Manuc Bey Mansion
Restored nineteenth-century estate of the Mirzoyan family, with palace, hunting lodge and museum.
The estate takes its name from Manuc Bey, the Armenian merchant and Ottoman dragoman Emanuel Mârzaian, who bought the Hîncești lands in 1815 and died two years later. His descendants, the Mirzoyan family, built the mansion that stands today between about 1858 and 1861 in a French neoclassical manner. The grounds hold nine listed structures: the two-storey palace, the countess's house, the steward's house, a watchtower, stables, an Armenian chapel, a fountain and a system of underground galleries.
The hunting lodge in the park, attributed to the Chișinău architect Alexandru Bernardazzi, was restored in the 1970s and opened in 1979 as the district museum of history and ethnography, with collections numbering tens of thousands of items, from costume and household objects to material of the Soviet decades. The rest of the complex, long neglected and damaged, was restored in the 2010s; the palace and park are now open for guided tours, temporary exhibitions and concerts.
Highlights
- French neoclassical palace built for the Mirzoyan family about 1861
- Hunting lodge by Alexandru Bernardazzi, a museum since 1979
- Nine listed buildings including a watchtower and Armenian chapel
- Underground galleries beneath the estate grounds
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