Cathedral of Ploiesti, Southern Romania, Romania

4Bogdan Voicu 5:00 PM Aug 31, 2015

A typical Romanian Orthodox church
I grew up with this churches in sight, and for a while my parents lived across the street. I have got married inside, ad I visited it repeatedly for various occasions. If you are used with an Orthodox church, it is nothing special about it. If you have no idee how an Orthodox church looks like, it might be a very good idea to visit it if you are in the city. Built in early XIXth century, it was reconstructed in 1840-1841, using the money of the local community (the multicultural Orthodox neighborhood included romanian ethnics, along with Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbians - alll contributed to the rebuilding the church). The future Cathedral received a new 55m tower bell in the first part of XXth century (they finished building it in 1939), as a memorial for 1st WW soldiers. The new building used to be one of the main landmarks of the prosperous Ploiești, former capital of European (and worldwide) oil industry. It survived almost untouched to the 2nd WW, while Ploiești was heavy bombed (by Russians, Americans, and later by Germans). Remember that here took place the well-known Tidal-Wave, the most important air battle of the American air-force in Europe. Despite being quite high, nowadays the Cathedral is not so visible as it used to be in the mid-XXth century, since in early 1960s the communist regime choose to partly obturate its view with a 8 flats (ground floor + 7 more) building. Therefore, seen from South, one can see only the peak of the bell-fry. If willing to visit an older church (XVIIth century), one may go to Biserica Domnească, in the Mihai Bravu neighborhood.

3Carmen G 5:00 PM Oct 27, 2018

The most imposing church in town
In the very centre of the city, the most important Orthodox church, unfortunately without perspective because of the old condominium in front of it. Beautiful decorations inside which cannot be admired as there are renovation works.