angles. Inside, the vestibule and pronaos have a flat roof, but the nave rises through an elegant semi-cylindrical longitudinal vault, which extends to the iconostasis. The lateral apses are covered in an arch and the altar is dominated by a transverse supporting vault, towards which the ribs of a sphere segment converge. The current wooden strucure is of recent date and attracts attention through the vivacity of the colors and the expressiveness of the icons that compose it. On the other hand, the original tapestry, made together with the church in the 18th century and preserved in the Văratic Monastery Museum, is a piece of great artistic value and extraordinary beauty. Made of linden and oak wood, the old temple from Vânătorii Pietrei strictly respects the hierarchical and spatial arrangement specific to Orthodox Christian iconography, but what is striking at first sight in these paintings is the combination of different but not eclectic stylistic elements, from which resulted in a unitary assembly of certain originality. The psychology of the biblical characters emanates a certain Byzantine hieratism, the chromaticism used has that specific Renaissance inner glow, and the frequency of locally inspired secondary plans insistently refers to the frescoes from Voroneţ and Suceviţa. The wooden Church of the "Assuption of the Mother of God" in Piatra-Neamț is listed as a historical monument. The assembly has the code NT-II-a-B-10559 and consists of the following components: - The "Assuption of the Mother of God" wooden church (code LMI NT-II-m-B-10559.01) - Bell tower (LMI code NT-II-m-B-10559.01)

The Ivaşcu wooden house was built at the beginning of the 19th century from shaped beams over which successive layers of plaster were later applied. The high foundation, made of river stone fixed with mortar, was executed with great care, thus becoming the most important element in the aesthetics of the facade and the building as a whole. The asymmetric body of the construction is fragmented by an open porch, supported by 5 wooden columns and with its own covering. Moreover, this porch, which is the characteristic element of constructions of this type, appears as a southern development of the porch with braced arches, which stretches along the entire length of the facade. The sense of asymmetry of the construction is also maintained by the entrance located on the left segment of the porch and the facade, although the main door has a central position. Finally, under the porch, the elevated entrance to the cellar opens in an arch, with doors that evoke the old medieval gates and provide the entire building with a particularly picturesque touch. Although the reed roof has been modified and the excess of plaster fades the naked beauty of the wooden walls, the Ivaşcu wooden house remains, at least as a memory, a true island of the past in the effluvium of the city's current modernization.

The "Stejarul" Biological Research Centre is a branch, without legal personality, of INCDSB Bucharest and was founded in 1957 by the decision nr. 2271/1.11.1956, as a branch of the Faculty of Biology and Geography from the A. I Cuza University, Iasi, Romania. The current headquarters is in a house on the list of historical monuments in the city, built at the beginning of the 20th century.

The "Buna Vestire" church in Piatra-Neamţ, located on 1 Decembrie 1918 street, has a rich history of three centuries. The history of this place of worship begins in 1719, when the boyar Iordache Dărmănescu, together with his wife, Safta, built a church in the area, which originally belonged to Gârcina. Since then, the neighborhood took the name of Dărmănești. But, as a boyar church, until 1930, it was led by monks. Both founders are commemorated annually, in the Annunciation service. A lesser-known thing from this old church should be mentioned: here is the icon of the Mother of God with the Child, dressed in silver, whose first mention dates back to 1661. However, the icon is much older, and the year 1661 appears as the year in which it was performed the first miracle mentioned in the eight medallions that are on the edge of the icon. On this small icon, there was also a small medallion, which may have been made of precious metal, because it is also found written: "Imagination and measure of the holy and miracle-working icons of the Most Holy Mother of God from Caplunpvschie". Photo & text credit: www.viatanemteana.info