Union Museum
Today, Alex tells us about the Union Museum.
Unirii Museum is located near Unirii Square, on Lăpușneanu Street, and is one of the most important tourist attractions of Iasi. The building was built at the beginning of the 19th century and was inhabited in turn by Costache Catargi, Constantin Palade, Mihalache Cantacuzino - Pașcanu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and during the First World War, between 1916-1918, it was the main residence of King Ferdinand.
Previously, the house had been an important center for the meetings of the unionists Vasile Alecsandri, Costache Negri, Mihail Kogalniceanu, Dimitrie Ralet, Grigore Cuza, Scarlat Pastia, Gheorghe Sion, who on May 30, 1856, decided the Union of Romanian Principalities under a single ruler.
Between 1859 and 1963, the palace was the residence of Cuza Voda and his wife, Elena. Prince Cuza signs here the first declaration of recognition of the Union of Principalities, a document that is also recognized internationally by the Ottoman Empire. The period in which the ruler Alexandru Ioan Cuza lives in the building is enough to seal his name of “Cuza-Voda Palace”.
Between 1886 and 1937 the palace became the property of the Urban Credit Company from Iași after the Ghica family mortgaged the building for the amount of 240,000 lei. King Ferdinand, after the German army occupied Bucharest in 1916, moved the capital to Iasi and made its headquarters at the "Cuza-Voda Palace".
The building became state property in 1937 and, supported by the advice of Nicolae Iorga, the first floor of the building became the “Cuza-Vodă” Palace Museum. On the centenary, in 1959, the building changed its name to the "Union Museum", a name it still bears today.
The museum gathers, in its collections, documents, old books and maps, photographs, costumes, furniture, porcelain, silverware, clocks, lighting fixtures, etc. belonging to the ruling Cuza family or to the boyars of the 19th century.
