Today was the most amazing day yet. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot to say about it, but I have never let that stop me before. So here it goes.

Our destination was 3 different painted monasteries which are exactly what they sound like. They are unlike any church we have ever visited before, and completely mesmerizing.

The first that we went to was Voronet Montestary, often referred to as the Sistine Chapel of the east. It was built in 1488. Let me repeat that, 1488. That’s before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That’s a really long time ago. I think they started the frescoes about 30 years after that, but still that was a long time ago.

This place charges an extra photo tax of 10 lei ($2.50) to take pictures of the outside of the building, but no photos are allowed inside. Let me tell you, that was an extra $5 well spent. You know that there’s no way thetwinsontour are not going to take pictures, lots of pictures.

The first sight as you step through the entrance gate is absolutely breathtaking–a church completely covered with fresco paintings– on the outside. Like completely covered. It’s so amazing. These are the original 500 year old paintings. They haven’t been repainted. They aren’t covered up by protective plastic. They don’t have any walls built around them. They are just there, hanging out in the elements saying take my picture. They are in amazing shape for having been outside in the rain, snow, wind, sun for 500 years. Until you walk around to the North side of the building. (I know its north because the guide told us so. thetwinsontour have not suddenly developed a sense of direction.) The north side has been nearly completely worn away with just a few fragments and traces of painto left behind. Most of what remained was up top just below the protection of the overhanging roof. This is more what you expect 500 year old outdoor frescoes to look like.

The paintings are made in wet plaster. So they would have smeared the plaster on the walls and then raced to get it painted. Can you imagine how difficult that would have been to paint it bit by bit without computers or projectures or whatever they would use nowadays to undertake such an endeavor?

Most of the paintings have a blue background. They haven’t been able to figure out which flowers/plants/minerals were used to make this distinctive blue color, so they just gave up and named the color Voronet blue after the church. Is that a color in the 64 box of Crayolas? It should be! And for that matter, doesn’t a 64 box of Crayons bring a smile to everyone’s face regardless of how old you are and make your heart skip a beat? I digress.

Obviously, the paintings tell religious stories. The language of the Orthodox church was Slovakian, a form of Russian that was written in the cyrillic alphabet. No one spoke that, much like Catholics don’t speak Latin. Also, they can’t read the cyrillic alphabet. So they had to have paintings to convey church stuff to the masses.

The church is rather small (most Orthodox churches are), but the inside is completely covered in paintings as well. The paintings are bright and vibrant. They were cleaned recently because after 500 years of burning candles, they tend to get a little dirty. But they didn’t touch up any of the paintings or repaint them. Just cleaned them up some.

Luckily we were able to buy a few postcards because you know my fingers were itching to take pictures. It’s so hard to follow the rules in the face of such overwhelming magnificience.

Our next monastery was Humor montestary. Again it had a photo tax of 10 lei to take pictures which thetwinsontour gladly paid without hesitation. We need pictures!

It is much newer than the first one. It was built in 1530. Which is still a heck of a long time ago! So long ago that I don’t even know what specific world events were happening. But according to wikipedia it looks like Henry VIII still only had 1 wife in 1530! So you know that was a long time ago!

The predominant color in these paintings is red, but I don’t think it has a special name like Voronet blue.

Just like the other one, the north side of the building is nearly void of any paintings due to 500 years of weather. I guess most of the weather systems in Maldova comes down the mountains and blows to the north.

This one has also been cleaned up on the inside so that you can see the beautiful paintings without a covering of black candle smoke.

Our third and final montestary of the day was Neamt montestary. It was built in the 15th century. Yet it stands in stark contrast to the other two. It doesn’t have any paintings on the outside, just on the inside. And the paintings haven’t been cleaned, so some of the walls are so black that you can’t tell that there are paintings on them at all. But it’s still amazing despite the centuries of smoke damages. And they let you take pictures inside– without a photo tax! What a bargain. We all know thetwinsontour love a bargain!!

There are a lot more than 3 montestaries here in Maldova. I think there are about 12, but that is all that we had time to visit. Most of them are UNESCO World Heritage Sights, so we got to check a few more of those off the list. thetwinsontour adore UNESCO World Heritage Sights! We asked if there are painted montestaries other places in Europe, and our guide said that there is one in Bulgaria. But that one doesn’t look like a church at all from the outside because they had to keep it hidden from Turkish invaders.

And I think that’s about all the important stuff that I can remember. I keep learning too much stuff every day to possibly remember it all.

Love,

thetwinsontour

A picture says a thousand words, so here’s a couple million words for you that say more than I ever could…