2 Days city break in the city of Iași PART 2: The memorial house "Ion Creangă"

Searching for the Memorial house "Ion Creangă": where is located? 

After I get to know the accommodation I am going to spend a night at, I go out on the streets of the new city and decide to head to the first attraction I planned to visit, namely Bojdeuca “Ion Creangă”, translated as the house or the hut belonging to Ion Creangă, one of the most important and well-known Romanian writers.

I choose to walk here from the apartment because the distance in minutes lasts for 20 to 30 minutes, the Ion Creangă Memorial House being located in the neighborhood of Țicău on “Simion Bărnuțiu” street at number 4. By taking a walk, I also get to look around the city and see what’s about.

A colorful wall of childhood memories

When I notice a colorful wall on which are drawn scenes and characters that seem inspired by the stories of Creangă, I know that I am getting closer to what I was searching and strolling the streets for. Opposite to the memorial house of the Romanian, author, on a long concrete wall has been created a very interesting and catchy mural paintings representing various scenes from his famous book “Amintiri din copilărie”(“Childhood memories”).

The cultural museum complex “Ion Creangă” 

I discover the frontyard of the house which is positioned at the end of an alley of stairs, where a guide is waiting for visitors. He guides me to the right for the ticket office and I find out that here is actually The cultural museum complex “Ion Creangă” composed of a building belonging to the Museum of Romanian Literature Iași and the actual memorial house.

How much it costs to visit and when it can be visited?

I buy the ticket for visiting the “bojdeuca” which costs for students 2 lei, so a very small amount of money. The visiting hours are starting with 10.00 AM and finishing with 17.00 PM, both of the museums could be visited from Tuesday to Sunday, on Monday being closed.

A simple but fulfilled life of a storyteller 

The house in which the great Romanian storyteller lived and created appears very simple with white walls, a wooden beautiful roof. On the inside, the rural simplicity is also kept, as the guide tells us, Creangă was a follower of a simple life who liked to feel the ground under his feet.

There are only two rooms, the kitchen and the work room as well as a terrace from where is seen a panorama over The Valley of the Weeping. The objects I see here are the original memorial objects which used to belong to the writer such as the work table, the lamp, written pages, a painting representing its portrait, the ink sieve, but I don’t have photos from the interior because to do that I should have payed a photography fee, so if you are curious about it, I recommend you to visit this place because is totally worth it and interesting to get to know and remember how people were living in the past.

“The table of memories”, a monument filled with unread letters

An aspect is clear, this little house was for Ion Creangă a place of inspiration because here he wrote his masterpieces, all of the stories that Romanians read and hear about since early childhood. Besides the house stands a weird sculpture looking like a table with a cat on it. This is actually an important and curious creative monument named “Masa Amintirilor” translated as “The table of memories”.

The artwork marks the 100thanniversary of the establishment of the first literary museum in Romania. Inside the body of the table are kept secret for 100 years a number of 100 unopened letters written by contemporary literature people which are to be read on the anniversary of the bicentenary of the Memorial House, in the year 2118.

Thus, the winged cat sitting on the table is there to protect and watch over the precious letters. Speaking of that, it is also known that the storyteller, Ion Creangă, had many cats, the guide telling us that at same point around the house there were 12 cats, which the writter also named muses.

On the inclined terrain of the front yord has been arranged a small amphitheater which is probably beautifully used for cultural events such as theatre plays, concerts, celebrations.

The first museum of literature in Romania: the rare edition books 

The second building belonging to the Museum of Romanian Literature houses a documentary exhibition about the like and work of Ion Creangă. For seeing this exibition I get a different ticket that costs 2 lei too, for students. Don’t worry, if you are not a student, the price of the ticket is still low, the entering fee costs approximately 1 euro, a very cheap price if you ask me.

What I find impressing in the museum are the rare edition books published by the storyteller among which is, of course, the most famous one, „Amintiri din copilărie”. Because Ion Creangă was a teacher as well, here can be seen some school text books about writing and reading in creation of which the writer was author or co-author.

The books are funny illustrated and appear so fragile, thus I am relieved by the fact that the objects are kept safe for conservation.

How I feel about visiting „Bojdeuca Ion Creangă”?

Visiting what is considered to be the first literary memorial museum in Romania,          „Bojdeuca Ion Creangă”, inaugurated at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1918, concluds as being a pleasant experience and a bit emotional because while I was inside the house, hearing the explanations of the guide, I started to imagine how the storyteller used to live and create, how was he searching for inspiration, for scenes or for immortal characters and I also became a little melancholic, remembering the stories that I was reading during my childhood and which were written by Ion Creangă just right in this amazing and filled with history place.

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