In the region of Moldavia, on the historical road that links the towns of Iași and Vaslui, lies the village of Țibănești and on its outskirts lies the domain of Petre P
In the region of Moldavia, on the historical road that links the towns of Iași and Vaslui, lies the village of Țibănești and on its outskirts lies the domain of Petre P. Carp, consisting of the manor and various annex buildings, a church and a mausoleum together with a dendrologic park.
The history of the Carp family domain began in 1646 when chief jailor Carp Lungul bought the land from chief treasurer Enache. For 12 years the property remained in the family until it was sold to the treasurer of the time, Necula Manole. The domain changed various owners by sales and inheritances until it became property of Nicolae Gherghel around 1750.
In 1771 the domain together with the whole village of Țibănești in the county of Vaslui was bought by the great courtman Gheorghe Carp, the grandson of jailor Lungul Carp. Thus the domain returned to the Carp family. After the death of Gh. Carp, during the 19th century the domain was inherited by his son Ion Carp and his wife Safta Pătrașcu.
The manor of Țibănești was built around the 1820s by Ion Carp. In the first stage of construction the building had two stories. Previous to this, a church had been erected in the village to serve both the family and the community.
The son of Ion Carp, Petrache Carp, himself a courtman, after having completed his studies abroad in Vienna and Berlin, infused with the western culture and spirit, returned to the family’s domain and created the landscape design for the dendrological park around the 1830s. Petrache Carp’s generation was the first to use the manor as a holiday venue for the warm months of summer and autumn, dedicating a lot of time to agriculture and vineyards.
Petre P. Carp, born in Iași in 1837 was the son of Petrache and Smaranda Carp (daughter of Iorgu Radu). In 1862 he returned from his studies abroad in Berlin and Bonn and became a founding member of Junimea, a cultural and literary society based in Iași. He was also actively involved in the political life of the Conservative Party, an icon of which he soon became. In the same way he got personally involved in managing the Țibănești domain.
During the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Petre P. Carp was elected into the parliament and nominated twice as prime minister on behalf of the Conservative Party. In 1873 in Vienna he married Sevastia, the daughter of the rich landlord and politician Ion Cantacuzino. In 1874, after his death, his wife inherited the domain of Țibănești.
How Petre Carp used to manage his domain is illustrated in various written accounts and monographic studies. He preferred to personally manage it and not give it off to an administrator, as it was customary. He also did charity works for poor villagers and contributed to the raise of living standards on his domain by building a school and a medical facility on the on his expense.
In 1905, Petre Carp rebuilt the manor adding a second story, on top of the two existing and thus creating a generous loggia to admire the whole park. During this period the manor and domain were visited by the french writer André Bellesort, whose written accounts offer an insight into the life of the domain.
The 1907 peasant uprising passed mostly unnoticed on Țibănești domain, mostly because of the way the landlord cared for the peasants working on it. During the Great War, Țibănești was located behind the enemy lines hosting a hospital for typhoid fever which decimated the population of the area during that time. During the war the family lived in Bucharest and later in Iași. The fever claimed many soldiers on the front amongst whom, Petre Carp the son of the politician, buried in the family mausoleum on the domain.
During the Agrarian Reform of 1921, the peasants of Țibănești were given around a thousand hectares of the Carp domain. The domain was so extensive that even after the second agrarian reform of 1945 it still had around 69ha, the manor and its annex buildings.
After the death of Petre Carp (the politician) his wife and his son Nicolae continued to manage and maintain the domain, overseeing the two agrarian reforms and a second world war. Nicolae Carp continued to live at Țibănești until 1949.
In 1949 the domain was nationalised. The manor, the annex buildings (the cellar, the dairy, the administrator’s house, the mausoleum) and the whole park ended up receiving different functions over the communist period: local CAP, Children’s Club, etc. At the time the buildings were taken over by the state they were shabby and some of them derelict, thus forcing the local authorities to oversee repairs and transformations so as the buildings could serve their new functions.
The mausoleum built in neogothic style in reinforced concrete and designed by the famous engineer Gustave Eiffel, serves as a resting place for all the members of the Carp family related to this domain. From Ion and Petrache Carp and their wives to Petre, the dead son during the Great War, all are interred here.
In the 1960s a professional school (carpentry, mechanics, textile) was built in the park, thus a part of the land became property of the Ministry of Education. Even though the buildings were used during all the time the school functioned, they were not properly maintained leading to a derelict state and various structural problems. These were all written down in the technical evaluations made during the time.
After 1989 the owner of that time, the Local Council of Țibănești, began much needed restoration and consolidation works required by the state of the manor and its annex buildings. During this period, the main building was architecturally disfigured and the annex buildings were demolished.
In 2001 the legal heirs of Elisabeta Sturdza, the daughter of Petre P. Carp, began the reclaiming process. In 2005 part of the land and the manor were given back to the rightful owners. The dendrologic park was deemed impossible to be reclaimed as being part of the public domain and a natural preserved area. The heirs refused the legal compensations for the park and sued the local authorities over this cause.
At the present time traditional craftsman workshops (reaching their 9th edition) are being annually organized on the domain by Maria Association and Pro Patrimonio Foundation (president Şerban Sturdza) in partnership with the “Les Compagnons du Devoir” association and the Romanian Order of Architects. These workshops are dedicated to both the local community and those from outside of it that wish to learn the traditional construction and restoration techniques.
http://monumenteuitate.org/
Free
Free
Information tables
batemfierullaconac@gmail.com
- Closed for restoration, the interior is closed for visitors
- The Mansion houses different events