Casa Ghica-Callimachi
Ghica-Callimachi House is located on Cuza Voda Street at the intersection of Armeană, George Enescu and Vovideniei streets.
The imposing building on the former street of Golia is part of the historical and cultural heritage of the city being inscribed in the List of Historical Monuments with the name of "Casa Calimachi - Ghica"
The building was erected in the early nineteenth century and there have been many stories about its past over time, but difficult to document.
Ion Mitican, the kind-hearted connoisseur of the history of Iasi buildings, claimed that here around 1821, "the rulers of Eteria, led by General Alexandru Ipsilanti", before moving their headquarters to Galata Monastery, this being the explanation why the building would be was destroyed in 1821.
The beautiful building once housed the "Petersburg Hotel", where the flame of the 1848 revolution was ignited by reading the Petition-Proclamation of the Boyars and Notables of Moldova. The hotel became famous at the time due to important personalities who stopped here and then wrote travel memoirs. We remember the Prussian diplomat Carl Otto von Arnim, who passed through Iasi in 1836, Prince Anatole de Demidoff and the French painter Auguste Raffet who made a chromolithography illustrating the panorama of the city, seen "from the balcony of the Petersburg Hotel" (1837).
In 1853 the building is mentioned in the chronicles as belonging to Prince Alexandru Callimachi. He was the successor of three generations of Moldavian rulers given by the old boyar family (Ioan Teodor Vodă, Alexandru Vodă and Scarlat Vodă), himself being prepared to become lord.
The palace then became the property of General Nicolae Mavrocordat and his wife Didița, who is said to have organized the most beautiful parties in the city. At an evening of Didita Mavrocordat, Elena Rosetti met Alexandru Ioan Cuza; also Carol I was the guest in whose honor a brilliant reception was organized here on the occasion of the visit to Iași in 1869.
Since General Mavrocodat, the house has been inhabited successively by several owners or tenants: Colonel Lepădatu, to whom the current appearance of the palace is due, A. Spiridonescu, Berman Juster, Romanian Bank of Commerce and Industry, Iasi Branch of Marmorosh-Blanc Bank considered the strongest bank in Romania in the interwar period.
The current building retains few architectural elements of the former palace. The facades are made in neoclassical style combined with baroque-inspired elements.
After 1945, the building had numerous destinations: the headquarters of the Romanian Workers' Party, the Directorate for Culture of the PCR and the Heritage Office of Iași County, a kindergarten, the "George Enescu" Conservatory. After 1989, Casa Ghica-Callimachi was, in turn, the headquarters of the Commission of Monuments, Ensembles and Historic Sites, the Center for European History and Civilization of the Romanian Academy, the Union of Visual Artists Iasi, the Association of Former Political Prisoners and the National Peasant, Christian and Democratic Party.
The historic building was purchased by the City Hall of Iasi, and will be consolidated and restored in order to enter the tourist circuit.
