For those who want to understand better how the boyars from 19th century Bucharest lived, a walk on the former Mântuleasa Lane, located in the adjacent area of the old city center, is the best choice. Some houses built by the boyars of those times still exist, durable and with even stronger cellars, because the Romanians like to eat well.
The story of this boyar-style street begins with the widow of the merchant Manta, a rich man who owned orchards and houses. Here, where in the beginning it was only a slum, an eager for parties and other hedonistic activities widow (mistress Stanca, called Mântuleasa), wasted the fortune received by will. But the sister of Mântuleasa’s late husband, Maria, built a church in 1733 in his memory – which remains to this day one of the oldest monuments in the city.
But the street is not just about the Manta family, even though it gets its name from them. It is about the rise and fall of different families of merchants, craftsmen, and intellectuals. Mantuleasa has grown slowly, with mixed architectural styles, actually eclectic. Many houses ridiculed in the beginning, considered to have been built without the style of rich owners, breathes personality and life today.
As you can probably imagine, the first owners were of all ethnicities and nationalities, and it was important to know how to do business and money. However, at the end of the 19th century, those with blue blood began to appear, generally related to the ruling Phanariot families. Until the communist curse, however, the Mântuleasa area brought together whole generations of families with tendencies for saving and a better living.
The history of an Armenian family includes all the stories of those who lived in Mântuleasa over time.
From where and how the first Armenian arrived in Bucharest, no one probably knows. Nobody even knows from where the person who bought the land in the Manta slum, where he built a durable house, got his money. There was no gossip about him, it was just said that whatever you did to him, you couldn’t make him say a bad word about someone else. Instead, no one knew better jokes and riddles than him. He was also easy to recognize because he was the only one who did not combine the Turkish with the French style, not adopting either of these two fashions of the time.
There are now few owners with ties with the families who build the houses on this street. Like the majority, the Armenian’s house was also confiscated by the communists, and his great-granddaughter ended up living in the semi-basement. She was lucky though, to others after confiscation, were offered as housing only the basement of their own houses.
But which one is the Armenian’s house? It could be the one built near kilometer 0, renovated right, without double-glazed windows. It could be one of the bracovian style ones, or maybe one of the smallest ones, with an entrance from the street. It doesn’t even matter, they all hide stories and true destinies, the evolutionary trajectories of life.
Mântuleasa street and Mircea Eliade.
Mântuleasa holds a special place in the universe of Mircea Eliade who, fascinated by these timeless places, wrote the book “On Mantuleasa Street”, placing some actions of his fantastic stories in this area. The topic of the narrative is the investigation of Zaharia Farama, former principal at a primary school on Mantuleasa Street, by the Security.
An important place to visit in the area is the building that replaced in 1930 the house in which the writer lived for a while in the attic. Even though it is not exactly on Mantuleasa street, it is extremely close and can be easily identified by the memorial plaque at the intersection of Radu Cristian (former Melodiei) and Sfintilor Street.
