Documented
The donation of 1683, the inn’s later occupants and its demolition are on record, and excavations have found its metre-thick brick walls.
05Places of BUCARESDAVA
Șerban Vodă Inn
Built by Prince Șerban Cantacuzino as a fortified inn for merchants, with shops, cellars and warehouses. Demolished in 1883.
- Shown
- 1685
- Period
- 1683 to 1883
- Status
- Lost
- Location
- Under the National Bank, Lipscani
01The history
An inn built like a fortress.
Between 1666 and 1680 Șerban Cantacuzino bought up 39 properties in the Greek quarter near Târgul de Sus. On 8 January 1683 he gave the land and its shops to Cotroceni Monastery, which ran the inn. Building began that summer, and by 1685 merchants and tenants were moving in.
The lot covered about 7,500 square metres, with 105 metres of frontage on Lipscani. Behind brick walls about a metre thick were guest rooms, shops, cellars 5.5 metres deep, warehouses, stables, a chapel and kitchens, all around one courtyard with a single gate that was shut at night. In 1716, when a Tatar raid was feared, the inn served as a refuge.
Its later occupants included a Russian military hospital in 1829, a shelter for about a hundred poor girls from 1843, a daguerreotype studio in 1848, Socec’s first bookshop in 1867 and the State Printing House from 1869. By then the trade had moved to modern hotels. The National Bank bought the site, and the inn was demolished in 1883.
- 1683
The land is given to Cotroceni Monastery and building begins.
- 1685
The inn opens to merchants and tenants.
- 1716
It serves as a refuge when a Tatar raid is feared.
- 1843
A shelter for poor girls opens inside.
- 1869
The State Printing House moves in.
- 1883
The inn is demolished to make way for the National Bank.
02Three ways to read it
What is known, what is told, what is imagined.
Legend
No legend has stuck to the inn. The nearest thing is a habit: during the Russian occupation of 1829, the governor Pavel Kiseleff visited it almost every day, according to the historian Emanuel Bădescu.
BUCARESDAVA
Built ninety years after the fires of 1595, the inn stood through the years of Chapter IV, 1704, and Chapter V, 1813, and was gone before Chapter VI, 1888.
03Today
What remains today.
Nothing of the inn stands above ground. The National Bank’s palace covers the site between Lipscani and Doamnei streets. Wall paintings from the inn were found during works in 2007, and in 2023 the Bucharest Municipal Museum uncovered part of its courtyard wall and the partitions of rooms of about 40 square metres on Strada Carada.