THE CHINDIA TOWER

Acted as the dungeon of the royal court, also representing a strong defensive element.
The Chindia Tower was also used as a surveillance and defence point for the court and for the city. It was provided with shooting loopholes, while the first level had an access door connected to the royal palace. In the XVI-XVII centuries it also acted as a prison. According to the archaeological researches, it was built during the first half of the XV century, probably during the reign of Vlad Dracul.
Another possible founder of the tower could have been the famous Vlad Țepeș- Dracula. The architectural researches regarding the tower proved
that this construction was built over the porch of the chapel constructed during the reign of Mircea cel Bătrân.
„Built over the porch of the chapel church, resulted from the embedding of two semi-cylindrical arches in the western facade of the church and
concluded with a third, parallel with this facade, was initially made of three levels. Over the semi-cylindrical vault of the ground floor, arranged longitudinally in relation to the church’s axis, there was, on the superior
floor, a room whose walls was pierced by the four battlements with a height of 1,50 m and an exterior door oriented towards south-east, through which they made the connection from the ground level by using a mobile ladder, without existing a direct interior connection between the ground floor and the superior floor. The last room, reduced in height, having five
shorter battlements, represented the surveillance, and possibly, defence balcony. Within a short period of time since the construction of this tower, with the purpose of establishing a consolidation for its elevation, the space between those three arcades was walled in”.
Today, the Chindia tower does not keep its original elements, as it was reconstructed in a neogothic style in the middle of the XIX century, during
the reign of Gheorghe Bibescu and of Dimitrie Știrbei.
The only witness for the tower’s aspect before it was rehabilitated by the Viennese architects is now a drawing from the year 1840, made by the famous French graphician Michel Bouquet. In this drawing we can see that the pyramidal base was made of bricks.